Doris Holmes Blake - Correspondence with Doris Sidney Blake, November 1949 - 1951, undated

“My degree was deserved, I guess,” Radcliffe College graduate Doris Sidney Blake wrote to her parents, Smithsonian entomologist Doris Holmes Blake and USDA botanist Sidney Fay Blake. One might argue it was not necessarily a lack of confidence that motivated Blake to add “I guess.” Rather, it was sheer exhaustion from working on her senior thesis, making time for friends, and managing her love life. In letters to her parents, the youngest Blake struggled to make decisions about her future. At one point, she thought she might get engaged to her tutor. At another, she was applying to teaching jobs in France. Join a group of volunpeers in transcribing this project which touches on the anxieties, perhaps familiar to some, surrounding the uncertainty of adulthood after graduation. Tip: Start from the last page to work chronologically. Funding for the digitization of Blake's correspondence, and its inclusion into the Transcription Center, was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee. For more information, explore the finding aid.