Throughout its history the WAA initiated projects and programs intended to address "concrete manifestations of discrimination." This series, containing material generated by those varied initiatives, is broken down into five subseries, representing the general areas in which the WAA was active: Economics, Education (including the Non-Sexist Child Development Project), Health, and Coalitions. The latter is comprised of the National Women's Agenda Project and the Women's Centers Project. Researchers interested in a specific program may also want to consult the general support proposals in SERIES I. ADMINISTRATION-Development, as these often include year-end reviews of program activities.
Economics
Economic Development Project (1980-84), 1.75 linear ft.
In the fall of 1982, The Women's Action Alliance formed an advisory committee of economic development experts. The goal of this committee was to obtain funding from large corporations and foundations which would support an Economic Development Project. Under the direction of Sara Gould, the EDP's goals were: 1) to act as a resource for women's social service organizations seeking greater economic self-sufficiency, and 2) to increase the economic self-sufficiency of women's nonprofit service organizations through improved management practices and the development of income-generating projects and activities. The EDP researched, advised, and communicated with a variety of women's groups, and published a handbook, Struggling Through Tight Times. The Economic Development Project was ultimately unable to continue due to insufficient funding, and ended in June 1984.
The Economic Development Project's records are arranged in the following sections: Administrative, Conferences and travel, Fundraising and foundations, Groups, and Resources.
Non-traditional Occupations for Women (1977-86), 1.5 linear ft.
The Non-traditional Occupations for Women Project (NTO), in an effort to expand women's career choices, conducted surveys and workshops designed to increase women's access to trades dominated by men. Among the products of the project, based on the surveys and other research, was The Nuts and Bolts of Non-Traditional Occupations: The Recruitment, Training, Support and Placement of Women in Non-Traditional Occupations, authored by project director Jo Sanders and published in 1981. A second edition, published in 1986, was titled The Nuts and Bolts of Non-Traditional Occupations: How to Help Women Enter Non-Traditional Occupations. The manual, which was based on interviews with 166 coordinators of NTO programs, was field-tested in five post-secondary schools with vocational-technical programs. Within ten months, nearly 400 women enrolled in NTO training.
The Non-traditional Occupations for Women records are arranged as follows: General, Programs, and Survey. Of particular interest are notes from interviews with women who held non-traditional occupations, responses to a nation-wide survey, and evaluations of participants in programs designed to encourage women in non-traditional occupations.
Women at Work Expositions (1978-79), 2.5 linear ft
The Women at Work Expositions, carried out in 1978 and 1979, were convocations of women's organizations, foundations, and corporations. National organizations set up displays and sent staff to discuss their projects and priorities. Workshops addressed issues like flexible work schedules, affirmative action, and women returning to work and school. The events were designed to build bridges between women's organizations, corporations, foundations, and government; gain press exposure for areas of concern; and create networking opportunities for feminist leadership. The WAA's technical assistance program (SEE SERIES III. RESOURCES-Information and Referral Services) was in part a follow-up activity intended to facilitate the continued matching of resources.
Records pertaining to these expositions are arranged in two groups, one for each exposition. Administrative material includes correspondence, budget and publicity for the events, and post-conference feedback and evaluative material. Most interesting, however, are the materials pertaining to the various topical workshops for the 1979 Exposition, which include transcripts and typescripts of presenters' remarks. Slides and photographs from the Expositions are found in SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS.
Education
Children of Single Parents in the School (1987-91), 3 linear ft.
This project was undertaken in the summer of 1988, with funding from the John and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The four-month research project explored the educational needs and school experiences of elementary school children from single-parent families, focusing on the children of widows, divorced or separated women, and never-married women. In order to gather information, the project conducted interviews with academics, the leaders of single-parent service organizations, and school practitioners. Focus group interviews were also conducted with elementary school children, day camp students, mothers, and teachers. Project coordinator Meg Hargreaves published a book on the subject as well. Papers pertaining to this program include a small amount of administrative material; project files, arranged alphabetically, regarding some two-dozen service organizations; subject files, arranged alphabetically, on topics of interest to the project; and notes, correspondence, summaries and data sheets from the field interviews and focus groups [see also SERIES V. AUDIOVISUAL MATERIAL, for thirteen audiotapes of interviews]. A large amount of material, arranged chronologically, is Hargreaves' book, Learning Under Stress: Children of Single Parents and the Schools, and her related research files.
