Jean Hunt papers

Collection

Identifier: 2019-017

Staff Only

Content Description

The collection documents the activities of Activist Jean Hunt, whose career has included paid event and interest group organizing, staff nursing, running a feminist women’s health center, working for Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, foundation work, and running two nonprofits: Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women and the Campaign for Working Families. The collection primarily reflects the Women’s Rights and Liberation movement in Philadelphia, nationally, and internationally. Materials include meeting minutes and demonstration event planning notes from various Women’s health organizations and conferences, abortion rights action, court testimonies, speeches and papers, pamphlets and leaflets, news clippings, magazines, underground press, negatives, and contact sheets from the SEPTA bus campaign, and subject files on abortion, birth control, forced sterilization, HIV, violence against women, maternity and pre-natal care, occupational health and safety, and mental health.

Dates

1950 - 2018
Majority of material found within 1970 - 1982

Creator

Hunt, Jean (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Note about restricted material: Users will note that a number of folders in the Collection Inventory indicated restrictions due to HIPAA or other privacy concerns. We strongly encourage users to contact Legacy Center staff to discuss access to these materials, as we have used "restricted" to indicate that at least one item in the folder is restricted, but it is likely that other material in the folder may be freely accessible. It is also possible that users will be able to access to restricted material after working with us and gaining institutional review board (IRB) approval, or through a process of staff redaction of private information.

Biographical / Historical

Jean Hunt (b.1945) is a registered nurse and has participated in a variety of organized community-based civil rights, anti-war, and Women’s liberation movements on the regional and national levels. Hunt became very active in the Women’s Health and Liberation movement working as part of a collective organizing interest groups and events at a Philadelphia Women’s Liberation Center. The Center spawned a number of Women’s groups in the area, including, the Philadelphia Reproductive Rights Organization (PRRO) and Philadelphia Women’s Health Collective (PWHC). Several non-profits had their start in small groups at the Women’s Liberation Center: Women’s Way, Women’s Law Project (WLP), Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR), CHOICE, Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women, WAGE, Supportive Older Women’s Network (SOWN), and Community Women’s Education Project (CWEP).

Hunt worked in healthcare for twenty years as a staff nurse, visiting nurse, and Director of Outpatient Services for pre-natal and pediatrics at the John B. Franklin/Booth Maternity Center. As the Executive Director of the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women, a comprehensive reproductive health care facility that provided first-trimester abortions as well as general women’s health care. In the 1990s, Hunt’s focus shifted to local government as she began her career working at the Philadelphia Recreation Department, raising funds for community programs and creating initiatives for Girls' Sports and Environmental Education. Hunt headed the Mayor’s Children and Families Cabinet at the end of the Rendell Administration and was the Director of Children, Youth and Families Programs at the William Penn Foundation from 2000-2003. As Executive Director of the Campaign for Working Families from 2003-2010, Hunt was responsible for oversight of the assessment of grant proposals and lead strategic planning for the organization. She returned to Philadelphia Parks & Recreation until her retirement in 2013.

As of 2022, Jean Hunt is Co-Chair of the Bread and Roses Community Fund Board, a leading funder of grassroots organizing for racial, social, and economic justice in the Philadelphia region

Extent

2.50 linear feet (2 boxes - 2 record cartons )

Language of Materials

English

Spanish; Castilian

Additional Description

Arrangement

The Jean Hunt papers are arranged in three series, one of which has been further arranged into subseries based on the donor’s professional affiliations. The contents of each series or subseries are arranged chronologically.

The series and subseries arrangement of the records is as follows:

Series I: Personal Arranged chronologically

Series II: Women’s Health Organizations Arranged chronologically

Subseries IIa: Women’s Liberation Center Arranged chronologically

Subseries IIb: Women’s Health Collective Arranged chronologically

Subseries IIc: Philadelphia Reproductive Rights Organization (PRRO) Arranged chronologically

Subseries IId: Booth Maternity Center Arranged chronologically

Subseries IIe: Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women Arranged chronologically

Subseries IIf: Independent Consultant Arranged chronologically Series III: Publications Arranged chronologically

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was donated in 2019 by Jean Hunt.

General

Series II, Subseries IIc, Folder 25 contains photographic materials that have been damaged. The chemicals on the photographic paper were not washed properly and pages have melded together. Conservation techniques were applied to the majority of the photographs but there are some that still need attention when there is time.