Stephanie Mills Papers, 1962-2005 (majority within 1983-2002)

The Stephanie Mills Papers consist of a wide variety of materials from across the length of Mills's career. The collection contains a large amount of correspondence spanning Mills's personal and professional lives, including incoming and outgoing correspondence with colleagues, family, friends, and publishers. The Stephanie Mills papers also contain assorted material from her time at Mills College, including original poetry, term papers, and materials relating to Mills's famous valedictory address delivered in June 1969. Although the Personal series is not large, it also contains a variety of materials including an original sketchbook, scrapbooks, and calendars spanning thirty years of Mills's professional life. Mills attended, organized, and spoke at a large number of public events related to her various interests, and materials relating to these compose the Conferences and Lectures subseries. The collection also contains materials relating to Mills's activism dating back to the early 1970s, including issues on which she was active in Michigan.

The Writings and Manuscripts series makes up the bulk of the collection and contains numerous drafts of Mills's books, in addition to correspondence and research materials relating to each project. A small gathering of Mills's original cartoons can be found in the Visual Art series, including original pen and ink illustrations for a 1975 publication on birth control. The Audiovisual series contains numerous audio recordings and two video recordings of Mills speaking in public as part of various events. The Computer Disks series contains 41 3 ½-inch micro floppy disks holding numerous documents relating to Mills's various books and writing projects, in addition to resumes and a small number of personal documents. In total, the Stephanie Mills Papers are divided into 10 series: Correspondence; Correspondence, Name; Personal; Professional; Activism; Writings and Manuscripts; Visual Art; Clippings and Reviews; Audiovisual; and Computer Diskettes.

The Correspondence series contains approximately 5 linear feet, Boxes 1-5, consisting mainly of correspondence with fellow activists, colleagues, and friends. Organized chronologically by decade and year, relevant photographs, clippings, and ephemera are generally kept with the related correspondence. Undated correspondence can be found at the end of the decade bundles in which they were received, with additional undated correspondence collected at the end of the series. Outgoing correspondence from Mills is generally separated from incoming correspondence as it was received, particularly sets of letters to Robert Schlichting and correspondence Mills wrote while residing at the Blue Mountain Center in New York State during 1983 and 1986.

The Correspondence, Name series contains approximately 3 linear feet, Boxes 5-8. The correspondence is gathered into sets relating to specific individuals with whom Mills held significant exchanges. These correspondents include personal friends as well as fellow environmentalists, including Chellis Glendinning, Barbara Dean, Felicia Guest, Hazel Henderson, William Horvath, Freeman House, Kraig Klungness, Jane Anne Morris, and Gary Snyder. Mills also corresponded with two young men serving in the Vietnam War, as well as enjoying a long correspondence with her mother, father, aunt, and other family members.

The Personal series contains approximately 2 linear feet, Boxes 8-9, and contains assorted material from Mills's time at Mills College in Oakland, California, including original poetry, term papers, and materials relating to Mills's famous valedictory address delivered in June 1969. Although the Personal series is not large, it also contains a variety of materials including an original sketchbook, scrapbooks, and calendars spanning thirty years of Mills's professional life, which can be found in the oversize Box 25. The scrapbook included in the Personal series also contains a number of clippings Mills gathered, often related to her valedictory address at Mills College in 1969. A sketchbook dating to 1966 contains original artwork by Mills, and materials relating to Mills's 1985 wedding to Phillip Thiel are also included in the Personal series.

The Professional series contains approximately 3 linear feet, Boxes 9-12, and includes materials largely related to Mills's professional appearances and public speaking throughout her career. Mills attended many conferences related to her field of study, including repeat appearances and tenure on organizing boards for events. The largest part of the series is correspondence, logistical and publicity information and other material related to Mills's attendance at conferences around the US and abroad. The material is arranged chronologically by year and month, with those events containing the largest amount of material provided first. The Conferences and Lectures subseries opens with a group of speeches Mills delivered on overpopulation, an issue which remained a concern across the length of her career. It is important to note that the Conferences and Lectures subseries also contains transcripts and position papers from a 1980 conference on technology named Technology: Over the Invisible Line? The subseries also holds transcripts from the 1993 Neo-Luddite Summit and 1994 Megatechnology and Globalization conference, both of which Mills later incorporated into the book Turning Away From Technology, which she edited and to which she contributed writing. The Professional series also contains a number of notecards Mills used during various lectures, although these are undated. A small amount of information related to Mills's hosting of discussion salons in a professional capacity for a Michigan organization in 1996 is also included in the Professional series under the subseries Salons.

