that could not be found in state archives and had not been seen as valuable and
worth preserving until then. A huge campaign resulted in an initial collection of
seventy-five documents, varying in size from a tiny diary to one consisting of 700
notebooks50, and forming the basis of the collection which by 2010 consisted of 225
ego documents. A selection of these ego or personal documents was published in the
anthology In verloren minuten51, and several diaries were used for a successful
theater performance by Hester Macrander called 'Strikt persoonlijk'Inspired by this
success, Annemarie Kloosterman and Mineke Bosch subsequently explored the
existing IAV archives for diaries and letters of feminist leaders. Their interesting
findings resulted in a book published on the occasion of the IAV's fiftieth
anniversary, called Lieve Dr. Jacobs, later in English published as Politics and
Friendship.52
A growing recognition of the importance of women's archives and the IAV's unique
role in the Netherlands in acquiring and preserving them, as well as the increasing
need for a professional handling of these materials, resulted in the creation of a
separate archival department during the 1988 merger mentioned earlier, in which
the IAV became the IIAV. In addition to the IAV library and the documentation
center, the IIAV now also had an archival department, staffed by three professionally
trained archivists, Annette Mevis, Annemarie Kloosterman and Yolande Hentenaar.
The letter 'A', referring to archives, prominently present in the IAV's name since
1935, was finally given its full due. With the establishment of an archival
department, the stature of the archives improved considerably. First of all, the IIAV
became active in collecting archives. Whereas in the first 52 years of the IAV's
existence a hundred meters came in, the IIAV/Aletta has acquired 1,950 meters of
archival material in the twenty three years between 1988-2010 (see Table 1).
meters at arrival
Moreover and importantly, these archives were not collected randomly but on the
basis of a carefully formulated acquisition policy, accepted and implemented in
1989. According to this policy, the IIAV in principle collects papers of Dutchwomen
- generally feminists - who are or have been active in the public sphere, and more
specifically, the archives of Dutch national women's organizations and action groups
(such as the Dutch Association of CountryWomen); archives of individual Dutch
women who are or have been active regarding important women's/feminist issues
(such as Anja Meulenbelt and Tania Leon); archives of international congresses on
women's subjects and of international women's organizations (such as the
International Federation of University Women); and, lastly, women's ego or personal
documents (the one exception to the general guideline of focusing on the public
sphere).
Thus departing from the original aim of the institute, which was to collect materials
internationally as much as possible, the IIAV/Aletta since the late 1980s has mainly
collected Dutch archives. This had become the practice in the 19 50s, but had never
been formulated as a formal policy. The reason to focus on Dutch archives is that we
think the archives of women and women's organizations in principle should stay in
their home countries. However, the institute accommodates women's archives from
places where it is not possible to keep them properly, or where they are in danger of
being destroyed. Examples include the archive of the Belgian organization Women's
Organization for Equality (WOE), donated to the IAV in 1985 because the owners
wanted it to be housed in a women's archive, which did not yet exist in Belgium at
the time;53 and the archive of the Dutch Emancipation Council, 1981-1997, which
was slated to be destroyed according to the rules for government archives.
In addition and as noted above, the institute also welcomes archives of international
women's organizations and congresses.
In terms of contents, the aim is to build up an archival collection that represents the
diversity in the Dutch women's movement. The institute therefore tries to collect
material from women with different feminist perspectives, from different religious,
class, and ethnic backgrounds, dealing with a wide variety of 'women's topics,' and
so on. This aim of being inclusive is not always easy to achieve. For one thing, taking
care of their archives was not the first priority of action groups such as Dolle Mina
- one of the most famous groups of the Dutch Second Wave, named after the radical
feminist Wilhelmina Drucker (1847-1925) - who were "anti-establishment" and
more or less anarchistic as a matter of principle. Their goal was to "change the
world," in a very immediate sense, not to form a centrally-led organization with an
official board and a well-kept administration. The so-called 'traditional' women's
organizations, such as the Dutch National Council of Women (established in
1899), had and have such formal structures and, as a result, were better archive
builders and keepers. Because of the nature of the organization, Dolle Mina did not
form one archive in one place; what is left of its archive is now more or less being
pieced together from the papers kept by individual women (but see below, under
Recent Challenges and Changes).
ARCHIEFVORMER EN PARTICULIER ARCHIEF
Years
Estimated linear
1935-1940
3*
1947-1957
23
1958-1967
7
1968-1977
18
1978-1987
50
1988-1997
700
1998-2007
974
2008-2010
274
Total
2049**
Table IArchives acquired by the IAV/IIAV/Aletta (in linear meters
Source: IAV/IIAV/Aletta Annual Reports and the archive database.
Of which approximately 1 meter Aletta Jacobs archive and 1 meter Rosa Manus archive.
December 31, 2010, the total size of linear meters of archive was 1290 meters; the difference
is due to the work of processing. Of these 1290 meters, c. 400 still needed to be processed end
of 2010. The 225 ego documents cover 22 shelves of one meter each.
162
FRANCISCA DE HAAN AND ANNETTE MEVIS THE MAKING OF THE COLLECTION INTERNATIONAAL ARCHIEF
VOOR DE VROUWENBEWEGING (iAV)
50 Bosch, 'A Woman's Life'.
51 Annette Mevis (ed.), In verloren minuten, dagboeken en herinneringen van vrouwen, 1896-1979 (Weesp 1985).
52 Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman, Lieve Dr. Jacobs. Brieven uit de Wereldbond voor Vrouwenkiesrecht,
1902-1942 ter gelegenheid van 50 jaar Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (Amsterdam 1985);
Bosch, Politics.
53 The Archiefcentrum voor Vrouwengeschiedenis (AVG) in Brussels was founded in 1995; the WOE archive
was handed over to the AVG in 1996. See their website at http:/Avww.avg-carhif.be/cms/le_carhif_en.php.
163
