“Women in Politics: The Archival Record in
Special Collections”(4 September 2008)
This first Brown Bag program focused on three collections related to women in politics whose finding aids were recently revised and posted online: the Lily Thompson Collection, the Southern Women Legislators Collection, and the League of Women Voters of Mississippi Collection. Political Papers Archivist Leigh McWhite conducted a PowerPoint presentation which demonstrated these finding aids and highlighted some of the specific items within these collections. Panelists Fran Leber, President of the League of Women Voters of Mississippi, and Dr. Cora Norman, founding member of the Oxford chapter of the LWV, then discussed the mission of their organization, the group’s involvement in presidential debates, and their personal history in politics.
The audience consisted of twenty-seven individuals. Fifteen completed the voluntary survey. Of the respondents, most were undergraduates; approximately half had attended previous Special Collections events; 10 of the 15 found out about the event from online calendars; an overwhelming majority rated the event positively and stated that they would attend future archives events and recommend those events to others.
Fran Leber donated an additional two boxes of League of Women Voters material to the collection, and Dr. Cora Norman gave the Modern Political Archives a scrapbook documenting her unsuccessful bid for the state auditor’s office in 1991.
Related Materials
A variety of materials associated with the "Women in Politics" Brown Bag.