Smith College Special Collections

We are saddened to learn of the passing yesterday of Jane Yolen, Smith College class of 1960. She was a talented and prolific author of books (450!) for both adults and children, including Tea with an Old Dragon about a young girl who meets Smith’s founder Sophia Smith. In college she majored in English and served on the student-run Press Board.

Jane was active in class of 1960 reunion activities after graduation. For their 30th reunion, she wrote the class signs her classmates carried in the Ivy Day parade around the theme “‘60 in Full Flower”. Shown here are her draft signage ideas, including “From virgin to burgeon”, “From Flower Child to Full Flower / We’ve grown into women power”, and “From Rose Bud to Bud Light”.

(Materials are from Jane Yolen’s alum biographical file and the class of 1960 reunion records in the College Archives, CA-MS-01024.)

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1. Jane Yolen, Press Board photo
2. 1960 yearbook portrait
3 & 4. Jane Yolen’s draft pages of Ivy Day sign ideas (1989)
5. Class of 1960 at Ivy Day with signs (1990)

Celebrate Commencement and Reunion weekends with us in Special Collections! 🎓
On the Fridays and Saturdays of Reunions I and II, join us for Open House activities, including curated displays of unique and rare materials, button making, films from the College Archives, and tours of our stacks and work spaces. In addition, student-curated exhibits on the third floor of Neilson are available for viewing during all open library hours.
On the two Reunion Fridays, the Special Collections reading room will be open for visitors during our usual hours (though not for active research), from 10-12 and 1-4:45. Then on the two Saturdays, our Open House hours will be from 1-4:45.
Come up to the third floor of Neilson, make a button or two, pick up a new Special Collections postcard, talk to our staff members, and enjoy all that we have to offer! 🥰

It’s Stress Free Week! Next Monday, stop by the first floor of Neilson Library between 1:30 and 3:30 to take a break from studying and write postcards to your loved ones. Postcards and postage provided by Special Collections! 💌📫

Please join us this Friday, May 1, to see students in the Archives, Museums, and Book Studies concentrations present their capstone projects! 🥳🧑‍🏫
Book Studies students will present from 1:00-2:00 in the Neilson Library Browsing Room (102).
Archives students will present from 2:30-5:00 in the Browsing Room.
Museums students will present from 2:00-5:00 in the Special Collections Classroom (Neilson Library 303).
A reception with food and drink will follow from 5:00-6:00 on the third floor of Neilson Library. We hope to see you there! 🥂

On April 24, the Smith College campus celebrated Collaborations, a time for students to share and showcase their scholarship with the broader community. This year, that scholarship included our very own STRIDE student, Moby Yang! 🤩🤩
Moby has been working with us for the last two years, creating your favorite social media content. But they have also been researching and curating a project that they turned into their Collaborations exhibit called “To Be Home or to Be College? Conceptions of “Community” in the History of Smith Dining and Housing.” The exhibit uses materials from the College Archives to tell the story of Smith dining and its connection to the housing system throughout different Smith eras. 🏠

Moby was inspired to research this topic because of their time so far at Smith. They write, “When I arrived at Smith, it was the fall after the closure of the Cushing/Emerson dining hall. I remember hearing from upperclassmen how inconvenient and upsetting the closure was, which helped me understand for the first time how impactful the college’s dining system is for its students. Now that more plans for dining changes and consolidations are in the air for Smith’s future, I find myself wondering if it is inevitable that the college’s uniquely decentralized dining system will dwindle out as we move forward. My hope was that by looking into this college’s history of dining and housing, I could answer some of my questions. If this is the path Smith is on, then what led us here? In what ways has the ‘home’ of Smith offered community for students, and in what ways has it left students out? And if the structures are changing in dining, what could this mean for the college’s sense of community? Or rather, what might our ‘community’ look like in the future?”

Come see Moby’s exhibit in-person on the third floor of Neilson library, in the hallway leading to the Special Collections reading room, up through June! ❤️✨

The was founded in 1970 by Florence Howe and continues to fulfill its vision “to create a world where everyone recognizes themselves in a book.” The Mortimer Rare Book Collection is thrilled to announce the recent acquisition of sixty books that Howe collected as director of the Press’ Women Writing Africa project. This monumental endeavor “documented and mapped the extraordinary and diverse landscape of African women’s oral and written literatures” across the continent.