Institute on Women's History (1978-80), 1.25 linear ft.
The Institute on Women's History was held at Sarah Lawrence College from July 14 to 31, 1979. The Institute was sponsored and administered by WAA in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution, and was funded by the Lilly Foundation. The Institute was attended by forty-five women activists and leaders representing thirty-seven national, regional, and local women's organizations. Many of the women's organizations represented were members of the National Women's Agenda Coalition (see below). The institute was directed by Gerda Lerner, professor of history and co-director of the MA Program in Women's Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. In addition to Lerner, the institute faculty were Alice Kessler-Harris, Associate Professor of History and co-director of the Center for the Study of Work and Leisure at Hofstra University, and Amy Swerdlow, director of the American Historical Association's Institute for Women's History in Secondary Schools.
The Institute sought to elevate women's history within women's organizations and the nation; to make women's history an integral part of the program and consciousness of women's organizations; and to increase the awareness of all barriers to full participation of women, with particular attention to those of race and class. At the conclusion of the event, participants and staff issued a resolution calling for the creation of Women's History Week during the week containing March 8, International Women's Day.
The final report to the Lilly Foundation provides detailed information about the participants, activities, and recommendations of the institute. The sixty applications received by the institute include narrative biographies with detailed information about the leadership, goals and activities of thirty-seven national, regional, and local women's organizations.
These materials are arranged in the following sections: Organizational/Planning, Financial, Publicity, Participants, Women's History Week, and Evaluations.
Non-Sexist Child Development Project (1972-91), 26.75 linear ft.
The first national program to focus on non-sexist education in early childhood, the WAA's Non-Sexist Child Development Project (NSCD) was among their first, largest and longest-running initiatives. It was launched in the spring of 1972 to "counteract the destructiveness of sex-role stereotyping." The project created the first National Institute for Equal Early Education, held a national conference on educational equity for disabled women and girls, and conducted Beginning Equal, a project on non-sexist childrearing. The NSCD project was conceived in direct response to letters received from parents concerned that their pre-school aged children were already subjected and responding to sex-stereotyped roles. The Women's Action Alliance had no place to refer them and so founded the project themselves. The overall aim of the project was twofold: to develop a non-sexist, multi-racial curriculum and manual for parents and teachers, and to effect change in the attitudes and materials of the existing network of private and public schools.
Records pertaining to the administration of the NSCD include correspondence, arranged chronologically, from 1972 to 1982, and by subject; financial records; development materials.
Materials developed and distributed by the NSCD include curriculum guides, toys, films and filmstrips, and photographic collections. In 1979, NSCD launched Equal Play, a semi-annual journal for educators, parents and others interested in sex-equity and education. Records associated with the magazine include drafts of articles for thematic issues on career education, sports, computers, and other topics, as well as research material associated with article development more generally. Additional material can be found in SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS and SERIES V. AUDIOVISUAL MATERIAL.
The Subjects section of the NSCD records contains files on a variety of topics and projects of interest. It includes lesson plans and curriculum material for teachers interested in non-sexist techniques in the classroom, Sylvia Kramer's 1981 Equal Their Chances: Children's Activities for Non-Sexist Learning, research materials, and material related to Title IX.
Symposia, conferences and workshops includes records pertaining to events attended by project director Barbara Sprung and her successor, Merle Froschl, or hosted by the WAA.
Several related projects were carried out under the auspices of the Non-Sexist Childhood Development Project. These include the Beginning Equal Project, the Computer Equity Training Project, the Portable Women's History Project, Project R.E.E.D., and Project T.R.E.E.
Beginning Equal Project, (1981-1984), 1.75 linear ft.
The Beginning Equal project, originally called Early Intervention for Equality, began in 1982 as a two-year joint pilot project of the Women's Action Alliance and the Preschool Association of the West Side. The principal objective, according to BE coordinator Barbara Sprung, was "to foster nonsexist childrearing and educational environments for children ages 0 to three."
The project was designed and conducted in five separate phases: Outreach and awareness, Needs assessment, Workshops for caregivers and parents, Materials development, and Implementation/Dissemination. Strategies for non-sexist childrearing were developed, discussed, and implemented at three New York City pilot test centers during the first year. Focus during the second year shifted toward a wider audience: BE held press conferences and workshops open to the general public, published relevant articles, and most importantly, developing and printing a manual on nonsexist child care.
