Documenting Maryland women state legislators: The politics of collecting women's political papers

Abstract

Collecting political papers related to women requires archivists to adopt a broader perspective than does collecting political papers in general. Special Collections at the University of Maryland, College Park, has collected the papers of women state legislators and other political materials related to women and women's issues for almost forty years and serves as one institutional example of documenting women in politics, more specifically women state legislators. This article identifies the unique challenges related to collecting the papers of women state legislators and provides general recommendations for developing basic collecting and selection criteria that incorporate critical thinking about women in elected office. A brief discussion about research use of the papers of women state legislators follows to illustrate how researchers utilize or neglect these collections for various reasons. Finally, this article demonstrates that even though women appear to be entering the political mainstream, archivists need to be continually vigilant of the complexities inherent in documenting women and other underrepresented groups in the American political landscape.