Use Restrictions

The copyright and related rights status of this collection have not been evaluated (See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/)

Access Restrictions

There are a number of restrictions due to financial information within the collection. Please see the Contents List for specific restrictions.

Preferred Citation

League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area records, C0031, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

The bulk of this collection was donated by the League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area between 1995 and 2009. Additional donations have continued through 2022.

Processing Information

This collection was processed in 1995 by League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area archivist Bernice Colvard and an original finding aid was compiled by then Special Collections and Archives archival assistant Oona Pilot-Sitkoff. In 2008, the collection was re-processed by Sean Tennant. Finding aid was updated in 2013 by Greta Kuriger Suiter.

The collection was re-processed by Amanda Menjivar from 2019 - 2022. EAD markup completed by Amanda Menjivar in March 2022. Finding aid updated by Amanda Menjivar in June 2023.

This collection has additional unprocessed accessions 2019.006, 2023.010-C, and therefore this finding aid may not be fully up to date. Please contact SCRC for more information.

Accruals

Further accruals to this collection are expected.

Historical Information

The League of Women Voters (LWV) was founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt, a leader in the women's suffrage movement. The LWV's purpose is to encourage citizens to participate actively in government by supporting the party of their choice. While the LWV is a nonpartisan organization, and therefore does not support individual candidates, it does take a position on issues of a national, state, and local scale selected by the membership. Such issues of the past included support for a minimum wage, child labor laws, and equal opportunity for women in government and civilian life.

In Virginia, the LWV began as the Equal Suffrage League, which worked diligently for the ratification of the nineteenth amendment. The Equal Suffrage League joined the national LWV and created a state league. The first local league in Virginia was established in Richmond, followed by chapters in Alexandria and Arlington.

The League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area (LWVFA) was granted full league status in 1948. However, the LWVFA of the present day was established in 1964 after the town of Fairfax became a city in 1961 and thus a separate governmental jurisdiction from the County of Fairfax. The LWVFA remains active in engaging the local Fairfax County community to this day.

Scope and Content

The League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area Records contains material from the LWVFA's activities from 1947 to present day, including documentation of its activities and efforts, organizational documents and correspondence, studies on local and national issues, information on political issues and candidate positions, meeting minutes, newsletters, photographs, audiovisual materials, and memorabilia.

The collection is arranged in eight series. Each series serves as a records group, and restarts with Box 1 to allow for future accessions to be easily added to the collection. Each series is arranged chronologically, though future additions may not be in chronological order. The 8 series are: League History, Meeting Minutes and Organizational Documents; Membership, Member Education, and Events; Programs, Action, and Services; Publications; Correspondence; Conventions and Meetings; Audiovisual Materials; and Memorabilia.

Series 1: League History, Meeting Minutes and Organizational Documents (1955 - 1990s). This series contains documentation of the running of the LWVFA, such as board meeting minutes, agendas, reports, Directors' files, and budgets.

Series 2: Membership, Member Education, and Events (1947 - 2022). This series contains information on membership to the league, as well as efforts to educate members and execute events, such as members lists, subject-specific memoranda, bulletins, pamphlets, newsletters, handbooks, and bylaws.

Series 3: Programs, Action, and Services (1954 - circa 2020). This series contains documents on specific League programs and "Action" or specific efforts to take positions on laws or events happening in government/the community, such as Action Alerts, press releases, Action-relatec correspondence and memoranda, candidates forums documentation, and homeowners associations election files.

Series 4: Publications (1970 - 2017). This series contains publications directly created by the League, including multiple iterations of "Facts For Voters," informational pamphlets on various local issues, correspondence, newsclippings, and newsletters.

Series 5: Correspondence (1972 - 2012). This series contains correspondence between League members and local/U.S. politicans on a number of issues, as well as internal League correspondence.

Series 6: Conventions and Meetings (1957 - 2019). This series contains memoranda, workbooks, and programs from a multitude of LWV meetings and conventions, both local and national.

Series 7: Audiovisual Materials (1981 - circa 2010s). This series contains audiovisual materials such as oral histories on cassette, documents and supplementary materials on CD-ROM, DVDs, and a 1981 television program the LWVFA assisted in producing on U-Matic tape.

Series 8: Memorabilia (circa 1920s - circa 2010s). This series contains memorabilia collected and created by the LWVFA, including a pencil owned by LWV founder Carrie Chapman Catt, buttons stating political positions, bumper stickers, and scrapbooks.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in eight series. Each series serves as a records group, and restarts with Box 1 to allow for future accessions to be easily added to the collection. Each series is arranged chronologically, though future additions may not be in chronological order.

Series Series 1: League History, Meeting Minutes and Organizational Documents, 1955 - 1990s (19 boxes) Series 2: Membership, Member Education, and Events, 1947 - 2022 (34 boxes) Series 3: Programs, Action, and Services, 1954 - circa 2020 (20 boxes) Series 4: Publications, 1970 - 2017 (4 boxes) Series 5: Correspondence, 1972 - 2012 (3 boxes) Series 6: Conventions and Meetings, 1957 - 2019 (4 boxes) Series 7: Audiovisual Materials, 1981 - circa 2010s (1 box) Series 8: Memorabilia, circa 1920s - 2010s (3 boxes)

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center also holds other collections on women politicians and public servants in Northern Virginia such as the Jean Marburg League of Women Voters collection, Martha Pennino papers, and the Emilie F. Miller papers.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Citizens' associations
• Correspondence
• Fairfax County (Va.)
• Fairfax County (Va.) -- Politics and government
• Oral histories
• Political participation -- United States
• Politics
• Virginia, Northern
• Virginia, Northern -- Politics and government
• Women political activists -- Virginia