Comprised largely of first editions published on the African continent, the collection contains a number of the books inscribed by the authors to Howe herself, who often recorded the date and place of purchase at the front of her books. The collection, which will be cataloged and available for research in the coming months, also contains many examples of works that did not make it into the four-volume Feminist Press series, and preserves these works for researchers in their original format, as they were encountered by African readers and outsiders like Howe. ❤️📚

The Libraries are thrilled to announce Kit Messick, Head of Smith College Special Collections Technical Services, has been selected for the 2026 Archives Leadership Institute at the University of Virginia!

The Archives Leadership Institute is a grant-funded program supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and provides advanced leadership development for a cohort of 25 archivists and memory workers. Participants were selected based on demonstrated professional achievement, leadership potential, sustained commitment to the archival field, and the capacity to influence positive change across organizations and communities.

As a key team member in Special Collections, Kit is responsible for the long-term stewardship of the Sophia Smith Collection, the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, and the College Archives. We so appreciate her work and are excited for this opportunity!

Learn more: https://libraries.smith.edu/news/kit-messick-selected-2026-archives-leadership-institute-university-virginia

We asked you what your favorite part of our Special Connections event was this year, and the material with the most votes was none other than Smith College’s very own Chase and Duckett!
With two joint houses named after them, Eleanor Shipley Duckett (1880-1976) and Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973) were both well-regarded scholars, professors at Smith, and each other’s lifelong partners. Duckett taught Classical Languages and Literature, Chase taught English, and they lived together on Paradise Road. 🏡♥️ In 2023, residents of Chase and Duckett houses came together to throw a wedding for the two in honor of their partnership and love, and for the students’ love of their houses.💍😍
To see more of these two, be sure to check out the “Chuckett” display on the third floor of Neilson Library!

Image descriptions:
1. Chase and Duckett (1949)
2. Chase and Duckett dressed as maids for the “Sophia’s Circus” event, where they waited on tables for dinner at Dickinson House (1944)
3. Portrait of Chase (1949)
4. Portrait of Duckett (1942)
5. Chase writing at a table (1934)
6. Chase with ci******es (~1960s)
7. Duckett in her office (~1970s)
8. Duckett outside (~1970s)
9. Chase in winter coat and hat (undated)
10. Chase and Duckett aboard the Queen Mary, a historic British ocean liner that operated from 1936-1967 (1961)

Written and compiled by Moby Yang ‘28.
Materials from the Eleanor Shipley Duckett Papers (CA-MS-00057), Mary Ellen Chase Papers (CA-MS-00057), and Smith College Archives slide collection (CA-MS-01197) in the Smith College Archives.

We just can’t get enough of the sweetness you all brought to Special Connections in Special Collections! These amazing pictures capture only some of the joy, love, and excitement that filled this day! 😻💞🌹Thank you for spending a part of your Valentine’s Day weekend with us in the archives. What was your favorite part? Let us know in the comments!💫
Special thanks are also in order to all of our incredible student assistants who curated the selection of materials on display and helped to prep and work the event. AND to the incomparable for making Special Connections a true party! 🪩🕺
If you couldn’t make it in-person, you can still experience the magic! You can always come to the Special Collections reading room and see materials from the event for yourself. This link will bring you to a spreadsheet of all the materials that were on display this year, and you can view them at your leisure during our open hours. 😘 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p0BNb8fZqPWYUcsyDtUlCTVcap2RUKTskkterbH1_n8/edit?usp=sharing
Plus, we have a display of some favorite items from the event on exhibit on the third floor of Neilson Library, up through March!💗
We are so grateful to be able to create a space for you to make connections and find joy in the archives. We are here to be that space for you anytime, on Valentine’s Day and beyond! 🥰🫰

📸 Photos taken by Samm Smith, Jasmine Bhakta ‘28J, and Maddie McAllister ‘26

Are you, or is someone you know curious about careers in archives and rare books? On March 5 from 3:30-5:30, meet Smith College Special Collections staff and explore your options!

Drop-in to chat with staff with backgrounds in archives, museums, libraries, historic houses, and more. Learn about their jobs and career pathways, tour staff-only spaces, and find out how to apply your skills toward archives and rare books careers!

Unique Special Collections swag is available for the first 50 attendees, and registration is required. Learn more: https://libraries.smith.edu/news/special-collections-career-insights-open-house-march-5