Elaine Hedges papers (MS.2011.007)

The Elaine Hedges papers includes correspondence; manuscripts; research materials (including scattered notes); bibliographies (some with annotations); copies of scholarly essays (some with marginalia); administrative materials; periodicals; photographs (including slides); and a small assortment of mixed-media materials. This collection dates from 1958 and continues through 1998, the bulk of which ranges from the early 1970s to 1997. Series 1. Correspondence: A small amount of scattered correspondence to or about Elaine Hedges that offers insight into both her personal and professional life. It includes letters of condolence collected by her family after her death in 1997, testifying to her many personal attributes and professional achievements. There are also letters from her academic and publishing colleagues that document the depth and scope of her professional activities, and from which one gets a more than adequate sense of Hedges as both a stellar scholar, writer and educator. It should be noted that this series includes various accompanying materials enclosed within many of the individual letters, including contracts, forms and other administrative documents.

Series 2. Personal Materials: Also small in scope, this series contains scattered items documenting aspects of Hedges' personal and social life. It includes annotated desk and wall calendars from 1975 through 1997, copies of her curriculum vitae, and a few of her diaries documenting trips she took to China in 1989 and 1995. Other items of special interest include an assortment of articles (mostly newspaper clippings) about Hedges and her various professional accomplishments, including scholarly interviews and professional tributes. Various obituaries of Hedges and memorials commemorating her life collected by family and friends are also included here.

Series 3. Quilting: This is a comprehensive collection of materials ranging from the 1970s to the late 1990s, documenting Hedges' broad research on the history and significance of quilts within the context of women's social and political history, art, literature, and culture. It primarily consists of research materials such as large files of assorted bibliographical references, many with accompanying annotations by Hedges; extensive research notes (mostly hand-written by Hedges on loose sheets of paper, arranged by topic), all of which attest to her scrupulous attention to detail and academic rigor; several large index card files of additional bibliographical references and notes; and a collection of scholarly essays (by various authors other than Hedges) analyzing the significance of women and quilting and other types of needlework (in the form of photocopies and/or original clippings from various periodicals and scholarly journals). It also includes a small collection of files about individual quilt artists, as well as a small collection of quilt images that she kept as visual references and keepsakes (derived from ephemeral sources such as postcards and journals). This series also incorporates research materials about literary works (both fiction and non-fiction) that allude to aspects of quilting (and/or sewing), or that utilize quilting (and/or sewing) within a metaphorical context. Also incorporated in this series are materials documenting Hedges' membership in quilting organizations, and her extensive participation in quilting conferences, including records of her speaking engagements and manuscripts of some of her talks.

Series 4. Women's Studies: This series is also comprehensive in scope, ranging from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. It documents Hedges' extensive knowledge of women's studies, her pioneering promotion of it as a viable and needed academic discipline in the early 1970s when no such program existed, and the many important contributions that she made to it as both scholar and teacher. Particularly noteworthy are the materials that document the development of Hedges' extensive knowledge of, research on, and her subsequent critical interpretation of the literary works of American women, all of which provide a window into, not only Hedges' intellectual curiosity and scholastic precision, but also her carefully crafted feminist-critical methodology. It includes files covering a broad range of research on a variety of literary works, ranging from the rather obscure diaries of nineteenth century American women to the writings of such iconic writers as Emily Dickinson, Eliza Calvert Hall and Adrienne Rich. It also includes materials documenting Hedges' many contributions to the literary study of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as both the editor of the first modern Feminist Press edition of Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and as the writer of its afterword, heralded by many feminist scholars as one of the best pioneering works of feminist literary criticism ever written. This section on Gilman also includes corresponding documentation about the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society which Hedges founded along with Shelley Fisher Fishkin in 1990. One key document in this series is the manuscript of Hedges' introductory essay to Ripenings: Selected Work: A Collection of Writings by Meridel Le Sueur, a book edited by Hedges, and published by the Feminist Press (in 1982, and revised in 1990). Last but not least, this series also documents Hedges' active membership in a variety of academic organizations, including the leadership roles she undertook in the American Studies Association and as a founding member of the Modern Language Association's Commission on the Status of Women, which was created to investigate the inequities that women were experiencing in academia.

Series 5. University: The bulk of this series ranges from the early 1970s to late 1990s and includes an interesting assortment of administrative materials that especially highlight Hedges' teaching career, particularly the many years she spent as professor of American Literature at Towson State University. Among the noteworthy files in this series are an interesting assortment of her teaching materials, which include class notes, research notes (in other areas outside of women's studies), syllabi, and some student papers, as well as administrative materials such as meeting minutes, reports, and grant requests. It includes files of American male authors as well as materials on curriculum transformation.

