Safe Haven/Women’s Coalition Oral History Project

The collection consists of ten interviews conducted in early 2015 with women who had been involved with the original organization of the Northeastern Minnesota Coalition of Battered Women, a group dedicated to opening a shelter and offering resources to assist battered women in Duluth, MN. Founded in 1978 as a collective and later known simply as the Women’s Coalition, this group evolved into the Safe Haven Shelter and Resource Center in 2001. Interviewees include women involved with the establishment of the first and later shelter facilities, and others who were closely linked as a volunteers, staff or employees of associated organizations. The project generated over eleven hours of audio files and 181 pages of interview transcripts. Video of a few of the interviews was also recorded.

Interview questions focused on how and why each narrator became involved with the Women’s Coalition, how they were trained, what work they did, what they learned and what kept them working on this important, intense topic. Narrators shared stories of organizational successes and challenges, lessons learned about racial discrimination and perceptions, and stories of women and children helped by the shelter. Relationships with other organizations such as the Domestic Abuse Intervention Program (DAIP) were discussed, often remembering DAIP founder Ellen Pence and Shelter organizer Cathy Curley, both now deceased. Women remembered working alone at night, assisting women who had just experienced violence, or advocating for them in the court system. Some memories focused on the importance of the feminist philosophy and the original Collective organizational structure to model a new society without hierarchy or rigid roles and titles. Many narrators discussed their perspectives on the role of women in today’s society and the changing attitudes about violence and even the language changes from “battered women” to “domestic abuse” and the implications of those words.

Transcripts and more information about the project are available below in "Other Finding Aids." Recordings of the interviews are available upon request.