Call Number:

M 143

Repository:

Bryn Mawr College

Extent:

13 linear ft.

Language:

English

Date:

1960-2019 (bulk)

Abstract:

Bertha Waters (1922-2018) was a writer, social worker, and activist. She was active in the civil rights movement in Philadelphia's Black community in the 1960s and 1970s. She wrote a regular column for The Authentic, a Black newspaper, and worked for The Educational Project. This organization, founded in 1965 by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, supported research and reform in education and childcare. As Southeast Regional Representative for The Educational Project, Waters participated in the Pennsylvania Day Care Project, an effort to set state wide standards for day care facilities. In the mid-70s, at the age of 50, Waters obtained an undergraduate degree from Temple University, and then received a Master of Social Work from the Graduate School of Social Work at Bryn Mawr College. She was a social worker for Child and Youth Services of Delaware County, and then worked at the Pennsylvania Department of Education as their Equity Coordinator. Waters retired in the 1990s.

The Bertha Waters Papers are arranged in four series.

Series 1: The Personal Papers are subdivided in four series: 1) Correspondence, consisting primarily of correspondence with family and friends; 2) Writings, including drafts of her columns for the Authentic and letters to the editor of other publications, and a travel journal from the early 1990s, 3) Family Papers, and 4) Higher Education Course Work, including syllabi, papers, and other materials for her classes at Temple University and Bryn Mawr College.

Series 2: Subject Files consist of mailings, publicity, publications, and other materials relating to organizations that Waters was active with, including the Parents Union for Public Schools in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Ethical Society. Also included are issues of the Philadelphia Authentic from the fall of 1963, and an extensive collection of issues of the Oakes Newsletter, a newsletter advocating for reform in the Philadelphia public schools published by Helen Oakes in the 1970s and 1980s.

Series 3: The Educational Project, Inc. consists of administrative records of the Southeast Regional office of this statewide organization from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. The bulk of the records relate to the Pennsylvania Day Care Project.

Series 4: Jim Benston Papers, consists of writings of Benston, a Civil Rights and anti-war activist in the 1960s who periodically stayed with the Waters family. Included are a diary written on toilet paper while he was in a jail in the South for his participation in a Civil Rights demonstration. This series also includes flyers and pamphlets from the 1960s relating to the Civil Rights movement and the opposition to the War in Vietnam.