Search Special Collections
Smith College Special Collections
Use the tools and links on this page to find materials in the College Archives, Mortimer Rare Book Collection, and Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History.
Search Tools
Special Collections Finding Aids
Finding aids to over 1,000 Smith College Special Collections archival and manuscript collections. Search the names of individuals, organizations or events.
- To search a specific collection, use the navigation bar to the right of the page (or at the bottom, depending on your screen size)
- Click on the arrows to expand each section to see the names of folders or groups of folders under each series or topic
- Read the Scope and Content notes as well as the Biographical/Historical note on the main page to understand the subjects covered in the collection
- Read the Conditions Governing Access notes for information about possible collection restrictions.
This is the best place to find materials in the Mortimer Rare Book Collection.
- Search subject, keyword, author, title, or date range.
- In the results list, under "Library Location" in the left panel, select "Smith College Special Collections"
Research Guides
These guides provide a starting point for research with some of our most frequently used materials in Special Collections.
General
College Archives Research Resources
Oral Histories Special Collections Resources
Rare Books and Manuscripts in Smith College Special Collections
Individuals
Gloria Steinem Special Collections Resources
Sylvia Plath Special Collections Resources
Organizations
Ms. Magazine Special Collections Resources
Planned Parenthood Special Collections Resources
By Subject
Architecture and Landscape Design in Smith College Special Collections
The “Good Speech Movement” at Smith: A History of the Spoken English Department
LGBTQ+ Activism and Culture Resources in Smith College Special Collections
Reading and Writing Cursive in Special Collections
Reproductive Justice Resources in Smith College Special Collections
Women's Suffrage in the U.S. Special Collections Resources
Digitized Content
In the Finding Aids
| Special Collections Finding Aids | To review digitized material available for each collection, click on the "View Digital Material" tab for each finding aid. |
On the Website
| Smith Digital Collections | Smith College Special Collections offers digital resources that can assist your research. These resources represent a sampling of the materials in the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, College Archives, and Mortimer Rare Book Collection. |
| Compass: Digital Collections | Digital images from the collections at Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire colleges. Images from Smith College represent materials in the College Archives, Mortimer Rare Book Collection, and Sophia Smith Collection. |
| Online Exhibits | Exhibits on select topics represented in Special Collections. Includes images of collection materials and contextual information. |
College Archives
| College Archives Digital Collections | Image galleries, online exhibitions, and documentation of significant events in the history of Smith College. |
| Digitized College Publications | Class Books, curriculum catalogs, Smith Alumnae Quarterly, and other publications produced by Smith College, past and present. |
| Archive-It Web Archiving | Archived web content for Smith College including the Libraries and Special Collections. |
Mortimer Rare Book Collection
| Mortimer Rare Book Collection Selections | A selection of digitized materials pages from various printed books and manuscripts (hosted on Artstor; Smith login required when off-campus). |
| Woolf Online | A collection of materials related to Virginia Woolf’s writing of “To the Lighthouse,” in the late 1920s. Included are holograph drafts, diary entries and letters, early reviews, selected essays and photographs of the Stephen family, Cornwall and Talland House, all of which inform the setting and characters of the novel. |
| Digital Scriptorium | The Mortimer Rare Book Collection contributions to the Digital Scriptorium, an educational consortium of American libraries with collections of pre-modern manuscripts or manuscripts made in the tradition of books before printing. |
Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History
| Sophia Smith Collection Digital Collections | Select digitized materials from the SSC and databases featuring digitized SSC material. |