This summer, an early 50 Women at Yale 150 initiative launched at Manuscripts and Archives. Funded anonymously and conducted under the umbrella of the 50 Women at Yale 150 Steering Committee, two doctoral students worked with Yale University Archivist Michael Lotstein on an annotated research guide about coeducation.  

Sarah Pickman, a doctoral student in the Department of History, and Brent Salter, a doctoral student at Yale  Law School, examined more than forty-six collections, took meticulous notes, and determined which material was best suited for the research guide. The results of their work will be published online with the University Library's research guides: https://guides.library.yale.edu/?b=s.  According to Lotstein, the guide will help all students and researchers to “zero in on specific documents of interest.” He also noted that this research guide will be unique in its comprehensiveness, depth, and scale. 

Immediate beneficiaries of this subject guide will be students in both–Yale College and the Graduate & Professional Schools–who have shown an increased research interest in coeducation in America over the past several years. This renewed study of coeducation has attracted students in many departments, including Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Lotstein noted that it was “serendipitous to have the need arise and to also have the generous support of the Steering Committee.”

The research guide will be available in the Spring of 2019, just as 50 Women at Yale 150 programming is increasing, and in time for what we anticipate will be an even greater scholarly interest in coeducation. We hope that this is just the start of our Yale women alums’  engagement with Yale’s archives.

We will be reporting on this and other projects of the celebration year; stand-by for further updates. 

- Miko McGinty ’93, ’98 MFA