In 1870, women were admitted entrance to the University, three years after the Illinois Industrial University was chartered. As noted in the Guide to Women’s History Sources, archival information on women faculty, staff, and students at the University may seem to be “hidden” in a record series that at first glance would not seem relevant. Information on the involvement of women in the scientific enterprise is must likewise be culled from records, requiring the weaving together of many layers of information from different sources in order to reveal a more comprehensive picture of women in the sciences and engineering at the University.
This guide provides a list of records series that serve as starting point for research on women in the colleges of Engineering, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences.
Administrative Records:
- Trustees’ Reports (Record Series 1/1/802): digitized reports can be searched by name of graduate
- Commencement Program File (Record Series 2/0/802): can be searched by year and name
- Committee on the Status of Women Records (Record Series 4/6/47): contains records of committee to investigate the status of women on campus
- Women in Information Technology Scholarship Files (Record Series 7/4/9): contains correspondence, memos, budgets and directories concerning the Women in Information Technology Scholarship (WITS) organization
- Enrollment Tables/File (Record Series 25/3/810): student enrollment statistics and degrees awarded by race/ethnicity, gender, region of origin (country, state, county), college, curriculum and student level. Select enrollment information has been digitized (available for years: 1869-1962) and student enrollment statistics are also available at the Division of Management Information’s (DMI’s) site: http://www.dmi.illinois.edu/stuenr/
College and Departmental Archives:
- College of Engineering Subject File (Record Series 11/1/1): contains content on Dean’s Ad Hoc committee on the status of women and files on Marth Trescott’s research on women in engineering
- College of Engineering Scrapbooks (Record Series 11/1/52): contains clippings on women faculty and students (such as General Engineering Professor Grace Wilson and the creation of the Society of Women Engineers)
Faculty Papers:
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Helene R. Dickel Papers (Record Series 15/3/22): Astronomy; concerns star-forming regions, supernova remnants, radio astronomy, observations at the Very Large Array (VLA) radio interferometer (1980-92) and the Berkeley, Illinois, Maryland Association (BIMA) radio interferometer
- Virginia Bartow Papers (Record Series 15/5/37): Chemistry; history of science and chemistry, women in chemistry
College of Engineering
- Geneva G. Belford Papers (Record Series 11/15/24): Computer Science; performance analysis of computer systems, distributed databases, and sedimentation
- Felix and Donatella Baroncini Adler Papers (Record Series 11/10/37): Physics; General Atomic, Division of General Dynamics, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory
College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
- Evelyn J. Weber Papers (Record Series 8/6/29): Crop Sciences; research material relating to lipids and vasopressin
- Anna C. Glover Papers (Record Series 8/2/20): Agricultural Experiment Station secretary and manager and editor of publications
- Leslie E. and Eva G. Card Papers (Record Series 8/7/31): Animal Sciences
- Isabel Bevier Papers (Record Series 8/11/20): household science or home economics, the education of women, departmental administration and history, enrollments, the Woman’s Building and laboratories, farm homes and houses, food and nutrition, homemaking, the family, budgeting, sanitation, the Farmer’s Institutes
- Nellie E. Goldthwaite Papers (Record Series 8/11/21): household science
- Janice M. Smith Papers (Record Series 8/11/22): National Advisory commission on Food and Fiber and materials on Home Economics in India including college catalogs, curricula, studies of nutrition in India, correspondence, personal notes and home economics publications of Indian universities
- Lita Bane Papers (Record Series 8/11/24): relate to writing of biography of Isabel Bevier
- Marjorie Virginia Guthrie Papers (Record Series 8/11/25): Small Home Council, scrapbooks from the Home Economics club and Practice Apartment, and guest book from Practice apartment
- Nellie L. Perkins Papers (Record Series 8/11/26): daily lesson plans and comments, case studies of children, descriptions of class projects, student rosters, psychological summaries of students and photographs of children’s play activities
- Ruth T. Jones Papers (Record Series 8/11/27): concerns home economics research and newsletters
- Sonya Salamon Papers (Record Series 8/11/28): ethnographic studies of gender and family life in Tokyo, Japan, and of rural and suburban communities in central Illinois
Alumni Papers/Student Organization Records:
- Louise J. Pellens Scrapbook (Record Series 41/20/86): earned bachelor of science in Architectural Decoration from the College of Engineering (1909)
- Sigma Delta Epsilon Records (Record Series 41/67/143): Gamma chapter of Sigma Delta Epsilon, and international organization for women in science
- Society of Women Engineers Records (Record Series 41/67/153): photos of members, meetings, regional and national conferences, events, group activities, banquets, lectures, and trips
- Association for Women in Science/Organization for Women in Science Records (Record Series 41/67/191): joint newsletter of the Association for Women in Science (Central Illinois Chapter) and the Organization for Women in Science (Students of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
Publications and Reference Files:
- Alumni and Faculty Biographical File (Record Series 26/4/1): can be searched by name
- University Archives Reference File (Record Series 35/3/65): contains “Women in Engineering” reference file
Social Media Archives:
Related guides:
- Guide to Women’s History Sources (from 1989)