Besides financial and administrative records, the collection contains information and material on non-sexism in early learning and parenting, as well as information on sex role stereotyping. Publications on these issues were evaluated by staff members, and other objects such as baby toys and gendered greeting cards are catalogued as well. Of particular interest are files of materials collected under "Field Research," largely field notes taken by project observers of children, parents and caregivers in local day care centers, and their subsequent summary reports on day-to-day life in those centers.
Computer Equity Training Project (CETP) (1982-91), 2.25 linear ft.
The Computer Equity Training Project, launched in 1983 and funded by the Women's Educational Equity Act Program (WEEAP), responded to educators' growing observation that girls, beginning in the middle school years, were lagging behind boys in voluntary, non-class computer use. The CETP, led by Project Director Jo Sanders, worked to increase girls' interest in and use of computers by developing, publishing, and disseminating a manual for educators, The Neuter Computer: Why and How to Encourage Computer Equity for Girls. In order to develop the manual, the CETP reviewed literature on sex discrepancy on computer use and worked with participating pilot test teachers (in New Jersey, Oregon, and Wisconsin) to understand computer avoidance causes and remedies. The second part of the project carried involved field testing the manual in schools in California, Nebraska and Vermont, while monitoring control schools in Pennsylvania and Texas.
Records of the CETP include administrative and development materials; notes, correspondence and other materials generated by the two-phase fieldwork process; and materials pertaining to the publication of the CETP manual. Of special interest are the results of several surveys conducted by the CETP of students and teachers in participating middle and junior high schools.
Portable Women's History Museum Project (1979-86), .75 linear ft.
The Portable Women's History Museum was an eighteen-month project to develop self-contained participatory exhibits on women's history for elementary and middle-school students, as well as teachers manuals with instructions on how to use the museum, with follow-up classroom activities. National Advisory Committee members included Smithsonian Institution curators Edith Mayo and Keith Melder as well as scholars like Carol Berkin, Darlene Clark Hine, and Alice Kessler-Harris. The records consist of correspondence, research notes, and proposal materials, including budgets, drafts, and a plan of work.
Project R.E.E.D: Resource on Educational Equity for the Disabled (1977-83), 5 linear ft.
Project R.E.E.D. was a two-year research and development project designed to incorporate non-sexist multicultural images of children and adults with disabilities into the early childhood classroom. The project was particularly interested in the special issues of discrimination faced by disabled women and girls throughout their education.
Project records are arranged as follows: Administration, Research and development, Pilot testing, National field testing and the "Access to Equality" Conference. The administration section includes minutes from planning and national advisory board meetings, proposals to the U.S. Department of Education, and extensive interim and final reports which detail the creation of early childhood classroom materials and strategies. Project R.E.E.D sought recommendations of appropriate texts in the field of early childhood education from publishers, organizations, and universities. The Research and development section contains the responses to those requests. This section also contains classroom observation forms, and teacher and director interviews from the on-site classroom observations conducted as part of Project R.E.E.D. research and development work.
During its first year, the project reviewed literature, performed needs assessments in pre-school programs in Mississippi, Colorado and Texas, and observed early childhood centers in California, Illinois, North Carolina and New York City. Based on their findings, the project developed prototype classroom materials - including puzzles, puppets, block accessories, resource photos, and a slide show and tape-recorded song -- designed to introduce children to non-stereotyped information about the disabled. The materials were pilot-tested in the New York City metropolitan area in 1981, and subsequently in Glens Falls, New York, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico. National field testing of the classroom materials was conducted in Head Start and elementary classrooms in rural, urban, and suburban areas of Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Oregon. The project also produced the first training guide designed to help teachers and parents combat stereotyping based on sex, race, and disability.
The project culminated in "Access to Equality," the first national forum on educational equity for disabled women. Held on June 25-27, 1982, the conference was sponsored by Project R.E.E.D. and The Disabled Women's Educational Equity Project.
Project R.E.E.D. obtained resource materials from a number of human service organizations listed in the "Resources: miscellaneous" file of the Research and development section, a small sample of which has been retained. Records pertaining to the National Field Testing consist of extensive, detailed classroom observation forms, adult reactions to materials, and participant profiles.
Project T.R.E.E.: Training Resources for Educational Equity (1977-79) 1 linear ft.
