Special Collections

Finding Aid for the Southern Women Legislators Collection
(MUM00422)

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Finding Aid for the Southern Women Legislators Collection

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

Joanne V. Hawks & Carolyn Ellis donated the Southern Women Legislators Collection in 1998.

Processing Information

Lisa Speer processed the collection soon after receipt. Political Papers Archivist Leigh McWhite revised the finding aid in
2008 and again in July 2009. Jason Kovari encoded the online finding aid, 16 July 2009.

In 2010-2011, a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services enabled the archive to preserve and digitize all the
recordings in the Southern Women Legislators Collection. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed as
part of this project do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Additions

No further additions are expected to this collection.

Subject Terms

Formats

Biographical Note

Joanne V. Hawks served as the last Dean of Women at the University of Mississippi between 1972 and 1981 and became the first
director of the university’s Sarah Isom Center for Women (1981 through 1998). Carolyn Ellis was an Associate Professor of
Law at the University of Mississippi Law School at the time this collection was compiled. As Carolyn Ellis Staton, she became
Provost of the university in 1999. Hawks & Ellis received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study
the role of women in southern state legislatures. They coauthored or individually wrote several articles describing the results
of their analyses.

Bibliography

Mary Caroline Ellis & Joanne V. Hawks, “Ladies in the Gentleman’s Club: South Carolina Women Legislators, 1928-1984” Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association (1986), pp. 17-32.

________________________________, “Creating a Different Pattern: Florida’s Women Legislators, 1928-1986” Florida Historical Quarterly Vol. 66 No. 1 (1987), pp. 68-83.

Joanne V. Hawks, M. Carolyn Ellis, & J. Byron Morris, “Women in the Mississippi Legislature (1924-1981)” Journal of Mississippi History Vol. 43 No. 4 (November 1981), pp. 266-293.

Joanne V. Hawks, “Like Mother, Like Daughter: Nellie Nugent Somerville and Lucy Somerville Howorth” Journal of Mississippi History Vol. 45 No. 2 (1983), pp. 116-128.

______________, “A Select Few: Alabama’s Women Legislators, 1922-1983” Alabama Review Vol. 38 No. 3 (1985), pp. 175-201.

______________, “A Challenge to Racism and Sexism: Black Women in Southern Legislatures, 1965-1986” Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women Vol. 5 No. 2 (1988), pp. 20-23.

______________, “Stepping out of the Shadows into Politics: Women in the Alabama Legislature, 1922-1990” in Stepping out of the Shadows: Alabama Women, 1819-1990 edited by Mary Martha Thomas (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), pp. 154-175.

Scope and Content Note

The files of the Southern Women Legislators Collection are grouped first by state and then organized alphabetically by the
name of individual legislators. Most state files also possess several files containing general information. The files of individual
legislators contain secondary biographical information, newspaper clippings, political ephemera, completed questionnaires,
and correspondence.

User Information

Prefered Citation

Southern Women Legislators Collection, Archives and Special Collections, J.D. Williams Library, The
University of Mississippi

Access Restrictions

The Southern Women Legislators Collection is open for research. This collection is stored at an off-site facility. Researchers
interested in using this collection must contact Archives and Special Collections at least two business days in
advance of their planned visit.

For preservation reasons, access to the cassette tapes stored in boxes 15 and 16 is restricted. Researchers may access their
digital counterparts in the Southern Women Legislators Digital Collection at https://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/swl. Please note that although descriptions for all of the collection’s recordings are available to anyone on the internet,
copyright concerns dictate that researchers may only access the recordings via onsite computer terminals in the J.D. Williams
Library.

Copyright Restrictions

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the
making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under
certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized
to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions
is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other
than private study, scholarship or research.” If a user makes a request for, or
later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of “fair use”,
that user may be liable for copyright infringement.

Related Material

Resources at the University of Mississippi

Sarah Isom Center Collection contains files related to the NEH grant that funded the research conducted by Hawks and Ellis,
as well as other files on women in politics. Finding aid available at: http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM00689/

League of Women Voters (Mississippi Division) Collection holds the archives for the Mississippi Division as well as many local
state chapters. Finding aid available at: http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM00261/

Lily Thompson Collection contains the papers of Mississippi suffragist Lily Thompson, which includes correspondence and other
documents related to the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, Belle Kearney, and Nellie Nugent Somerville. Finding aid
available at: http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM00446/

Arrangement

Container List