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Preface

This exhibit is the fruition of a collaboration between faculty, students, and librarians at the University of Oregon which has been ongoing for over thirty years. In the 1960s, with the advice of University of Oregon faculty, the library began collecting manuscript collections documenting the activities and achievements of women in American society. The papers of writers, politicians, artists and activists have been added to our holdings to form an important body of research sources.

This effort and the accomplishments it documents are now celebrated in Feminist Voices & Visions from the Pacific Northwest, which highlights two of our recent acquisitions. The papers of Abigail Scott Duniway came to the library in 1994 as the gift of the family of David Duniway. The CALYX Press records were received partly as a gift and partly as a purchase in 1997. They are on public view for the first time.

As with the collecting process this exhibition enjoyed the collaboration of a number of people in the University of Oregon community who generously shared their knowledge and resources to inform the public of important aspects of their political and literary heritage. Cheris Kramarae, former director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) wrote the captions to the CALYX materials. Debra Shein, graduate student in English, wrote the Duniway documentation. The exhibit was coordinated and planned by several librarians: Colleen Bell, Library Instruction Coordinator; Sara Brownmiller, Women's Studies Bibliographer and Systems Librarian; Faye Chadwell, Head, Collection Development; Linda Long, Manuscripts Librarian; and Heather Ward, Humanities Librarian. Support for the exhibition was generously provided by CSWS and the UO Foundation. It is my hope that their collective efforts will provide the viewer with a heightened sense of awareness of the richness of our collections and the significance of the people they represent.

-- George Shipman, University Librarian, University of Oregon

Introduction

Last fall, several librarians in Knight Library began planning exhibits for Women's History Month. Various ideas, suggestions, and talents resulted in a collaborative effort to exhibit documents from the Duniway Papers and the CALYX Records, the outcome of which is "Feminist Voices and Visions From the Pacific Northwest: A Celebration of Abigail Scott Duniway, 1834-1915 and CALYX, 1976-Present." Our exhibit group included Colleen Bell, Library Instruction Coordinator; Sara Brownmiller, Women's Studies Bibliographer and Systems Librarian; Faye Chadwell, Head, Collection Development; Linda Long, Manuscripts Librarian; and Heather Ward, Humanities Librarian.

Among the vast array of collections available to us for an exhibit on women, two collections that had never been exhibited before came to mind.

In 1994 the University Library acquired the papers of Abigail Scott Duniway, Oregon's steadfast campaigner for women's suffrage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The papers were a bequest of David Duniway, the suffragist's grandson. The acquisition of the Duniway Papers underscored the University's commitment to the study of women in society and augmented the library's growing collection of manuscript collections relating to women. The Duniway papers were processed and cataloged for use by scholars, but until now have not been exhibited in a major way. Full of rich primary source material, the Duniway Papers reflect a life dedicated to the cause of women's rights.

Late last year, the Library acquired the records of the noted feminist literary magazine, CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature By Women. A voluminous collection of materials reflecting over two decades of feminist publication, the records of CALYX are also a resource rich in both depth and scope, containing correspondence, memoranda, publications, ephemera, photographs, and production files.

Together, the Duniway Papers and the Records of CALYX represent voices and visions of women, reflected on the one hand in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historical documents and on the other in twentieth century literary documents. We hope you find these materials visually interesting as well as thought provoking.

-- Linda Long, Manuscripts Librarian, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Library