Follet, Joyce

Scope and Contents Roma recounts her childhood in Philadelphia with emphasis on the importance of her Quaker education. The oral history is a detailed example of building community through music as Roma describes her thirty years of experience in directing women's community choruses as intentional sites of creating anti-racist feminist politics through recruitment of members, decision-making process, musical repertoire and arrangement, performance venue and style, engagement of contemporary social issues, and...

Scope and Contents Asetoyer describes her family roots in Oklahoma, her childhood in a biracial family, and her involvement as a teen in the cultural and political life of the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She traces her work with Native women's health programming in South Dakota in the 1980s and her involvement with national and international women of color health activists around such issues as fetal alcohol syndrome and Depo-Provera. Asetoyer explains the workings and programs of the Native...

Scope and Contents Documentary on the Sophia Smith Collection, women's history archive at Smith College. Produced, written and directed by Joyce Follet and Terry Kay Rockefeller, 2001. This brief film highlights Smith College’s pioneering contributions to the movement that is revolutionizing the writing and teaching of history. It chronicles the 1942 founding of the nation’s oldest women’s manuscripts collection by historian Mary Ritter Beard and archivist Margaret Storrs Grierson and features cameo...

Scope and Contents From the Collection: The Voices of Feminism Oral History Project documents the persistence and diversity of organizing for women in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century. 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 average 5-6 hours and cover childhood, personal life, and political work.Each narrator's...

Scope and Contents In this oral history, Cook traces her family roots to the encounters among African, indigenous, and European peoples in the colonial era. She describes her early formal and informal education and her decision in the 1970s to "bail out" of the assimilation track and embrace indigenous culture and political struggle. She details the development of the Mother's Milk Project and its community-based research. Midwifery is the persistent theme of the interview as Cook recalls her attraction to the...

Scope and Contents

In this 2010 follow-up to her 2005 Voices of Feminism oral history, Cook begins in the Sophia Smith Collection, where she comments on selected items in her papers. She then details her paternal and maternal lineage. Cook provides a full discussion of the centrality of birth to her world view and to her practice of midwifery as cultural, spiritual, medical and political work. She assesses the impact of her decades of activism. Cook concludes by singing Mohawk healing songs.

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In this lengthy interview, Ross details her childhood and early education, family life and sexual assault. She traces and analyzes her political evolution from black nationalism in the 1970s to liberal feminism in the 1980s, and from human rights advocacy in the 1990s to reproductive justice organizing in the present. Her account sheds light on the interplay of national and international events in women of color organizing in the U.S. (Transcript 364 pp.)

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Rodriguez describes childhood and adolescence on the Lower East Side. Her story underscores the centrality of cultural programs to community organizing in the late 1960s and the difficulty of integrating artistic work and political conviction in later years. Rodriguez describes the organizational challenges and personal costs involved in creating and sustaining small social justice organizations. The interview includes a detailed account of the formation of SisterSong. (Transcript 77 pp.)

Scope and Contents In this oral history, Fried recalls the loneliness of growing up as an only child and details the conventional class, gender, and racial norms that shaped her world in the 1950s. She describes her involvement in cultural and social movements of her day, with telling anecdotes of political experiences in New Left and women's liberation groups, personal life in a communal household, and professional challenges as a pioneering radical female academic. Her story highlights setbacks and...

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Bewsee describes a quiet, book-filled childhood restricted by chronic illness. She details a young adulthood immersed in the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s and recounts the trauma of losing custody of her daughter. Much of the oral history focuses on Arise and the challenges of grassroots organizing, including the struggle to promote radical popular education while serving immediate needs, with specific attention to organizing around homelessness. (Transcript 100 pp.)

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.

Scope and Contents

Ward has written accounts of the abuse in her childhood home; the oral history does not recount that experience. Ward describes her experience of poverty and rural isolation as they influence gender relations and domestic abuse. She assesses the impact of the women's movement on responses to family violence and details the in-home, "wraparound" services that distinguish Have Justice Will Travel from other advocacy groups and service providers. (Transcript 80 pp.)