Women in Montana

Sorority women outside Main Hall

Archives and Special Collections has many archival collections and oral histories created by or related to women in Missoula and Western Montana. Writers, professors, politicians, wives, artists, teachers, ranchers, doctors, conservationists, mothers, poets, students, historians, pioneers, smokejumpers, postmasters and activists are all represented in the materials. As examples: the papers of Lucile Speer, Jessie Bierman, Doris Milner and the Dixon Family, the diaries of Ruby Scofield Doyle and Edith Reneau; and the scrapbooks of Cora Averill and Sadie Erickson. There are also collections created by women’s social, civic and business organizations such as the As You Like it Club, the League of Women Voters of Missoula and the YWCA of Missoula; and materials generated by University of Montana entities founded by or directed toward women, including the University of Montana Women's Club and the UM Department of Home Economics. Examples of relevant oral history collections include the Missoula Women for Peace interviews, the Montana Feminist History interviews, Montana Women Pilots interviews and the Illegal Abortion in Montana interviews.