Chicago Women's History Center's archival legacy is preserved and made accessible

Chicago Women's History Center's archival legacy is preserved and made accessible through a partnership with the University of Illinois Chicago's Richard J. Daley Library, Special Collections & University Archives. The full collection — cataloged as Chicago Women's History Center collections (MSHECW01) — spans 152 linear feet of material dating from 1929 to 2022, with the bulk of records covering 1970–2022.

The relationship between CWHC and UIC runs deeper than simple archival storage. It traces back to CWHC's first major research initiative: the Historical Encyclopedia of Chicago Women project, launched in 1990 in partnership with UIC's Center for Research on Women and Gender. That decade-long collaboration culminated in the landmark 2001 publication Women Building Chicago, 1790–1990: A Biographical Dictionary, featuring 423 biographies contributed by more than 300 scholars.

What UIC Special Collections holds

  • CWHC's organizational records — minutes, reports, newsletters, speeches, and outreach materials documenting the Center's history since its 1971 founding as the Chicago Area Women's History Conference

  • Full research files, contributor records, and pre-publication proofs from the Women Building Chicago project

  • Oral history interviews and archival collections gathered through “Documenting Women's Activism and Leadership in the Chicago Area, 1945–2000,” CWHC's second major initiative, launched in 2008

  • More than thirty smaller donated collections of personal papers from Chicago women activists — including Julie Hamos, Andra Medea, and Phyllis Tholin — along with Lesbian Feminist Exhibit records and other program materials

This partnership ensures that the Center's decades of grassroots documentation — oral histories, correspondence, ephemera, photographs, and born-digital files — are professionally preserved and available to researchers, scholars, and the public in perpetuity, while CWHC continues its ongoing work identifying and collecting new material.

Visit UIC’s finding aid for more information.