Women's History Consortium RCWs
RCW 27.34.370 Responsibility 2
(2) Adopting criteria and procedures for consortium membership and member responsibilities;
The current Consortium members (or Partners) are the Office of the Secretary of State,
State Library and State Archives; Western Washington University; the University of
Washington; The Evergreen State College; Central Washington University; Eastern
Washington University; Washington State University; the Northwest Museum of Arts &
Culture in Spokane and the Washington State Historical Society. Consortium members
have met via telephone conference five times in 2006—April 12, May 22, July 20,
August 23, and October 17
All initial Consortium members are state-funded institutions. Membership was
established by invitation of the director of the Washington State Historical Society with
notice to the Board of Advisors. Member responsibilities were formulated by consensus
of the Consortium members and reported to the Board of Advisors.
The Partners have collaborated and reached agreements in four areas:
A. Women's History Consortium website
URL: http://www.washingtonwomenshistory.org
The Consortiuim Partners have agreed to work together to allow access to their
collections from the Women’s History Consortium website. This will allow researchers
and members of the public to go to one site to learn about and explore Washington
women’s history. In order to purchase, install and activate the enterprise CONTENTdm
project, $40,000.00 from the 2006 Supplementary Capital Budget appropriation to the
Women’s History Consortium has been allocated to carry out this initiative. In August,
the WHC hired an experienced web and database development professional who has
constructed the web and associated database. The Consortium Partners are collaborating
in three ways:
- WHC links to Partner websites and vice versa.
- Collaboration with Partners with CONTENTdm collection management software.
WHC will use a multi-site server license to search for women’s history materials
across Partners’ existing CONTENTdm databases. Results from Partners’ collections
will be displayed on the WHC search results page. Partners with CONTENTdm
software include Washington State Historical Society, Washington State University,
University of Washington, Central Washington University, Eastern Washington
University, and Western Washington University.
Collaboration with Partners without CONTENTdm collection management
software includes importing or entering their data into the Washington State
Historical Society
OUTCOMES:
- Consortium Partner selection and agreements completed in 2006.
- Website availability by December 1, 2006 with information about WHC projects, programs, and research materials.
- Creation of mechanism to track website users planned in early 2007.
B. Grant awards for processing women’s history materials:
Through grant allocations funded by a 2006 Capital Budget supplemental appropriation
administered through the Women’s History Consortium, WHC Partners are processing
collections for addition to the WHC website. The grant guidelines specified that existing
collections would be processed to create finding aids and/or digitized images as webready
elements for the Women’s History Consortium website.
A committee of the Women's History Consortium Advisory Board evaluated the grant
applications. The applications specified that the projects were to be related to at least one
of five themes related to the WHC legislative mandate: Women's Suffrage in
Washington; Women’s Rights Movement of the Late 20th Century; Elected Washington
Women; Women's Clubs and Organizations; and Expanding Participation of Women in
Modern Society.
The grants were funded at the full amount requested by each institution. The funds are
administered by the Women's History Consortium staff through interagency agreements.
The projects will be completed by June 30, 2007.
University of Washington: $9,582.00--Creation of catalogs and finding aids for three
National Organization for Women collections.
Washington State University: $15,000.00--Scanning and cataloguing of several
collections most notably the Catherine May Congressional Papers 1959-1970. May
was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Washington State.
Other documents in the project include women’s athletics in WSU records.
Washington State Archives: $15,000.00--Creation of general finding aids and scanning
of approximately 88,000 images from several collections related to late 20th century
women’s history and the suffrage movement in Washington.
Washington State Library: $6,500.00--Scanning and indexing of 6,000 images
consisting of an estimated 5,000 pages of correspondence and 1,000 pages of scrapbooks
of the Emma Smith DeVoe Papers, which chronicle the activities of the woman who
became the president of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association and was a pivotal
figure in the 1909-10 suffrage campaign.
Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture: $15,000.00--Scanning of approximately 1300
items in the May Arkwright Hutton Collection. May Arkwright Hutton led the
1909-10 suffrage campaign in Eastern Washington.
