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© 2006 Smith College. All rights reserved.
Group of women at the Lincoln Memorial, n.d.
Photograph by Alfred Wertheimer
This New York-based affiliate of Women's International Non-Government Organizations sponsored leadership training programs and seminars designed to prepare women to assume leadership roles in their emerging nations. It was founded in 1953 by women in the United States for the purpose of exchanging ideas, experiences, and information with women abroad. Five thousand women in 138 countries participated; contacts were mostly with educated professional women "leaders," separately and through organizations. The Committee of Correspondence worked with international women's organizations; it was not a membership organization itself. A major service of the Committee was the distribution of written material. Bulletins were sent monthly to each of the 5,000 correspondents which provided information on subjects such as child welfare, community development, education, social welfare, status of women and women in public life.
Other functions included: acting as a referral service to direct correspondents to both American and world organizations with their questions; sponsoring field consultants to aid women's organizations in teaching the skills of leadership and management; facilitating the exchange of information among women's field workers in Africa and Latin American to help with community development projects. "The committee believes it is important to supply information and leadership training; to broaden contacts and to increase understanding among those women who are faced with the choice of associating with organizations founded along democratic lines, and those having communist ties."
The records include extensive official correspondence (1952-69) as well as hundreds of letters to and from correspondents throughout the world documenting the work of the organization. In addition there are official records; minutes; complete files of multi- lingual publications entitled "Community Action Series" and "Meeting Community Needs;" miscellaneous publications; conferences and workshop material; circa 150 photographs; oral history transcripts, 1988-89, with related biographical material and writings by individuals; and card files on individual participants, filed by country. The country files also contain published materials pertaining to the status and problems of the world's women.
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Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Committee of Correspondence Records, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.