The Library of Congress > American Memory
Graphic banner
Home awabout.html Research Guide

Acknowledgments


Potomac Boat Club image

"Potomac Boat Club." 1919. National Photo Company Collection.
LC-USZ62-92402 DLC
(b&w film copy neg.)

bibliographic record

Creating a Web site as large and complex as the American Women gateway required the support and expertise of dozens of staff throughout the Library of Congress. First there were all the people who made the online site possible, but equally important were all the people who had labored to produce the earlier print version of American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States, the text of which forms the Research Guide portion of the gateway, by far the most extensive part of the site.

The first part of the Acknowledgments identifies those who worked on the overall American Women Web site, followed by acknowledgments related specifically to the creation of the Research Guide portion, in both its print and online iterations.

Overall Web Site Development

Project Coordinators: Barbara Orbach Natanson (Prints and Photographs Division) and Dominique Pickett (Information Technology Services). Barbara Natanson represented the American Women project at meetings of the Library's digital conversion specialists and the American Memory Technical Review Committee, and she served as the team's liaison to the Conservation Office and the Information Technology Services (ITS) Digital Scan Lab. Among other tasks, she prepared specialized scanning instructions and organized the delivery and digitizing of materials; coordinated the quality review and placement of the files into appropriate digital directories and the placement of the scanned images into the correct Web pages; coordinated the creation or editing of bibliographic records for newly digitized materials; and aided in integrating those bibliographic records into an American Memory search engine. She also collaborated with the Core Project Team on site design and section revisions, contributed to the writing of framework and publicity materials, and provided expertise on rights to pictorial materials. Dominique Pickett (Information Technology Services) oversaw all aspects of the technical production of the American Women Web site. She was responsible for the Web site design and construction, including the graphic design and the HTML and XML encoding. She coordinated the work of others in ITS who assisted on the project, including especially Mary Ambrosio, Laura Graham, and Catherine Young (see below).

Core Project Team: Mary Ambrosio (Information Technology Services), Barbara Bair (Manuscript Division), Sheridan Harvey (Humanities and Social Sciences Division), and Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division). Mary Ambrosio was responsible for initiating the use of XML for Web site collection development, programming and indexing, display of the scanned images, and development of XSLT style sheets for displaying the XML text making up the Research Guide. Barbara Bair, Sheridan Harvey, and Janice E. Ruth assisted with the overall design of the site and its functions. They worked with the authors of the printed chapters in revising and reformatting their text for online presentation, coordinated with the technical production team the implementation of the authors' changes, wrote and edited framework (background or introductory) materials, drafted press releases, compiled collection finder data, coordinated rights and permissions, and conducted general reviews of the site.

Writing and Editing: Those who wrote sections on the different Library divisions and essays for the Research Guide portion of the Web site are identified separately below along with the names of staff who assisted them. All other framework materials were created by the Core Project Team, with the addition of Susan Garfinkel (Digital Reference Team), who contributed to the "Searching American Memory" document. Evelyn Sinclair and Sara Day (Publishing Office) edited the original print version of the American Women guide. Jurretta Jordan Heckscher (Digital Reference Team) and Andrea Matles Savada (Public Service Collections Directorate) edited all of the framework materials, including the massive files comprising the online version of the Research Guide, and advised on issues relating to the site's overall presentation and navigation.

Technical Advice and Production: Martha Anderson (Office of Strategic Initiatives) and Deborah Thomas (Public Service Collections Directorate) advised on the early conceptualization of the site as an American Memory offering and provided subsequent guidance with production planning, development, and funding for permissions. Caroline Arms (Office of Strategic Initiatives) provided technical support on a number of fronts, including coordinating the editing of bibliographic records, registering handles for display of digital objects, and consulting on usability issues. Catherine W. Young (Information Technology Services) entered authors' and editors' changes to the XML files, created thumbnails of images, inserted hypermedia and hypertext links, and collaborated on site design. Laura Graham (Information Technology Services) converted the PDF files received from G & S typesetters to SGML. She advised on the use of American Memory DTD, SGML, and XML markup and provided image and entity naming guidelines. Graham drafted the technical specifications for the digital reformatting of newspaper issues from microfilm and implemented the contract task order for their conversion. She entered authors' and editors' changes in the files based on the printed chapters. Barak Stussman (Information Technology Services) assisted with the programming and the development of printer friendly files for the Research Guide portion of Web site. Elizabeth Madden (Office of Strategic Initiatives) and Christa Maher (Office of Strategic Initiatives) assisted with the creation and continuing evolution of a production database that aided in the generation of bibliographic records and tracking of rights information. Andrea Dillon (Office of Strategic Initiatives) and David Woodward (Information Technology Services) integrated the American Women site into the American Memory search functions and Collection Finder.

