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Agency History/Biographical note:
Margaret Elizabeth Broadbent was born on January 21, 1917 in Plymouth, Massachusetts to Wilfred O. Broadbent, district manager of a coal company, and Alice Sweet Cole Broadbent. She grew up in Edgewood, Rhode Island, attended Cranston (Rhode Island) High School from 1930 to 1934, and went to Mount Holyoke College from 1934 to 1938. She majored in English Language and Literature with a minor in Latin and received her B.A. in 1938. She then attended the Katherine Gibbs School for secretarial training in Rhode Island and in 1939 worked as Assistant to the Child Health Secretary in New Jersey. The following year she moved to New York City where she worked as an editorial assistant and clerk at the Rockafeller Institute for Medical Research through 1956. She has belonged to and directed the Adirondack Mountain Club and the Mount Holyoke College Club of New York City, and was a member of the Nominating Committee for the General Alumnae Association, 1958-1960. After retiring, she developed a workshop in publishing that she conducted at local colleges.

Scope and Content:
The Margaret Broadbent Papers consist of letters dating from 1934-1936, a course paper, 1935, and photographs, 1938 and 1963. She wrote the letters to her parents in Rhode Island between her first and junior years at Mount Holyoke College. Letters refer to President Mary Emma Woolley; faculty members Leonora Branch, Anna Jean Mill, Blanche Brotherton Cox, Cornelia Catlin Coulter, Eleanor Catherine Doak, Ellen Deborah Ellis, Alice Browne Frame, and Bertha Haven Putnam; and classmates Rosamond Frame de Saint-Phalle, Gertrude Read Adams, Marjorie Stephens Belcher, Catherine Ryan Wasselle, Mary Evans Vorwerk, Mary Fletcher Terry, and Mary Charlotte Lane. Topics discussed in the letters include Mountain Day and other college traditions, cooperative housing for students, student employment,  food, and social and cultural events such as dances, dates, and a lecture by Gertrude Stein. Letters also discuss examinations; course work in zoology, Latin, and physical education; soccer and other sports; the Outing Club and Glee Club, regulations concerning alcohol use and smoking. Other letters discuss the continuing impact of the 1929 economic depression on college students and families, and discuss political activities of students. The collection also contains a course paper regarding "Progression of Life on Earth," by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, most likely written for an introductory English class. Finally, the collection contains two photographs, one taken as a senior at Mount Holyoke College in 1938 and one in 1963.

Cite as: Margaret E. Broadbent Correspondence, Mount Holyoke College, Archives and Special Collections, South Hadley, MA.

Access Restrictions: unrestricted

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