Mary Pardee Allison Papers
Scope and Contents
The collection contains material related both to Mary Pardee Allison's time as a student and as Smith College staff through memorabilia books and photo albums, correspondence, programs to events at Smith, and some written work. The collection also includes a number of newspaper clippings about Allison's generous donation to local charities upon her death.
Dates of Materials
- Creation: 1898 - 1950
Creator
- Allison, Mary Pardee (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for use without restriction beyond the standard terms and conditions of Smith College Special Collections.
Conditions Governing Use
Smith College retains copyright of materials created as part of its business operations; however, copyright in other items in this collection may be held by their respective creators. For reproductions of materials that are governed by fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. For instances which may regard materials in the collection not created by Smith College, researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from Smith College Special Collections to move forward with their use.
Biographical / Historical
Mary Pardee Allison was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Clara (Unger) Allison and H. Willard Allison, the town's mayor during 1888-1890 and 1893-1896. She graduated from Bishopthorpe School, South Bethlehem, Pa. Allison graduated from Smith in 1902, where she had been a member of the Telescopium and the Class Supper Committee. After College, Allison did clerical work for The Allentown Rolling Mills (1903-1914), before returning to Smith to do secretarial work, for the Alumnae House (1915-1918), for the Dean of Smith College (1924-1925), and finally as the Publications Secretary (1925-1950). She also served as assistant treasurer for the Smith College Four Million Dollar Fund in 1920. Notably, she created six different endowment funds during her time as an employee in memory or in honor of Smith colleagues and classmates. In 1950, Allison retired and returned to Allentown. She died in 1978, leaving three million dollars to charities throughout the country.
Extent
0.438 linear feet (1 container)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Contains photograph albums, memorabilia books, music programs, newspaper clippings, and correspondence related to student and professional life of Mary Pardee Allison.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Source unknown.
Processing Information
Please note that prior to 2018, folder inventories were not always updated when new material was added to the collection. As a result, folder inventories may not be complete and folder numbers may be incorrect.
Subject
- Smith College. -- Employees (Organization)
- Smith College. -- photographs (Organization)
- Allison, Mary Pardee (Person)
- Smith College. -- Students -- correspondence (Organization)
- Smith College. -- Alumni and alumnae (Organization)
- Title
- Finding aid to the Mary Pardee Allison Papers
- Status
- Legacy Finding Aid (Updated)
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Madison White (Class of 2016) and Daniel Michelson.
- Date
- 2014
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 07/26/2017: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
- 2018-10-30: Containers added and finding aid updated as part of College Archives survey
Repository Details
Part of the Smith College Archives Repository
