Aimed primarily at women, this is a monograph collection of popular advice literature. Books cover topics from cooking and cleaning to marriage and birth control. Many of the titles are manuals that offer guidelines for self-improvement. The collection demonstrates how self-improvement advice has been redefined to meet the needs of popular culture.
The Victorian notion of the woman as the "Angel in the House" is well-represented, with many of the texts proposing that every young woman should be prepared to be the guardian of her home and to provide heaven on earth for her family. Later imprints document the change in social constructs.
The original collection consists of approximately 800 titles that were collected by Harrison Hayford. In 1990, his wife, Josephine Wishart Hayford (Class of 1937), donated the bulk of the collection in honor of her mother, Josephine Long Wishart, wife of President Charles F. Wishart. This collection is currently in progress and is being added to by Digital Collections staff.
