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Congresswoman's Papers Come to Smith

Smith College trustee Jane Lakes Harman '66, who last year ended a three-term tenure as congresswoman from California, has given her papers to the Sophia Smith Collection. The papers began arriving at Smith last December-147 cartons or 184 linear feet of them, enough to fill about 23 standard four-drawer file cabinets.

While the Sophia Smith Collection boasts the papers of a number of political reformers (Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams and Gloria Steinem '56 among them), "the only other ones we had for a politician or elected official were some from Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii dealing with women's issues," observes Sherrill Redmon, director of the collection.

The initial batch of Harman papers includes constituent and other correspondence, reports, briefings, testimony given at hearings and committee files. (Harman served on the national security and select permanent intelligence committees.) The papers document the full range of issues Congress grappled with in the 1990s and go into depth on the issues of greatest concern to Harman-equal treatment, combat roles and access to abortions for women in the military; term limits and campaign finance reform; programs to convert defense facilities to post­Cold War uses, support for various weapons and space programs, federal budget reduction, the balanced-budget constitutional amendment and the line-item veto.

Commenting on the Harman acquisition, Donald L. Robinson, Charles N. Clark Professor of Government, says: "Jane Harman has already had a wide-ranging and distinguished career in government and politics. She has been a congressional staff-person, held administrative positions at the Pentagon, won a seat in Congress from an intensely competitive district in southern California, and waged a spirited campaign for the governorship of the nation's largest state. Her papers will bring scholars from across the country to our fine Sophia Smith Collection, and they will be a treasure for student and faculty researchers at Smith and in the Valley."

For as long as the two years it may take to process them, however, the Harman papers will be inaccessible to researchers.

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of College Relations, Garrison Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063. Last update: 10/18/99.


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