University of New England

Donor Information

The Maine Women Writers Collection maintains an active acquisitions program in contemporary and historic manuscript material as well as rare books. We welcome donations of papers, books, or monetary gifts.

Guide to Donating Personal Papers
The Curator is pleased to make any arrangements necessary to collect or transfer donated papers.

The purpose of the Maine Women Writers Collection is to document the literary work and the cultural history of Maine Women. The most valuable resources this collection owns are the unique manuscript papers of those writers whose work and lives form the focus of the Collection. Their personal, professional, and organizational records are the primary sources that provides important research material for scholars. These collections complement the fine and continually expanding book collection started by Dorothy Healy and Grace Dow in 1959.

Historically, women's work has not been widely documented– nor has it been of primary focus for many traditional Special Collections. We are just now turning the tide to carefully and comprehensively document activities and events in which literary women have participated. along with other important historic activities, such as the Suffrage Movement.

We hope to raise awareness of the importance of original literary drafts, typescripts, personal and publishing correspondence, as well as diaries, journals photographs, and other records. The ways in which these may be useful to scholarship, history and community are incalculable. It is the manuscript material that brings the researcher to this Collection.

For more information on the transfer of personal papers, please contact us.

Guide to Donating or Bequeathing Funds to the MWWC
Monetary donations or bequests for the benefit of the MWWC may be made through the UNE Office of Institutional Advancement. Please feel free to contact the Curator to discuss the possibility, confidentially and without any obligation; or please contact Scott Marchildon at the UNE Office of Institutional Advancement directly.

This Collection can perennially benefit from monetary donations. Its basic operations are funded through the Healy Endowment, established by philanthropist John Payson in 1991 in memory of founder Dorothy Healy. However, exceptional, or special, acquisitions -- and the staffing to process exceptional and special acquisitions -- are not provided for in yearly operational budgets.

Based on our history of growth, MWWC will grow predictably and each year, without remission, into perpetuity. Special funding or endowments enable the operations of the Collection to appropriately adjust to meet future needs.