The Joy Hilden Research Archive (DOC2019.1) contains research Hilden conducted from 1982 and 1994 on Bedouin weaving in Saudi Arabia and is the basis for Hilden's publication "Bedouin Weaving of Saudi Arabia and Its Neighbors", 2010.

Joy Totah Hilden was born in 1935 in Jerusalem, Palestine, and moved to the United States with her family in 1944. In her early childhood, Joy was exposed to Bedouin culture at her family’s orange grove near Gaza, which they visited several times a year. In 1982, Joy returned to the Middle East with her husband Robert Hilden, who taught English at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia. During Robert Hilden’s twelve year tenure at the university, Joy dedicated herself to documenting and collecting Bedouin weavings. Joy has published two books: "Bedouin Weaving of Saudi Arabia and Its Neighbors", 2010, and "A Passion for Learning: The Life Journey of Khalil Totah, a Palestinian Quaker Educator and Activist", 2016, a biography of her father. In 2019, Joy and Robert Hilden donated artifacts and research notes collected between 1982 and 1994, along with still and moving images to the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Joy currently resides in Berkeley, California.

Permanent collection objects from the Bedouin tribe, Saudi Arabia (Acc.4812: catalog numbers: 9-23702 to 9-23840). Archival field notes and audio visual documentation (DOC2019.1: catalog numbers: 25-24735 to 25-25401, 25-98218 to 25-100048).

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