Women’s institutes

This record group contains materials related to the local units of Hadassah—groups, chapters, regions, and co-ops—as well as Junior Hadassah, a youth organization that functioned as a group within the Hadassah Chapter structure. The record group documents over one hundred years of Hadassah’s growth, and illuminates a century of American Jewish communal life, particularly that of Jewish women, across the United States. The record group reflects the formation, administration and activities of the individual groups, chapters, co-ops and regions, and contains information on local events and programs organized around fundraising, Zionism, Jewish heritage, religion and holidays celebration, the study of Hebrew and Yiddish, women's issues, fashion, health, technology and many other topics.

This record group includes documents created and maintained by the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Director and the Chair of the Division Coordinators/Directors Committee. Prominent is the Henrietta Szold series, containing correspondence by and to Szold as well as printed materials written by and about her. The files in this record group were created by a national president or executive director, or for their use, or maintained in their office during their years in office. Included are correspondence, minutes, memos, publications, reports and subject files on topics with which these individuals were involved.

The materials in this record group document the entirety of Hadassah’s history and work in Israel and the United States in photographs—prints, slides, glass lantern plates, and digital images.