The Lesley University Archives

Our Holdings Search the Collections Collection Description Search the Collections EDITH: Digital Repository EDITH, our online catalog, stands for Essential Digitized Image and Text Holdings. This database contains descriptions of all materials held by the Lesley University Archives, including Finding Aids, and our digital library, which consists of images, audio files, movies, and electronic files like PDFs that are official records of the University. Please search the EDITH collections.

"John Lennon and Yoko Ono relax on the Lesley campus. The former Beatle and his wife were participants in the first International Feminist Planning Conference held at Lesley College, hosting feminists from 27 countries." The Current, July - August 1973. (enlarge photo)

Collection Description

• The records of the Expressive Therapies Graduate Program, the first program in the United States to integrate dance, theater, psychodrama, music, poetry, and the visual arts with the practice of psychotherapy;
• The records of the Creative Arts in Learning Program, the first interdisciplinary arts-based education program in the country;
• The records of the Technology in Education Program, the first of its kind to use technology to support student learning, accommodating the full range of learning styles, and fully integrating technology into K-12 curriculum; and
• The records of the Threshold Program, one of the first non-degree,campus-based program for young adults with diverse learning disabilities and other special needs.

The records reflect the philosophy behind the programs, the curriculum development, the recruitment of distinguished faculty and field practitioners, and the development research projects. These collections are important not only for the history of the university but also for the history of higher education in America.

Photographs
The photograph collection contains over 10,000 items, including black and white and color photographs, slides, film negatives, and contact sheets from the early twentieth century to the present that document Lesley University. Subjects range from student life, building projects, faculty and staff, commencement, and campus and alumni events. 

Oral Histories
This collection consists of over 50 interviews conducted by a professional oral historian with faculty, staff, alumni, professor emeriti, and other professionals associated with the university. There are approximately 300 hours of interviews. The oral history project began in 2007 and is ongoing; approximately 20 interviews are added to the collection each year.
Collection Highlight. One of the strong subject areas covered in the oral history collection is Lesley’s role in the open education movement in America during the second half of the twentieth century. Interviews were conducted with former faculty and Professors Emeriti who are internationally recognized scholars of the open education movement. In addition, personal papers and publications of these faculty were collected, including those of Nancy Langstaff,Professor Emerita and scholar of the open education movement, detailing her experience as the Kindergarten teacher at the White House during the Kennedy Administration.

Rare Books
This collection contains rare books on a variety of subjects, including obscure texts related to the pedagogy of early childhood education and rare art magazines and published artist folios from the university's art school.

Collection Highlight. Within the rare book collection there is a collection of curriculum books that date to the first decade of the university's existence, when it was called the Lesley Normal School, a Kindergarten and elementary teacher training school exclusively for women. During this time, students were required to study the pedagogy developed by Friedrich Froebel, founder of the modern Kindergarten movement, in which children's artist expression was cultivated through various art "occupations," such as painting, sewing, and paper folding. Lesley students were required to create curriculum books of the Froebel Occupations, which they would use, after graduation, as a basis for their Kindergarten classes in public schools and settlement houses across the United States.

The books, of which only 12 survive, are of exquisite detail and beauty and demonstrate the skill necessary not only for Kindergarten teachers during the turn of the twentieth century but also for Lesley Normal School students. In addition, the curriculum books give an insight into the history of women in academia, showing the kind of work required by female professors of their female students.

Objects
This collection includes a variety of objects from textiles to jewelry; from ceremonial ceramic plates to sliver platters; and from metal typefaces to silk embroidery art.
Collection Highlight. The Archives has collected several textiles from the first half of the twentieth century, including a long, pleated gym suit and leather shoes from the 1930s, a wool blazer with the Lesley seal embroidered on the front breast pocket from the 1950s, and small collection of green wool beanies that freshmen were required to wear. These textiles give a glimpse into the daily lives of students at an all women’s institution in the early twentieth century.