Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Jean Miller papers
- Dates:
- 1964-1980
- Creators:
- Miller, Jean Lewis
- Abstract:
- Jean Lewis Miller was a Bay Area feminist lesbian activist and Berkeley Public Library employee. Her papers document her political and legal struggles with the city of Berkeley. The collection also contains suffragist literature, unpublished manuscripts and personal documents.
- Extent:
- 0.8 linear feet (2 boxes)
- Language:
- and Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Jean Miller Papers (Collection 2139). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Jean Miller Papers consist of documents relating to her political struggles with the city of Berkeley over affirmative action, sexual, and racial discrimination. Included are legal documents, suffragist literature, college research papers, letters to her son, materials relating to Inez Garcia, and unpublished manuscripts on motherhood and women's sexuality.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Jean Lewis Miller was a Bay area feminist lesbian activist. Miller was an early participant in Women's Liberation as a member of Women of the Free Future and Women in Solidarity. She worked part-time as an employee of the Berkeley Public Library. In 1971 she was fired for writing a published article in the Berkeley Post to expose sexism and racism in the library. After 25 women marched on the Board of Directors meeting, she was reinstated, and dedicated herself to serving women's needs within the library through her self-created Women's Project. This group was later discontinued by the library after her formation of the Berkeley Women's Affirmative Action Union. After public protest, Miller became the first person arrested at a City Council meeting. Thereafter, she endured a nine day hunger strike in Santa Rita, was jailed a second time, was fired and jailed a third time; from which charges she was acquitted, but jailed for contempt of court. Jean filed a lawsuit in federal court charging sex discrimination and political retaliation in 1974. Years later, the case was dismissed. In 1980, Miller died after a two month battle with cancer.
- Acquisition information:
- This collection is part of an outreach and collection-building partnership between the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) and the UCLA Library.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Kimberlee Granholm, 2012.
Description enhanced and further physical processing completed by Jessica Tai in 2016.
This collection is part of an outreach and collection-building partnership between the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) and the UCLA Library. These collections expand the pool of primary source materials available to researchers and to the community at large. This partnership was initiated by CSW and is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to inventory, organize, preserve, and digitize more than eighty Mazer collections pertaining to lesbian and feminist activism and writings.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection has been organized chronologically.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site at SRLF. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Prepared:
- Online finding aid last updated 24 August 2017.
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2017-08-24T09:06-0700
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the physical object belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where UCLA Library Special Collections does not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Jean Miller Papers (Collection 2139). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988