Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of Roberta Wellford, Accession #6090, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The papers were a gift to the Library from Mrs. Sally Hamilton on July 4, 1959.

Scope and Content Information

This collection, 1912-1927, consists of ca. 850 items, including correspondence, speeches, printed, suffrage meeting minutes, and notebooks of the suffragist Roberta Wellford of Charlottesville, Virginia.

The correspondence documents Ms. Wellford's efforts to promote women suffrage through her work in the Equal Suffrage League from 1912 to 1920. It outlines her work as field director for the Virginia League of Women Voters and describes her participation on the National League's Committee on Reduction of Armaments, 1921-1922, and on the Committee of International Relations. Both the suffragist point-of-view and the actual activities of the women are detailed throughout the material. Information pertaining to the National Committee on the Christian Way of Life, 1923 to 1924, is also included.

Correspondents of interest include the following suffragists: Lila Meade Valentine, Alice O. Taylor, Ida M. Thompson, Elizabeth Lewis, Edith Clarke Cowles, Elizabeth Web Blakey, Anne Kern, Kate M. Gordon, Carrie Chapman Catt, Elizabeth J. Hauser, Pauline Okie, Winifred Branch Russell, and Adele Clark. Suffragists from Albemarle County are represented by Nancy Marshall and Evelyn Shaw.

Other correspondents include: Senators Thomas S. Martin and Claude Swanson, Congressmen J. W. Harrison and Andrew J. Montague, Governor Westmoreland Davis, attorney John Paull, and S. E. Nicholson of the National Council for Reduction of Armaments.