Bibliographic and Cataloging Records: Helena Zinkham (Prints and Photographs Division), in addition to offering early encouragement and conceptualization of the American Women site, provided guidance on bibliographic access to materials to be included in the site and arranged for support from the Prints and Photographs Division in creating bibliographic records for the majority of the illustrations that originally appeared in the print version of American Women. Arden Alexander (Prints and Photographs Division) created and edited more than 150 bibliographic records for the illustrations, and Helena Zinkham provided cataloging for some additional items.

Rights and Permissions: Emily Howie (Humanities and Social Sciences Division) assisted with the rights and permissions work associated with the site, which involved reviewing the extensive permissions files generated by the Publishing Office for the print version of the guide, initiating new requests to copyright holders, and drafting the Copyright and Other Restrictions page for the Web site. Dan Rader (Office of General Counsel) evaluated rights issues and advised the team on copyright and legal matters. Margaret Alessi (Manuscript Division) advised on procedures in her capacity as the American Memory copyright liaison. Eveline Overmiller (Manuscript Division), Debra C. Brown (Office of Strategic Initiatives), and Roy Douglass Hunnicutt (Office of Strategic Initiatives) assisted with the payment of funds to rights holders.

Scanning, Quality Review, and Management of the Digital Files: Phil Michel (Prints and Photographs Division) provided project management support, served as a consultant on digital imaging issues, and assisted in creating, archiving, and managing digital files and associated bibliographic records. Alan Haley (Conservation Office) assessed the condition of the material before scanning and provided handling specifications. Dominic Sergi (Information Technology Services Digital Scan Center) scanned a selection of books, atlases, periodicals, and sheet music for inclusion in the site. Digital conversion specialists throughout Library Services performed quality review of digital images and were responsible for tracking and loading digital images to various division directories. Assisting in this work were the following: Margaret Alessi (Manuscript Division), Colleen Cahill (Geography & Map Division), Robin Fanslow (Recorded Sound), Paul Fraunfelter (Music), Elizabeth Gettins and Mark Williams (Rare Book), Roger Kizer-Ball (Law Library), Steven C. McCollum (General Collections), and Robin Taylor and Sam Manivong (Area Studies).

Publicity: Danna Bell-Russel (Digital Reference Team) coordinated the distribution of the press release to listservs, while Guy Lamolinara (Office of Strategic Initiatives) and Dorothy LaValle-Hagag (Public Affairs Office) assisted with the production and distribution of a version of the press release to the print media.

[Top]

American Women Research Guide

Most of the following acknowledgments are reproduced verbatim from American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States (Washington: Library of Congress, 2001). They represent the acknowledgment made by individual authors and editors. Some of the chapter authors have amended their acknowledgments to recognize staff who helped them in preparing their texts for online presentation. The order of the chapter and essay acknowledgments follows the sequence of the chapters in the book and online version of the guide.

Publishing Office (Acknowledgments by Evelyn Sinclair and Sara Day, editors)

A resource guide focusing on women was an idea percolating among specialists throughout the Library of Congress and among editors in the Publishing Office for many years. Convinced that the Library's resource guides provide a valuable service to both the Library's staff and its users, Director of Publishing W. Ralph Eubanks was from the start an enthusiastic supporter of the effort to identify and describe the Library's collections related to women. We owe him a great debt of gratitude for allowing us the time, resources, and independence to devote much energy and effort to pulling together the many pieces that make up this wide and detailed look at the Library's collections. The guide would never have come about without the constancy of his support or the unfailing steadiness and good counsel he was so ready to offer that held us always on course.

Staff members throughout the Library of Congress lent their support to the idea of a guide to lead researchers through the maze of resources that might shed light on women's studies. We soon assembled a team of contributors that would reflect almost all corners of the institution and its holdings. This group proved unusually cohesive and its members learned much from one another. During the nearly four years it has taken to complete the guide, divisional walls have become windows. Greater insight and communication have allowed relinking of different parts of the collections long since broken up by format and have promoted connections between disparate materials related to each other by subject matter. Five topical essays, written by staff members, demonstrate the potential of such cross-divisional, multidisciplinary research.