Series 6. Writings: This series incorporates a hefty collection of manuscripts and print copies of scholarly essays, talks, presentations, and other works by Hedges, dating from 1968 to 1997. Of particular interest are the scholarly articles she wrote for publication within the purview of the history of American women and their literature and needlework, including a copy of her essay "The 19th-Century Diarist and Her Quilts," published in American Quilts: a Handmade Legacy by the Oakland Museum (1981) and reprinted in Feminist Studies (vol. 8, no. 2) the following year; and the original manuscript and galley proof of the article, "The Needle or the Pen : the Literary Rediscovery of Women's Textile Work," published in Tradition and the Talents of Women, edited by Florence Howe by the University of Illinois Press (1991). It includes scattered notes and manuscripts of talks she gave at various conferences and an extensive collection of articles (in the form of newspaper clippings) of the many book reviews she penned for the Baltimore Daily Sun and the Women's Review of Books.

Series 7. Publishing: Although small in size, dating from the late 1950s to the late 1990s, this series provides a window into Hedges' broad participation in the world of publishing as both editor and author. It includes permissions to publish, contracts, royalty statements, office memos, meeting agendas, and book proposals. It should be noted that scattered throughout the files here are various letters, mostly from publishers to Hedges about various projects that she was involved in. Of special interest are the materials that document the pioneering work Hedges accomplished as one of the editors of the Heath Anthology of American Literature--especially the part she played in bringing her women's studies expertise into the implementation of its multicultural methodology. Also of special interest is a rather small, but interesting file of scattered materials documenting Hedges' association with the Feminist Press, including a reference to her ground-breaking analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, and some essays that she wrote for their periodical, Women's Studies Quarterly. Also contained in this series is a small sequence of files documenting the production of Listening to Silences: New Essays in Feminist Criticism (Oxford University Press, 1994), an acclaimed book which Hedges edited (with Shelley Fisher Fishkin); and a few scattered materials documenting some of Hedges' other publishing projects, including the essay she for wrote for Hearts and Hands: the Influence of Women & Quilts on American Society (Quilt Digest Press, 1987), and corresponding references to the subsequent production of the film of the same name (produced by Hearts and Hands Films, 1988). Series 8. Photographs: Dating from 1962 to 1997, this is an interesting, but small collection of photographs primarily comprised of portraits of Hedges, her family, and her many friends and colleagues. It contains snapshots of the Hedges' family and some of their holiday gatherings; photos of her retirement party, among other professional events; and some photos of quilts, taken by Hedges, from the Star Quilt Project at the NGO Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995. The heart of this series are the many photographic slides of quilts and art works by women artists which Hedges compiled as visual documentation to accompany classroom instruction and the many talks she gave at professional conferences.

Series 9. Publications: Dating from 1962 to 1997, this series primarily contains issues from various periodicals and scholarly journals, most of which include scholarly essays by Hedges. Substantive women's studies pieces by Hedges, such as "Small Things Considered: Susan Glaspell's 'A Jury of Her Peers'" in Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Vol. 12, no. 1, 1986) and "The 19th-Century Diarist and Her Quilts" in Feminist Studies (vol. 8, no. 2, 1982) highlight the heart of her academic interests and accomplishments. In addition, this series also incorporates her many pioneering works on multiculturalism, including such pioneering pieces as "Women's Studies and the High School Curriculum" in Dialogue (Vol. 6, no. 3, 1974); "Repositionings: Multiculturalism, American Literary History, and the Curriculum," in American Literature (vol. 66, no. 4, 1994); and "Literature: Each Age Must Write Its Own Book: the 'Heath Anthology'" in Acequia (v.1, no.1, 1991). Also of note in this series is an extensive, collection of book reviews that Hedges penned for such titles as Signs, Legacy, and the Women's Review of Books. Not to be overlooked here in this series are scattered issues from two small press newsletters about quilts and quiltmaking: Blanket Statements: Newsletter of the American Quilt Study Group (1993-1997) and Cover Stories: Newsletter of the Canadian Quilt Study Group (1992-1997).

Series 10. MultimediaThis series contains audio, computer and video formats. There audio is a cassette tape of a National Public Radio interview of Hedges recorded circa 1992. The 3.5 inch floppy disc contains a copy of Rebecca Mark's essay "Teaching from the open closet," including her contributor's note, submitted for publication in Listening to Silences: New Essays in Feminist Criticism (1994). The videotapes document conferences and workshops that Hedges attended.