Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Biography / Administrative History
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Bibliography
Other Finding Aids
Separated Material
Descriptive Summary
Title: Berkeley-Albany Church Women United
Dates: 1933-2001
Collection number: GTU 91-8-03
Creator:
Berkeley-Albany Church Women United
Collector:
Lew, Evelyn C.
Collection Size:
2 linear feet (2 archives boxes and 2 folios)
Repository: The Graduate Theological Union. Library.
Abstract: This collection contains organization records of the Berkeley-Albany Church Women United: scrapbooks and folders with newspaper
clippings, minutes, bulletins, reports, fliers and other indications of activities.
Physical location: 1/D/2
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to The Graduate Theological Union. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Graduate Theological Union
as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must
also be obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
Berkeley-Albany Church Women United, GTU 91-8-03. Graduate Theological Union Archives, Berkeley, CA.
Acquisition Information
Evelyn C. Lew, historian of Berkeley-Albany Church Women United, donated materials in 1991 and 2001.
Biography / Administrative History
Berkeley-Albany Church Women United served as an ecumenical community of Christian women to help resolve social and ethnic
issues in Berkeley, Albany and the Bay Area. The organization facilitated local observance of three annual international
worship services: World Day of Prayer, May Fellowship Day, and World Community Day.
The Berkeley-Albany organization traces its roots to local mission activities by women in the early 1900s. The first formal
name is recorded in 1911 as Council of Women for Home Missions. In 1929, the group became the Berkeley Council of Church Women,
part of a national organization. In 1941, this group merged with several other national interdenominational organizations,
becoming United Council of Church Women (UCCW). From 1950 to 1966, the organization became United Church Women (UCW), part
of the National Council of Churches of Christ.
In 1966, the national organization became Church Women United (CWU). The CWU became self-governing and unrelated to any denomination
or movement. This enabled CWU to expand its membership to include participation from Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and other Christian
women. While the national organization is still active, there is no record of local organization activity after 2005.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists of scrapbooks and folders with newspaper clippings, minutes, bulletins, reports, flyers and other
indications of activities. One folio is a scrapbook with newspaper clippings from 1967-1977. The other folio is a scrapbook
with newspaper clipping and related materials from 1968-1969. The scrapbooks contain records in multiple formats in chronological
order, per the recommendation of the national organization to local group historians.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Church Women United (Berkeley-Albany, California).
Women in church work--Berkeley.
Women in church work--Albany.
Berkeley (Calif.)--Church history.
Albany (Calif.)--Church history.
Berkeley (Calif.)--Social conditions.
Albany (Calif.)--Social conditions.
San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.)--Ethnic relations.
Bibliography
Shannon, Margaret.
Just because : the story of the national movement of Church Women United in the U.S.A., 1941 through 1975 (Corte Madera, Calif. : Omega Books, 1977).
Other Finding Aids
The archives of the national and some local organizations of CWU are managed by the Archives of the United Methodist Church,
Drew University, Madison, New Jersey. Their catalog does not list any materials from California.
Separated Material
Four duplicate issues of
The Church Women from 1982 and 1983 were discarded.