Articles

Vanished Worlds: Searching for the Records of Closed Catholic Women's Colleges

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Abstract

This article presents the results of a survey of the archives of 36 Roman Catholic women's colleges that have closed or merged with other institutions since 1967. The majority of these archives are held by the women's religious communities that originally sponsored the colleges, although about one third are held by universities. These archives are rich resources on the history of women, education, religion, and culture that to some degree have been neglected by scholars who have focused on the history of colleges that are still open. As well as suggesting avenues for future research, this article contributes to the literature on how archives can cope with the voluminous records of twentieth-century institutions, and to emerging scholarship on the relationship of archives and memory. The survey upon which it is based revealed certain limitations on preservation, access, and use of these archives, so the article concludes with recommendations on how to make them more visible.

How to Cite:

Perrone, F., (2006) “Vanished Worlds: Searching for the Records of Closed Catholic Women's Colleges”, Archival Issues 30(2), 119–149. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/archivalissues.10954