A New Exhibit at Baker Library

Baker Library Historical Collections is pleased to join in the celebration of the 50^th anniversary of women’s admission into the full MBA program at Harvard Business School (HBS) with Building the Foundation: Business Education for Women at Harvard University, 1937–1970. The exhibition will run until September 22, 2013 in the North Lobby, Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Harvard Business School.

Building the Foundation traces the early history of business education for women at Harvard University from the founding of the one-year certificate program at Radcliffe College in 1937 to the HBS faculty vote to admit women into the two year MBA program and finally to the complete integration of women into the HBS campus life by 1970. Illustrating the evolution of this formative period are photographs, interviews, reports, and correspondence from Baker Library Historical Collections at Harvard Business School and from the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute.

The telling documents reveal how program directors, administrators, and faculty shaped business education for women at the University, preparing students to take their places in the business world. The pioneering graduates of these programs would go on to help open doors to formerly unattainable opportunities for generations of women who followed. 

Visit http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/wbe   to learn more about the exhibition, to find materials that could support further research, and to view some of the items featured in the exhibition. 

Visit http://www.hbs.edu/women50/   to learn more about the HBS celebration of 50 Years of Women in the MBA Program.

Please contact Baker Library Historical Collections at histcollref@hbs.edu if you would like to request a copy of the exhibition catalog.