The Writings and Manuscripts series contains approximately 11 linear feet, Boxes 12-23, and contains materials related to Stephanie Mills's writings spanning the length of her career. The series contains 6 subseries: Books; Novel; Editorial Work; Criticism; Essays; and Articles.

The Books subseries contains materials related to many of Mills's books, arranged chronologically by book. The subseries begins with a small amount of material related to a never-published book proposal, and continues with a large amount of materials relating to Mills's books Whatever Happened to Ecology?, In Praise of Nature, In Service of the Wild, Turning Away From Technology, and Epicurean Simplicity. The Books subseries contains numerous typescripts, drafts, manuscripts, galleys, and correspondence with publishers and others including proposals and editorial comments. The amount of material for each book varies, but the amount of material related to each book often makes clear Mills's painstaking drafting process. Research material, outlines, and notes are also often provided for each book. Turning Away From Technology, a collection of writing on technology and the modern world, contains a significant amount of correspondence and corrected manuscripts from individual contributors to the anthology; this correspondence is arranged alphabetically by contributor. It is useful to note that the transcripts of the 1993 and 1994 conferences relating to Turning Away From Technology can be found in the Conferences and Lectures subseries within the Professional series.

The Novel subseries consists of a manuscript for a never-published novel by Stephanie Mills which appears to date to the early 1970s.

The Editorial Work subseries contains material related to Mills's work as editor of various environmental publications, particularly EarthTimes in 1970 and Friends of the Earth's Not Man Apart from 1977 to 1978. The subseries contains correspondence and press related to the publications, as well as an account Mills wrote describing her editorship at EarthTimes. Mills also served on the advisory board of Earth Island Press and the Editorial Work subseries contains materials she edited for the organization. The serials have been catalogued separately from the collection.

The Criticism subseries consists primarily of book reviews Mills wrote for various publications, largely related to the environmental movement. The materials are arranged chronologically by decade. Materials include manuscripts and various drafts of the reviews as well as correspondence with various publications and clippings of the published reviews. The Criticism subseries is small, consisting of only two folders of material.

The Essays subseries contains a small number of Stephanie Mills's essays and book excerpts which appeared in various publications from the 1980s through early 2000s. The essays are very representative of her thinking, and the Essays subseries includes a proof of the book Consuming Desires edited by Roger Rosenblatt, to which Mills's contributed her piece entitled Can't Get That Extinction Crisis Out of My Mind.

The Articles subseries contains a number of articles Mills wrote for various periodicals, including Co-Evolution Quarterly, Synapse, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, EarthTimes, Clear Creek, and various other environmental and mainstream publications. Materials are arranged chronologically by decade unless large amounts of material related to specific publications appear. The subseries contains drafts and published versions of articles, as well as correspondence and research materials related to the various pieces. The 1970s sub-subseries also contains transcripts from a number of interviews Mills later shaped into articles, including interviews with Margaret Mead, Frank Herbert, Garrett Hardin, and Hazel Henderson, among other influential environmentalists.

The Visual Art series contains approximately .1 linear feet, Box 23, and consists of a small gathering of Mills's original cartoons. The series contains original pen and ink cartoon illustrations for a 1975 publication on birth control. Other visual art Mills created appears can be found in the Personal series. A small collection of proofs from the artwork from Epicurean Simplicity, original drypoint engravings by Glenn Wolff, can be found with the book itself in the Writings and Manuscripts series.

The Clippings and Reviews series contains approximately 0.25 linear feet, Box 23, and consists of primarily clippings and photocopies of reviews of Mills's books. The clippings and reviews are arranged chronologically by decade. The Other Clippings subseries contains clippings, copies, and publications not directly related to any of Mills's specific projects.

The Audiovisual series contains 38 audiocassettes, 12 microcassettes, 2 videocassettes, and 4 compact discs, Box 24. The numerous audiocassettes include interviews Mills held with environmentalists and a complete recording of the Conference on Megatechnology and Economic Globalization held in 1994 in Devon, England. Microcassettes largely related to Epicurean Simplicity can also be found in the Audiovisual series, as well as two videocassettes recording Mills's speaking at two events in 1992 and 1993. The four compact discs in the Audiovisual series contain audio of Mills speaking at events and giving interviews in the early 2000s. Audiocassettes and microcassettes in box 26 have been reformatted, and CD access copies have been created.

The Computer Disks series contains 41 3 ½-inch micro floppy disks, Box 24, and consists of three boxes of disks holding numerous documents relating to Mills's various books and writing projects, in addition to resumes and a small number of personal documents. The files are largely identified by labels, although they are in a number of different formats.