Project T.R.E.E., made possible by a grant from the Women's Education Equity Act Program of the U.S. Department of Education, worked to develop and field test a model non-sexist early childhood training program and manual. The project and manual, Maximizing Young Children's Potential: A Non-Sexist Manual for Early Childhood Trainers (specifically for use in the Head Start program), were completed in 1979. In 1980, the Project sponsored the First National Institute for Equal Early Education, a three-day event to help promote equal educational opportunities at the early childhood level. Audiotapes of T.R.E.E. workshops are housed in SERIES V. AUDIOVISUAL MATERIAL.
Health
Resource Mothers Project (1993-96), .25 linear ft.
Resource Mothers was a peer-driven, community-based nutrition and prenatal care training program. Resource Mothers were outreach or lay health workers trained to help pregnant women and their children get the healthcare and social services they need. The project was established in collaboration with Project Connect, an alcohol and substance abuse program at Harlem Hospital, designed to be of service to women of childbearing age in the community. The pilot project of the WAA Resource Mothers program was implemented at the Bright Temple A.M.E. in the South Bronx. With funding from Pfizer, Inc., the program expanded into the Central Harlem community. Workshop issues included prenatal care; domestic violence; the effects of AIDS, STDs, alcohol, and substance abuse on fetuses; and proper nutrition.
Records of the Resource Mothers Project include brochures, the handbook Opening Doors for Healthier Families: A Guide for Resource Mothers, and several funding proposals. See also the photographs from Resource Mothers events in SERIES IV. PHOTOGRAPHS.
Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Project (1985-88), 6.5 linear ft.
The main emphasis of the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Project (TAPP), underway from March 1987 to February 1988, was the compilation of a national directory, with state-by-state listings, of teenage pregnancy prevention programs and resources for use by service providers, networks and coalitions, national organizations, schools, libraries, and other professionals. The completed directory, which listed some 1200 programs, appeared in the spring of 1988. The records are arranged as follows: Administration, Development, Organizations, and Directory. Of great interest are the files of responses from providers.
Women's Alcohol and Drug Education Project (1988-95), 1 linear ft.
Launched in 1987, the Women's Alcohol and Drug Education Project, or WADEP, sought to reduce alcohol, tobacco and other drug use (ATOD) among women and adolescent girls. In the 1990s, WADEP was one of the WAA's largest and most successful programs. Working with service organizations, WADEP, under the leadership of Project Director Chris Kirk, offered skill-based training to staff, teaching them how to identify, assess, and intervene with substance users. It then provided technical assistance to establish comprehensive prevention programs. By 1995, WADEP had worked with more than fifty organizations, creating prevention programs that linked ATOD use with other issues in women's lives, including domestic violence, pregnancy, and unemployment.
Records of the WADEP are mainly related to funding, including lists of funders, correspondence with funding organizations, and funding proposals. In addition to several publications produced by the project, there is a small amount of correspondence and memoranda from Project Director Chris Kirk, and the contents of Kirk's rolodex of contacts. Researchers should be aware that most of the administrative material pertaining to WADEP came to the SSC on 3.5" floppy disks; these documents were printed out at Smith College in the spring of 1999. If a document's purpose was not apparent from a title contained within the document itself, it was given a heading indicating the name that the file had been assigned by WADEP. For a videotape produced by the WADEP project Listen to Us/Escuchemos, see SERIES V. AUDIOVISUAL MATERIAL.
Coalitions
National Women's Agenda Project (NWAP) (1975-80), 17 linear ft.
In an ambitious effort to create consensus on the definitions of, and solutions to, women's problems, the WAA initiated the National Women's Agenda Project in 1975. NWAP quickly achieved a large measure of success when more than 100 women's organizations with a combined constituency in excess of 33 million women joined to draft a platform of areas of concern to women, the United States National Women's Agenda. After successfully creating and publicizing the Agenda, NWAP shifted to implementing the goals set out in this document and, in what would become the larger focus for the remainder of its existence, maintaining a coalition (formalized in 1977 as the National Women's Agenda Coalition) among women's groups as disparate as the Junior League and the National Gay Task Force. From the onset, NWAP suffered from financial and organizational limitations. Budget cuts in 1977 and 1978 forced reductions of both scale and scope, and project directors Catherine Samuels, Madeline Lee, and Susan Jenkins had short tenures, leaving the project without sustained leadership. Administrative assistant and eventual project coordinator Anne Bowen was one of the few staff members involved in NWAP for a sustained period of time.
