Contributors
Christine Brennan (1980, 1981MS) is an award-winning USA Today sports columnist and commentator for ABC, CNN, NPR, and PBS. She is an expert on the Olympics and women’s sports issues and has written seven books, including the father-daughter memoir Best Seat in the House (Scribner, 2006); and Inside Edge (Scribner, 1996), named one of the top 100 sports books of all time by Sports Illustrated.
Joan Marie Johnson is director for faculty in the Office of the Provost at Northwestern University. She has taught American women’s history at Northeastern Illinois University and written extensively about the history of women and gender, social reform, education, and philanthropy. Her most recent book is Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). She received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University and her doctorate from UCLA.
Janet Olson was assistant university archivist at Northwestern University Libraries from 1998 until her retirement in 2020. She has curated numerous exhibits for the Libraries and cowrote Deering Library: An Illustrated History (Northwestern University Press, 2008). She has a master’s degree in American history from Loyola University Chicago with a research focus on 19th-century social reform. A certified archivist, she serves as the archivist for the Frances Willard House Museum and WCTU Archives in Evanston.
Sarah M. Pritchard is the first woman dean of libraries at Northwestern University as well as the Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian. Her prior positions include university librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara; director of libraries at Smith College; associate executive director at the Association of Research Libraries; and several positions in reference and collection development at the Library of Congress, where she was its first subject specialist in women’s studies. She retired from Northwestern University in 2023 after 16 years of service.
Acknowledgements
This online exhibition represents the collaborative efforts of several University Libraries departments, including marketing and communication, repository and digital curation, and preservation; former dean of libraries Sarah Pritchard; and the University Archives. Thank you especially to Vincent Luo (2023MS) for his work bring the print publication online.
Special thanks are due to Kevin Leonard, university archivist, and to Charla Wilson, archivist for the black experience. Outside the Libraries, the Office of Global Marketing and Communications and the University’s 150 Years of Women committee made the original publication possible.
Special thanks also go to the Frances Willard House Museum and WCTU (Woman’s Christian Temperance Union) Archives in Evanston for the loan of items and for research assistance. Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford was generous with her notes and drafts from an unpublished manuscript. Mary Desler’s research into the history of the student affairs division at Northwestern also informed this publication.
Special recognition is owed to the Alumnae of Northwestern and the Women’s Educational Aid Association—both organizations that have been supporting women students for over 100 years; the Association of Northwestern University Women; the Organization of Women Faculty; the Women’s Center; and the many campus groups that support women faculty, staff, and students.
Above all, thanks are due to all the Northwestern women who have followed in Sarah Rebecca Roland’s footsteps.
Unless otherwise indicated, all images and documents used in this publication are drawn from the Northwestern University Archives. Images from student newspapers (Tripod, Northwestern, and Daily Northwestern) and the Syllabus yearbook are used courtesy of Students Publishing Company.
Rights
Northwestern University Libraries is dedicated to the fair and ethical preservation, digitization, curation, and use of its collections. This exhibit is made available to the public under Fair Use (Section 107 of the Copyright Act) for learning and teaching purposes, as well as to promote the mission and activities of Northwestern University Libraries (ARL Code of Best Practices in Fair Use). Northwestern University Libraries does not claim the copyright of any materials in this collection. If you are the copyright holder of any item(s) in this collection or have questions, comments or concerns about this exhibit, please contact us via email at library@northwestern.edu.