Gladys Chaney Wessels Papers

This collection contains various media concerning the life of Gladys Chaney Wessels. A majority of the items are paper documents, but there are also photographs, films, books and scrapbooks. A large majority of the documents are from the years 1947 to 1980. The collection is arranged in seven series.

Series I, Personal Papers, includes items from the childhood and young adult years of Gladys Chaney Wessels, such as report cards, programs, and piano certificates. It also includes the passports she owned from the years 1953 to 1994 and her identification card from the War Department. Multiple drafts of Wessels' resume from throughout her life are located in this series, as well as the copies of her manuscripts and excerpts of drafts of these writings.

Series II, Correspondence, is comprised mainly of letters written by Gladys to her mother, Elsie Chaney, between 1947 and 1953. There are also letters written by Elsie to Gladys. Letters from her ex-husband, Phillip Wessels, are included, as well as some letters from Philip to Elsie. Lastly, there are a number of general personal and professional letters that have no apparent connection with other series. Undated letters, as well as excerpts from letters that cannot be reconciled with their other parts, are also included in this series.

Series III, Employment, is comprised of anything relating to the jobs that Gladys Chaney Wessels had throughout her life. A small amount of documents from her days in the military are included. The large majority of this series comes from her years at Wright State University. These items include forms, pamphlets, student papers and evaluations, correspondence, newspaper articles, and information about courses. There are also documents regarding her lawsuit, ranging from trial expenses, to correspondence to and from her attorney and from supporters, to pieces of evidence for the trial. From her years in the Yellow Springs School District, there is quite a bit of information regarding the film project that she produced, including budget sheets, correspondence, schedules, scripts, and documents. There is also a group of folders containing the small bit of information about the other jobs she had. These include correspondence, different forms and documents.

Series IV, Organizations, contains papers from both women's organizations and general organizations. This includes the local, state and national women's organizations of which Gladys was a part, such as the National Organization for Women, Ohio Women, Inc., the Miami Valley Women's Political Caucus, the Ohio Women's Political Caucus, the National Women's Political Caucus, and state and national groups for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The general organizations folders hold documents relating to the professional organizations to which Gladys belonged, such as the American Association for University Professors, as well as different projects around the Dayton area, including the Greene County Home Commission, the Miami Valley Manpower Consortium, and the Prison Illiteracy Program at Lebanon Correctional Facility. This series includes various pieces of ephemera relating to these organizations, including pamphlets, minutes, newsletters, correspondence, writings, newspaper articles, bylaws, and information about workshops.

Series V, Social and Political Issues, is comprised of informational papers relating to the different topics that Gladys studied. Most of these topics relate to politics and women's rights. These include sexual assault, abortion, child welfare, and women in the workplace. Also included are various pieces of literature about politics in the state of Ohio. There are three books in this series relating to women's rights and a small box of political pins.

Series VI, Audiovisual Materials, includes one videotape, an 8mm film and two magnetic film reels, as well as three 16mm films and six audiocassettes. There are also some photographs, ranging from the 1940s to the 1970s. These are nearly all personal photographs, but some relate to the aforementioned women's organizations. This series is being housed in the Special Collections and Archives Film Storage Area in the basement of the Medical Sciences Building.

Series VII, Scrapbooks, contains the seventeen scrapbooks in this collection. The materials inside these scrapbooks range from photographs to newspaper articles to correspondence and other small paper ephemera. The scrapbooks in box 11 were deconstructed and their contents were placed in acid-free folders. Others were unable to be deconstructed safely, so they are housed whole in boxes twelve and thirteen.