Three Library of Congress specialists in particular lent their expertise and time to the current guide, reading and evaluating the content of the manuscript as a whole through several revisions and lending assistance to all their fellow contributors. This editorial team was composed of Sheridan Harvey, women's studies specialist in the Main Reading Room of the Library; Janice E. Ruth, specialist in women's history in the Manuscript Division; and Barbara Orbach Natanson, reference specialist in the Prints and Photographs Division. Without their extraordinary knowledge of their own collections and the researchers who use them and their involvement in the Library-wide initiative to electronically integrate all of the Library's catalogs undertaken during the course of this project, this guide would not have had the close connection it does to current Library of Congress cataloging methods and policy.

To prepare to undertake a survey of this magnitude--with a large number of Library curators, librarians, and specialists interested in women's history pledged to contribute descriptions of the collections with which they were familiar--and to ensure the reliability of the information in the guide, the Publishing Office early on sought the help of a committee of scholars in the field of women's studies. The committee was headed by Susan Ware, a noted expert on twentieth-century American women and a former professor of history at New York University who is currently editing the next volume of Notable American Women at Radcliffe. From an initial meeting in the Publishing Office in August 1997 and an all-day brainstorming session between the staff contributors and scholar advisers in May 1998 through the review of many texts, she has supported both large conceptual discussion and the perfecting of small details with unfailing energy and enthusiasm, contributing enormously to the guide's successful completion. Her introductory survey of the evolution and current state of the field of women's history provides valuable guidance and context for the chapters on specific materials.

Each of Ware's fellow scholars contributed in unique ways to shaping and polishing this guide: Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara; Joanne M. Braxton, College of William and Mary; Carol F. Karlsen, University of Michigan; Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University; and Vicki L. Ruiz, Arizona State University. They debated with us the proposed structure, particularly ideas for linking divisional collections and approaches to integrating ethnic and foreign-language materials, and kept us aware of literary and less strictly historical sources. The topics that they proposed helped guide the research and writing of chapters, essays, and illustration captions. Each scholar read drafts of the manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions to chapter authors and to the editors. The advisers, however, bear no responsibility for authorial or editorial errors, but all the contributors owe them a great debt of gratitude for urging them on to their best efforts.

We hope that this guide also demonstrates how women in America have been portrayed visually since Europeans first encountered Indian tribes on our soil. Jim Higgins and Yusef El-Amin of the Library's Photo Lab photographed well over a hundred original artifacts from the Library's collections, while Sandra Lawson, Eva Shade, Deborah Evans, Margaret Kieckhefer, Georgia Zola, Yvonne Brooks, Ed Russian, Charlotte Houtz, Judith Brisker, and Bonnie Coles, staff members or liaisons to the Photoduplication Service, managed the retrieval and processing of one of the largest photographic orders for a single Publishing Office project.

The design of the volume is the art and work of Adrianne Onderdonk Dudden, who has fashioned a series of resource guides for the Library of Congress. Production of the volume was directed by manager of production Gloria Baskerville-Holmes and assistant manager Clarke Allen. The index, to which all the contributors added ideas, is the work of Susan Fels.

The Library of Congress staff, from the position of Librarian of Congress to the deck attendant who brings the book or audiotape from its resting place in the stacks to the desk or listening booth where it can be read or heard, is in place to acquire, preserve, and make available the resources that scholars of women's history, their students and colleagues, and you, the reader of this guide, will one day use. To each member of the staff, we owe our thanks for making these resources available.

General Collections (Acknowledgments by Sheridan Harvey, chapter author)

I would like to thank my colleagues in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division who cheered me on through the long months I concentrated on this guide and who also worked extra hours on the reference desk so I had time for research and writing. The following people read sections of my chapter, suggested sources, and provided valuable comments: Cheryl Adams, Paul Q. Baker, Betty M. Culpepper, David J. Kelly, David Kresh, Thomas Mann, Ardie S. Myers, Marilyn K. Parr, James P. Sweany, Barbara B. Walsh, Kathy Woodrell, and Abby Yochelson. For the sections on Library of Congress subject headings and classification, I am grateful to Thomas Mann (again), Thompson A. Yee, and Lynn M. El-Hoshy for excellent suggestions based on expert knowledge. Susan Ware gave some good advice at a crucial moment. Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division) and Barbara Orbach Natanson (Prints and Photographs Division) commented on numerous drafts of this chapter to its great benefit, for which I am grateful.