Women's Agenda magazine was published by the WAA from 1976 to 1979. Early issues centered on the U.S. National Women's Agenda, but the magazine was eventually envisioned as a national news service for women. After struggling for subscribers and financing, publication of Women's Agenda ceased in mid-1979. Support and funding for the project as a whole had also shrunk, and in 1980, the NWAP was disbanded.
The records of the NWAP are organized into Administrative and Projects sections. Administrative material includes fundraising, committee work, and staff material. It contains the correspondence of key NWAP figures. The Projects section is divided into five major initiatives: Platform development, Task forces, International Women's Year, National Women's Agenda Coalition, and Women's Agenda magazine. Platform Development includes material related to the drafting of the U.S. National Women's Agenda. Task Forces reflect the subsequent work to create plans of action to implement the platform. International Women's Year contains materials pertaining to NWAP participation with the Pro-Plan Caucus, a group committed to passing controversial measures supporting gay rights, the ERA, and abortion, at the 1977 Houston National Women's Conference. National Women's Agenda Coalition is further organized into administrative and project materials, which include a 1977 satellite project with NASA, 1978-1979 Agenda Alerts for action on political and social issues, and a 1980 media monitoring survey. Women's Agenda is divided into administrative and issue files. The administrative files consist largely of staff members' correspondence, subscription records, and budget information. Materials pertaining to specific issues are arranged chronologically, by publication date, and within an issue, alphabetically by department or topic. Department and topic files hold the research behind various articles and columns, often showing the origin of ideas and information and the editing process behind the final product. Categories have been maintained largely as the staff of the project maintained them, but as a project that shifted direction and leadership suddenly and often, there is considerable overlap among the several incarnations of the NWAP.
Women's Centers Project (1979-91), 4.25 linear ft.
Working with national, regional and local women's organizations through the NWAP established the WAA as a significant feminist organization, and the networks established by the National Women's Agenda Coalition helped to launch one of the WAA's most successful programs, the Women's Centers Project. Beginning in the late 1970s, the WAA sought to ally and bring into contact women's centers and programs in the national, regional, and local arenas. The project surveyed and published studies on women's centers, and also offered support, technical assistance, and training. With critical assistance from the WAA, especially Executive Director Sylvia Kramer, the National Association of Women's Centers was founded in 1986.
Records of the Women's Centers Project (WCP) are arranged in six sections: Administration, Surveys, the National Association of Women's Centers, Women's Rights Lobby Day, the Women's Centers and AIDS Project, and the Job Training Partnership Act and Women's Centers Project. The Administration and Surveys sections document how the WAA sought to identify and analyze the multi-service women's center, which was in the 1970s an emerging form of community-based social-service delivery agency. Preliminary data was gathered in 1978, which brought together the staff of five exemplary centers: the Women's Center for Education and Career Advancement (New York, NY), a project of the National Council of Negro Women; the Lesbian Resource Center (Seattle, WA); WomenSpace (Cleveland, OH); the Midwest Women's Center (Chicago, IL); and the Everywoman's Center (Amherst, MA). In 1980, the WCP took a broader survey of women's centers across the U.S. in which they conducted site visits and interviews and mailed questionnaires. Among the WCP's results were two publications: an annotated directory of multi-issue women's centers, and a detailed report on the women clients who used and preferred the services women's centers provide.
This work spearheaded the creation of the National Association of Women's Centers (NAWC), established in May 1986 to strengthen women's centers, provide technical assistance to them, and advocate on their behalf. The records document the series of conferences that were held to launch the organization.
The Women's Center's Project additionally hosted independent initiatives. The 1987-88 Job-Training Partnership Act and Women's Centers Project (JTPA) analyzed the effectiveness of the JTPA in reaching women's centers by fifteen women's centers across the nation. Jo Sanders's Staying Poor: How the JTPA Fails Women (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1988) was the result of this survey. The Women's Centers and AIDS Project, which is documented primarily by funding proposals and reports, generated two publications: Women's Centers and AIDS Project: A Guide to Educational Material (1988) and Women, AIDS, and Communities: A Guide for Action (1991), The Women's Rights Lobby Day project contains planning material and publicity for a lobbying effort that took place on 4 February 1981.
