Ackelsberg, Martha A.

Scope and Contents

The records contain meeting notes, check-in letters and other writings by B'Not Esh members, schedules for annual retreats, educational materials used by the organization, digital photographs, and memorabilia.

Abstract Documenting Lesbian Lives is a collection of life histories with people who consider themselves to be (presently or at one time) lesbian, queer or bisexual. The project provides a complex and nuanced collective story of American lesbian history and experience. Narrators include grassroots activists and political organizers; educators and academics; musicians, writers, and artists; as well as community and religious leaders. They come from a variety of class, ethnic, racial, social, and...

Scope and Contents This interview is particularly rich in describing Peterson's involvement with the multiple social movements of the 1960s and 1970s that profoundly altered her life and the lives of many of her generation-especially the civil rights, welfare rights, and women's movements in New York City. It demonstrates the ways her involvement with each affected the others, and the close-often profoundly painful-connections and tensions between the "personal" and the "political" that roiled those movements...

Scope and Contents The interview provides a wealth of information on LaDoris Payne's growing up in segregated St. Louis, MO, the relationships within and among her family, her struggles with illness and depression, and, ultimately, her coming into her own as an activist and organizer. It is rich in discussion of both the strengths of the black community in St. Louis before Brown v. Board of Education and the personal costs to those children who, like LaDoris, were among the first to go to integrated schools....

Scope and Contents In this oral history, Martha Ackelsberg describes her work in Jewish feminist communities and her experiences with attempts to make sense of her lesbian identity in terms of her Judaism. The interview first focuses on Ackelsberg’s early observations of gender inequalities within Judaism and then moves into her work within feminist organizations such as Ezrat Nashim and B’Not Esh to try to combat those injustices. Ackelsberg’s describes her feelings on current gay issues such as the word...

Abstract

This collection includes syllabi used by Martha Ackelsberg in her courses, articles written by her for publication, records of Smith committees Professor Ackelsberg served on.

Abstract Martha Ackelsberg is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita of Government and Professor Emerita of the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. Born in 1946 in New York City to Socialist Zionist parents, Ackelsberg earned a bachelors degree in social studies from Radcliffe College, and a masters and doctorate degrees in political philosophy from Princeton. While at Princeton, she explored anarchist theories of justice in Godwin, Bakunin and Kropotkin, and her dissertation focused on...

Abstract

This collection contains the records generated by the Program for the Study of Women and Gender from its founding through 2015. Materials describe the history of the program as well as its publications and various classes and programs.

Abstract

Oral History Project documenting the persistence and diversity of organizing for women in the United States. Narrators include labor, peace, and anti-racism activists; artists and writers; lesbian rights advocates; grassroots anti-violence and anti-poverty organizers; and women of color reproductive justice leaders. Interviews cover childhood, personal life, and political work. Most oral histories consist of audiovisual recordings and transcripts, plus some background information.