Serial and Government Publications Division (Acknowledgments by Georgia Metos Higley, chapter author)

For encouraging my participation in this project, I would like to thank the chief of the Serial Division, Karen Renninger, who not only offered her support but also read various drafts of the manuscript. Colleagues who generously shared their expertise and who critiqued multiple drafts include Mark Sweeney, head of the Newspaper Section; Lyle Minter, head of the Reference Section; and reference specialists Travis Westly and Sara Striner. I am indebted to my reference colleagues in the division who worked extra hours in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Room so that I could complete this chapter.

Law Library of Congress (Acknowledgments by Pamela Barnes Craig, chapter author) I would like to thank the editorial team and academic advisers for their challenging questions and comments, my law librarian colleagues for their time and research skills, and those colleagues who encouraged me to make "how to find the law" an integral part of this guide.

Rare Book and Special Collections Division (Acknowledgments by Rosemary Fry Plakas and Jacqueline Coleburn, chapter authors)

We wish to thank both Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and Susan H. Vita, chief of the Special Materials Cataloging Division, for their support of this publication. For assistance with photography, thanks also to Margaret Kieckhefer. Elizabeth J. Gettins and Mark Williams, digital conversion specialists, checked the accuracy of items that were digitized for this chapter and provided handles.

Manuscript Division (Acknowledgments by Janice E. Ruth, chapter author)

With thanks for their support, I would like to acknowledge the academic advisers; editors Sara Day and Evelyn Sinclair (Publishing Office); Library colleagues Sheridan Harvey (Humanities and Social Sciences Division) and Barbara Orbach Natanson (Prints and Photographs Division); and Manuscript Division staff members Leonard C. Bruno, Connie L. Cartledge, James H. Hutson, Laura J. Kells, David Wigdor, and Mary M.Wolfskill for reviewing and commenting on earlier drafts of this chapter. For the online version, Manuscript Division cataloger Margit Kerwin reviewed selected bibliographic records, and digital conversion specialist Margaret Alessi assisted with the quality review and management of digital image files.

Prints and Photographs Division (Acknowledgments by Barbara Orbach Natanson, chapter author)

I would like to thank the members of the Prints and Photographs Division Reference, Curatorial, Technical Services, and Administrative Sections, many of whom read and commented on earlier versions of this chapter, assisted in locating and interpreting images, or provided cataloging assistance. Particular thanks go to Arden Alexander, Katherine Blood, Sara Duke, Jan Grenci, Mary Ison, Helena Zinkham, editors Sara Day and Evelyn Sinclair (Publishing Office), and Library colleagues Sheridan Harvey (Humanities and Social Sciences Division) and Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division) for their comments and assistance. In connection with the online site, I wish to thank Mary Ison and Helena Zinkham for their ongoing administrative support for the Prints and Photographs Division's participation in the American Women initiative and Jan Grenci for her assistance in locating additional illustrations for the online presentation.

Geography and Map Division (Acknowledgments by Patricia Molen van Ee, chapter author)

I would like to thank my colleagues, cartographic specialists Ronald E. Grim, James A. Flatness, and Gary L. Fitzpatrick for their assistance in identifying source material and recommending items for inclusion; digital conversion coordinator Gene E. Roberts for scanning and processing cartographic images; Gary L. Fitzpatrick for creating a digital map from the National Cancer Institute database; and program assistant Myra A. Laird for compiling bibliographic information and locating material. To the Geography and Map Division's chief, John R. Hébert, I am indebted for his granting me both the time and the independence to write and illustrate the chapter as I envisioned it, and for his wholehearted support of this project. For the online version, Colleen Cahill assisted with the creation and cataloging of the digital files, and Gary L. Fitzpatrick identified statistical data sites outside of the Library of Congress.

Music Division (Acknowledgments by Robin Rausch, chapter author)

I would like to extend special thanks to my Music Division colleagues Susan Clermont, Ruth Foss, and Wayne Shirley for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Recorded Sound Section–Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (Acknowledgments by Nancy J. Seeger, chapter author)

For their encouragement, support, and patience during all phases of this project, I would like to thank Samuel Brylawski, Bryan Cornell, Eugene DeAnna, Alan Gevinson, Edwin Matthias, and Brian Taves. My particular gratitude goes to Jan McKee, whose invaluable research on women in radio, with a particular focus on the Library's collections, is the source for much of the information found in this chapter.

Moving Image Section–Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (Acknowledgments by Rosemary Hanes with Brian Taves, chapter authors)

Thanks to our colleagues Barbara Humphrys, Cooper C. Graham, Patrick Loughney, and Mike Mashon for their contributions to this chapter. We are grateful to Constance J. Balides, of Tulane University, for her comments, suggestions, and encouragement.

