Just as individual drops of water can join to become a mighty flood, the collective experiences and contributions of countless women have often turned the tide of world history.
The Women’s Living History Project, a special, transdisciplinary project of the Schools of Arts and Humanities and Religion at Claremont Graduate University, believes every woman has a story and that the collected power of those individual histories has had and continue to have a crucial impact on all of our cultural, religious, and traditional lives. The project is dedicated to chronicling and preserving those vital individual stories as a resource for all.
The project trains CGU graduate students in the research methods of collecting and interpreting oral histories with the purpose of documenting and sharing women’s stories, acknowledging their experiences in relation to historical events, the impact of religion on women’s ways of life, and the role women play in shaping their communities and countries.
Touching on many aspects of women’s lives, the project will also record important and specific parts of women’s lives, such as their relation to religion. One of the important objectives of project is to give particular attention to the impact of religion on women’s experiences and the influence of women on their religious traditions.
The project will integrate the strengths and lessons of these stories into our academic programs: women’s studies in religion, North American religions, applied women’s studies, oral history, and public history teaching. It will serve as a capstone for graduate students pursuing the M.A. or Ph.D. in those programs. The university’s unique transdisciplinary focus on research and teaching ultimately means that these stories will not only enrich our faculty and students, but they will become an invaluable resource to the world beyond our campus.
As the collection grows, the result will be a new collection and resource of personal histories for students, scholars, educators, community members, journalists, filmmakers, and policy makers now and into the future. The project, recognizing the obligations that accompany ownership of these collections, will maintain a proper storage environment of the most appropriate, up-to-date technologies to achieve these ends, including offering this historical resource as part of the prestigious Special Collections of the Honnold Library of the Claremont Colleges.
The project believes every woman has a story, and those stories are our history and our future.
Preserve the history of a woman in your life.
Claremont Graduate University is now offering the opportunity to preserve and honor the history of a woman in your life. The Women’s Living History Project is dedicated to preserving the life experiences of women.
You can honor the history of a special woman in your life by making a contribution to the Women’s Living History Project. The Project will arrange for a trained specialist to interview your honoree, document her history, and preserve her story.
Once completed, the history will be presented in bound format to the donor or honoree, and it will be preserved within the Women’s Living History archives at Claremont Graduate University.
The contribution for a personal history is $500. You can offer specific direction on your preference of the presentation of the history (i.e. specialist will contact you or honoree for initial contact; gift will be given directly to honoree or gift-giver, etc.).
If you would like more information call: 909-621-8612.