Schlesinger Library

The Harvard University Archives, along with almost every other repository of HUIGE-related information at Harvard, holds only scant information about the Radcliffe women who took to the air through courses at the HUIGE. From brief mentions, signed releases, examination records and more, the names of all women enrolled in aerial photography classes throughout the HUIGE’s existence are:

The following is only a first step in the recovery of their stories, and perhaps that of even more students in the future.

Discovering our University’s archival resources has shown me the depth of enthusiasm present in each of these treasure troves. Consultations ran past the hour because every archive specialist knew of connections to astoundingly useful resources which I could not have discovered myself. For instance, when visiting the Schlesinger library, where I met the astute and spirit-raising Sarah Hutcheon, I was led to the puzzling mention of the “Harvard-MIT Institute of Geographical Exploration”, in the obituary of one Margaret Mace Kingman¹, presumably the “Mrs. Margaret Mace Curtis” recorded in the Student lists collected from the Harvard University Archives:

What was that about? I had purposefully always opted for the neutral Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration (HUIGE), rather than any other nickname given the Institute, but never had I fallen upon a “Harvard-MIT IGE”. Whether a typo or the result of an approximate recollection, this graduate of the aerial photography courses spent her entire post-graduate career at the CIA, perhaps putting to use some of the techniques learned at the HUIGE. Her story would not have been found without Sarah’s help, since I had no instinct whatsoever on where to start the research for Harvard’s Women of the Air…

So here are Sarah Hutcheon’s tips for searching for them through the Schlesinger library archival system:

Start with the Radcliffe College Archives Digital Collections guide.

• The Yearbooks contain information about all Radcliffe undergraduates.
• The Radcliffe News are an undergraduate publication.
• For graduate students, not included in the Yearbooks or Radcliffe News, a safer bet is the Radcliffe Quarterly, a publication for and about Radcliffe Alumnae.

For a broader reference structure, the Harvard-Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf, contains all of Harvard’s reports, course registers and more.

Class reports from Radcliffe college are not digitized, yet the box of every Class Year may be found using Hollis Advanced search and the Subject line: “Radcliffe College – Alumni and alumnae – Directories” along with the year of the Class in question.

One of the most useful tools for research shared by Sarah was an alternative browser for researching Harvard-specific data. Our beloved Library navigation system, Hollis, is a two-faced beast. The platform any user faces when visiting “hollis.harvard.edu” is a welcoming and easy-to-use portal. Its “Advanced Search” page, a control panel to access a whole universe of knowledge. But it does not lead to all answers. The underbelly of the Harvard Library systems is its directory to all items digitized by Harvard: “Full-text search”. The crucial difference is that full-text searches render any mention of a name, event, institute or… anything. A full-text search for the “Institute of Geographical Exploration” yields over 92,000 results, to Hollis’ couple of hundred, for example. This makes the search for individual classes, instructors or students far easier.

Sarah Hutcheon’s immensely helpful research through all these troves of information and more led to the following information about the HUIGE’s women of the air (all quotations are from Sarah’s email communication from July 31st 2024):

Although a fuller account of these women’s stories remains to be written, the Schlesinger archives promise very much to their stories as well as that of the HUIGE. Take, for instance, Nancy Miller’s 1943 yearbook entry:

For these bridges and the promise of stories ahead, I thank once more Schlesinger Research Librarian Sarah Hutcheon.

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