American Folklife Center (Acknowledgments by James Hardin, chapter author)

Contributing to this chapter were Judith Gray, Joseph C. Hickerson, Ann Hoog, Alan Jabbour, Catherine Hiebert Kerst (an early member of the Library's Women's History Resource Group), and David Taylor. Catherine Hiebert Kerst also researched and cataloged the original photos for the online version, and Stephanie A. Hall prepared the text, proposed and reviewed the navigation and design of the chapter, and selected and captioned additional photographs for the online version.

Area Studies Collections (Acknowledgments by Peggy K. Pearlstein and Barbara A. Tenenbaum, chapter authors)

Individuals who helped in writing this chapter include Helen Fedor (European Division), Judy Liu (Asian Division), Yoko Akiba (Japanese), Hoa Nguyen (Vietnamese), Ibrahim Pourhadi (Farsi), George Kovtun (Czech), Fentahun Tiruneh (Amharic), John Topping (Greek), and Fawzi Tadros and Mary Jane Deeb (Arabic). Helpful in all ways were Georgette Dorn, chief of the Hispanic Division, Beverly Gray, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division, and Michael Grunberger, head of the Hebraic Section. Thanks also to Vicki Ruiz, Arizona State University, Pamela Nadell, American University, and Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, who read earlier drafts. Tracy R. North (Hispanic Division) assisted in revising the Latinas section for the online version.

[Top]

Topical Essays

Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 (Acknowledgments by Sheridan Harvey, essay author)

This essay could not have been written without contributions by Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division); Georgia Higley (Serial and Government Publications Division); Barbara Orbach Natanson (Prints and Photographs Division), Rosemary Plakas (Rare Book and Special Collections Division); Rosemary Hanes (Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division); Peggy Pearlstein (African and Middle Eastern Division); and Audrey Fischer (Public Affairs Office).

The Long Road to Equality: What Women Won from the ERA Ratification Effort (Acknowledgments by Leslie W. Gladstone, essay author)

For help with this essay, I am much indebted to the editors in the Publishing Office Sara Day and Evelyn Sinclair for their support and encouragement. I wish also to thank Nancy Seeger and Rosemary Hanes (Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division), Barbara Orbach Natanson (Prints and Photographs Division), Pam van Ee (Geography and Map Division), Georgia Higley (Serial and Government Publications Division), Sheridan Harvey (Humanities and Social Sciences Division), Pamela Craig Barnes (Law Library), and Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division) for their help with suggesting and locating materials in their collections.

"With Peace and Freedom Blest!" Woman As Symbol in America, 1590-1800 (Acknowledgments by Sara Day, essay author)

I wish to thank my coeditors, Evelyn Sinclair (Publishing Office) and Sheridan Harvey (Humanities and Social Sciences Division), Barbara Orbach Natanson (Prints and Photographs Division), and Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division) on the specialist editorial team, as well as John Hebert and Patricia Molen van Ee (Geography and Map Division) and Roger Walke (Congressional Research Service) for their encouragement and advice. Together with members of the scholars' advisory board, they helped me guide the way through the symbols to women's realities.

Women on the Move: Overland Journeys to California (Acknowledgments by Patricia Molen van Ee, essay author)

I wish to thank the advisory board scholars, especially Vicki Ruiz, for suggestions on sources and interpretation; Rosemary Fry Plakas (Rare Book and Special Collections Division), Janice E. Ruth (Manuscript Division), Harry Katz (Prints and Photographs Division), Robin Rausch (Music Division), and Barbara Tenenbaum (Hispanic Division) for searching the Library's collections; John Hébert, for his support; Gene Roberts for digitally enhancing and processing the Narvaes map; Myra A. Laird for bibliographic searching; and editors Evelyn Sinclair and Sara Day (Publishing Office).

The House that Marian Built: The MacDowell Colony of Peterborough, New Hampshire (Acknowledgments by Robin Rausch, essay author)

I wish to thank music specialists Susan Clermont and Kevin LaVine for their helpful comments and suggestions, and Robert Saladini, who first brought Marian to my attention and encouraged me to tell her story. Thanks also to Rosemary Hanes (Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division), Sheridan Harvey (Humanities and Social Sciences Division), Rosemary Fry Plakas (Rare Book and Special Collections Division), and Nancy Seeger (Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division) for their assistance in locating MacDowell materials in their respective collections.


[Top]
red line divider
Home About the Gateway Research Guide
The Library of Congress > American Memory