Collection ID: D.553

Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Alternatives for Battered Women (Organization)
Extent:
84 Cubic feet
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Item title, item date], Alternatives for Battered Women, Inc. Records, D.553, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Background

Scope and Content:

The Alternatives for Battered Women, Inc. records, 1977-2003, is quite extensive, ranging from administrative records and materials which speaks to daily shelter operations, to client services, community outreach, special programs, and research on domestic violence. The bulk of the content is from 1979 to 1998, during which time Phyllis Korn acted as executive director. The strength of this collection is that it documents and underscores the intricacies and endurance of beginning and operating a non-profit domestic violence shelter in New York State.

Biographical / Historical:

In the mid-1970s, a group of Rochester activists led by Helen H. French and members of the nursing, mental health, and education communities, organized the Coalition for Battered Women in 1976. Two years later, the group incorporated as Alternatives for Battered Women (ABW), Inc. and established a volunteer-operated hotline. After securing funding from private, state, and county sources, such as the Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation, United Way, and the New York State Department of Social Services, ABW extended its services and opened a 22-bed shelter for women and their children in 1979. The next year the shelter began a children's program, which was funded by the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Phyllis Korn, the executive director of the organization from 1979 to 1998, spearheaded efforts to improve access to legal aid, oversaw the creation of the Court Advocacy Program at Family Court, and created a support service for children living in abusive homes. During her tenure, she and prominent community activists against domestic violence also created the Rochester/Monroe County Domestic Violence Consortium. Officially founded in 1982, the Consortium began as an advisory group to the Men's Education for Non-Violence Workshop, an intervention group created by Vince Butler, a social worker, through the Genesee Mental Health Center that same year at the request of ABW and with the support of the Rochester Police Department and Family Court. The group quickly expanded and began to act as a cooperative committed to ending domestic violence through community education, professional communication, and legislative change. ABW has remained a consistent and active advisory member of the Consortium.

From 1979 to the present, ABW (renamed Willow Domestic Violence Center in 2015) sponsored several conferences around issues of domestic violence, and its members created and maintained interfaith and community connections and outreach programs, supported low-income transitional housing for victims of domestic violence and educated local police departments and hospitals on proper responses to domestic violence. In 1990, ABW, in collaboration with Strong Memorial Hospital and with funding from the Federal Domestic Violence Challenge Grant through the New York State Children and Family Trust Fund, began Project S.A.F.E., a dating and teen violence education program. Also that year, ABW collaborated with the Ibero American Action League to operate the Sana y Salva program for Latina women.

At a time when violence against women and children was considered a private family matter, not subject to public scrutiny or criminal liability, ABW offered a different perspective - where women had an inalienable right to bodily integrity and autonomy. Despite then prevailing social conceptions of women in abusive relationships as masochistic, having deliberately provoked the violence against them, or mentally ill for staying in those relationships, the organization continued to shift the narrative and place the blame and responsibility on the abusers.

When it opened its doors in 1979, ABW was one of three shelters providing services for women and their children in the State of New York. ABW offered simple, practical emergency housing, counseling, and medical services. In the 40 years of its operation, the organization has grown considerably, and today it helps over 7,000 women and their children in Monroe County each year to gain access to legal aid, safety, care, and understanding.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

Alternatives for Battered Women, Inc. records is currently unavailable for research use. For more information, please contact RAREBKS@library.rochester.edu

TERMS OF ACCESS:

Reproductions are made upon request but can be subject to restrictions. Permission to publish materials from the collection must currently be requested. Please note that some materials may be copyrighted or restricted. It is the researcher's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other case restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the collections. For more information contact rarebks@library.rochester.edu

PREFERRED CITATION:

[Item title, item date], Alternatives for Battered Women, Inc. Records, D.553, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
Rush Rhees Library
Second Floor, Room 225
755 Library Rd.
Rochester, NY 14627, United States
CONTACT:
(585) 275-2121
rarebks@library.rochester.edu