University of New England

About The Maine Women Writers Collection

The Maine Women Writers Collection (MWWC), Abplanalp Library, Westbrook College Campus of the University of New England, is a pre-eminent special collection of published and non-published literary, cultural and social history sources, by and about women authors, either native or residents of Maine. These sources document and illustrate the times, circumstances and experiences of Maine women writers, revealing their public actions and private thoughts.

The Collection is a permanently endowed library special collection of literary, cultural, and social history sources by and about Maine women authors. Collection materials are held in perpetuity for purposes of historic preservation and scholarly research. The Collection includes rare volumes, unique manuscript material, memorabilia, and artwork documenting Maine women writers' engagement with ergional and natioanl concerns from the eighteenth century to the present. Jointly overseen by a Curator and the Dorothy M. Healy Professor of Literature, the Collection is housed in a state-of-the-art facility, which was completely renovated in 1999-2000, and was dedicated as a national Literary Landmark on June 20, 1998, by the Friends of Libraries USA.

Collection Holdings

Founded in 1959 by Grace Dow and Dorothy Healy to honor, preserve, and make available the writings of Maine women achieving literary recognition, the Collection now has over 6,000 volumes on more than 500 Maine women writers. The Collection also includes correspondence, photographs, personal papers, manuscripts, typescripts, artifacts, and audiorecordings that provide insight into the lives and writing of both well-known and obscure Maine women authors. The Collection maintains an active acquisitions program in contemporary and historic manuscript material as well as rare books.

Holdlings are especially strong in nineteenth and twentieth-century resources. Published material ranges from rare books, pamphlets, and broadsides to newspapers and literary and popular journals. Among the Collection's unpublished materials are travel journals, diaries, correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, artwork, material culture, memorabilia, artists' books, and children's literature. The MWWC also holds records of women's organizations such as Maine Media Women, The Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union (Maine Chapter), the National League of Pen Women (Augusta Branch), and the Massachusetts branch of the National Women's Party (a suffrage organization). The Collection's prominent subject areas include topics in women's literary and social history, such as the suffrage and women's movements, women's health and medicine, women's sexuality, and family culture, as well as nature and the environment, spiritualism, New England studies, and Maine history.