UPPER MIDWEST WOMEN'S HISTORY CENTER:

The Upper Midwest Women’s History Center (UMWHC) was founded by Gretchen Kreuter, Marjorie Wall Bingham, and Susan Hill Gross as a project of the Minnesota-based nonprofit organization, Women Historians of the Midwest (WHOM). It was started in 1980 with grant funding from Title IX of the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA) and was originally called the Upper Midwest Women’s History Center for Teachers. The UMWHC was founded as a teacher-training center and originally organized as a regional center. It primarily served educators in a six state area by giving support to teachers to help transform history curriculum from a male-centered view to one that fully included the experience of women.

Original staff of the UMWHC was made up of historian Kathleen O’Brien, elementary school teacher Shiela C. Robertson, librarian K.G. Woods, and administrative assistant Deborah Bauer. Eileen Soderberg was administrative assistant from 1982-1993. Susan Gross was named executive director and continued in that position throughout the 20 years of the Center’s operations.

UMWHC also published instructional materials that were distributed to a larger national and international audience. This was facilitated through projects, workshops and public forums on women’s history topics and teaching methods.

One such project, Women and Development Issues in Three World Areas (1987-1991), was funded with a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development Education Program (Biden-Pell). The goal of this project was to develop and disseminate curriculum units on the concerns and contributions of women in developing areas, particularly Africa south of the Sahara, South Asia, and Latin America. All total, six curriculum units that included teacher's manuals, selected bibliographies, discussion questions, and background readings were produced.

Funds diminished in the early 1990s, and with the idea of becoming integrated into a larger institution, the UMWHC moved to facilities at Hamline University. Though affiliated with Hamline, the UMWHC maintained its separate status as a nonprofit organization and remained at Hamline for six years (1993-1999) until the Center closed.

The UMWHC sponsored a number of events from 1993-1999. During 1993-1994, it brought the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Exhibition, Girls and Girlhood: A Perilous Path to Minnesota, organizing many events to highlight themes of the exhibit. The exhibit was located in the Gallery at Dayton’s in Minneapolis and attracted 16,000 people. At the time of the exhibit the Center also sponsored “Girls Day” at Hamline University, a day-long event featuring interactive events, art projects, girl sponsored discussions, and exhibits.

The Center expanded the scope of its mission and operations as a result of national recognition from the UNICEF Exhibition. In 1996 the UMWHC was selected to be the fiscal agent for publicly raised donations to the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial Fund. The UMWHC received the Ann Bancroft Award in the spring of 1998, given to outstanding individuals and organizations that support and encourage the progress of girls and women. In July 1998 in cooperation with the Minnesota Orchestral Association, the UMWHC sponsored an all-woman composer concert in celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the First Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York. The Center also lent assistance and support to projects related to the integration of women’s history into K-12 curriculum.

Despite its success, the UMWHC closed in 1999 due to limited financial resources.

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Upper Midwest Women's History Center records include curriculum material, project and event files (1977-1999), meeting files (1991-1999), pilot teaching files (ca. 1990-1993), publicity files (ca. 1977-1999), workshop and presentation files (1988-1998), and correspondence.

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Access Restrictions:

Access to and use of reserve materials requires the curator's permission.

Use and Reproduction:

Authors retain copyright in any and all publications produced by the Upper Midwest Women's History Center. For further information concerning copyright status and/or permission to publish, please consult the reference staff.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Upper Midwest Women's History Center Organizational Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession numbers: 15,712; 15,841; 16,381

Processing Information:

Processed by: Alex Kent, August 2009

Catalog ID number: 990069356470104294

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Organizational records of both the Women Historians of the Midwest and the Women in World Area Studies Project are also available in the Minnesota Historical Society manuscript collections.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Curriculum planning -- Minnesota.

Teacher centers.

Women -- History.

Women history teachers -- Minnesota.

Persons:

Bingham, Marjorie Wall, 1936-

Gross, Susan Hill, 1934-

Kreuter, Gretchen V.

Rojas, Mary, 1940-

Places:

Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial (Saint Paul, Minn.)

Meetings:

Woman's Rights Convention -- Anniversaries, etc.

Woman's Rights Convention -- Songs and music.

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