Nancy Herbst Sechrest Collection

The Nancy Herbst Sechrest Collection is a monograph collection of 204 works devoted to women. A large portion of the collection consists of biographies, memoirs, and travel journals, documenting the lives of women in the home, on the job, and at leisure.

The collection also includes works related to the social history of women, highlighting issues such as sexuality, marriage and career options. Many works are tied to domestic arts and crafts (embroidery, knitting, canework, collage) and emphasize the importance popular culture has placed on creating the "ideal home" during various periods of time in the twentieth century. (While there are 15 titles published between 1835 - 1900, the bulk of the collection represents works published throughout the twentieth century.)

Nancy Herbst Sechrest donated her personal collection to the college in 2001 knowing that this collection would complement the Josephine Long Wishart Collection: Mother, Home, and Heaven. The Sechrest collection's emphasis on personal memoirs and biographies provides access to popular culture through women's words and stories.

Ms. Sechrest began her early college career at Wooster (Class of 1950). She later returned to college to complete her Bachelor of Arts cum laude in Speech and English at Fairleigh Dickinson University (1966) and her Master of Library Science at Rutger's University (1969). Currently, she resides in New Jersey and is a retired library director.