Center for Northwest History, Western Washington University: $9,390.00--Digitizing
photographs, interviews transcripts and manuscripts and providing finding aids to newly
processed collections and soliciting new collections. The collections for processing
include: Women’s Maritime Association records, research collection on Women in
the Fishing Industry, Fairhaven Women’s Club records, National Organization for
Women, Bellingham Chapter records and others.
Washington State Historical Society: $25,000.00--Processing collections and creating
finding aids for several collections related to women involved in the late 20th century
women’s movement and political life in Washington including the papers of Laurie
Jinkins, feminist and human rights activist and others.
Total Awards: $95,472.00--Note: The Evergreen State College, Central Washington
University and Eastern Washington University did not submit applications for funding.
As the organizing institution and with the concurrence of the Advisory Board, the WSHS
did not compete for grants, but received a portion of the funds. There is an additional
$14,528.00 in unallocated grant funds which will be awarded to Consortium Partners in
2007 for collections identified in item #c below.
OUTCOMES:
- New processed/digitized products available for the WHC Website from existing Consortium Partner Collections by July 1, 2007
- Digital images created: 97,614
- Creation of mechanism to track website users planned in early 2007.
- Linear feet of collections processed: 696.95
- Cubic feet of collections processed: 159
- Number of finding aids created: 26
- Number of oral histories transferred to digital format: 34
C. Recent Women’s History Collections Initiative Agreement.
The Women's History Consortium Partners are launching an initiative to encourage the
donation of recent women’s history materials to professional archives across the state.
The legislative mandate of the Consortium encourages the collection and preservation of
materials important to understanding Washington women's history, with special emphasis
on the last several decades.
The Consortium is encouraging the donation of materials related to the women’s rights
movement of the late 20th century and the expanding role of women in modern society,
currently in private hands, to the Consortium Partner archives. These donations will
create important research collections for this era. The unallocated funds from the first
round of grants from the 2006 WHC Capital Budget monies—$14,528.00--will be
allocated to the Partners who are successful in soliciting new collections to process the
materials. Items such as flyers, organization minutes, buttons, bumper stickers, flags,
letters, reminiscences, oral histories, forms, agendas and other meeting materials,
manuals, meeting announcements, clippings and fundraising project records are
important materials to help researchers understand this important period in our state’s
history. Partner institution contacts and institution collection guidelines will be posted on
the Women’s History Consortium website to assist potential donors in determining the best
repository for their collections. WHC and Partner staff members are working
together to solicit these materials through direct e-mail solicitation of women’s clubs and
organizations, information on WHC and partner websites, and traditional media outlets.
It is anticipated that another round of grants totaling $14,528.00 will be allocated in
February 2007 to process collections donated to Consortium Partners through this
initiative.
OUTCOMES:
- Enumeration of cubic or linear feet of archival materials donated to Consortium Partners Collections by July 1, 2007.
- Enumeration of web-ready finding aids and digitized images created for addition to WHC website by July 1, 2007.
D. Women's History Workshops
The Washington State Historical Society, the Heritage Resource Center, the Women's
History Consortium, and the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (NWMAC), cosponsored
two women's history workshops, one in Tacoma at the Washington State
History Museum on October 17, 2006 and the other at the Northwest Museum of Arts &
Culture in Spokane on November 2, 2006
The workshops provided information about the Women's History Consortium; ways local
communities can participate in Consortium events; and expert advice about how to
incorporate women's history into historic site and museum interpretation. Participants
received a free resource kit. WHC staff presented the Consortium’s recommendations for
the commemoration of the Washington Women's Suffrage Centennial in 2010.
Presenters included Patricia Cosgrove, Director of the White River Valley Museum in
Auburn; Arlene Johnson, Director of Arts in Vancouver; Marsha Rooney, Curator of
History, NWMAC, Spokane; and WHC Coordinator Shanna Stevenson.
OUTCOMES:
- Conducted two workshop presentations in Tacoma and Spokane in October and November, 2006 for approximately 60 attendees.
- Prepared and distributed information kits to attendees.
- Planned additional women’s history workshops for 2007.