Fellow: Fernanda Helen Perrone

Dr. Fernanda Helen Perrone, archivist and head of the exhibitions program at Rutgers University Libraries, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during an awards ceremony at the Annual Meeting of SAA in Anaheim, CA. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.

A distinguished archivist with over thirty years of experience, Perrone earned a PhD from Oxford University where she focused her research on women’s education. This laid the groundwork for her professional focus on women’s history throughout her career. After receiving her doctorate, Perrone began working as an assistant in the manuscript department at the Special Collections and University Archives of Rutgers University Libraries. She has spent her decades-long career at Rutgers, eventually earning a full professorship at Rutgers University Libraries. Since 2003, she has served in her current role of archivist and head of the exhibitions program.

Perrone’s career has been marked by significant contributions to the archival profession, particularly in documenting underrepresented groups, mentoring emerging archivists, and fostering international collaborations. In her position at Rutgers, she has developed diverse subject expertise in women’s history, gender studies, the history of Rutgers, and the history of westerners in Japan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her work curating and promoting the William Elliot Griffis Collection, which documents the experience of Westerners in Japan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has led to the development of international partnerships. Through her outreach, a group of scholars who studied Korean materials in the Rutgers collections discovered a set of unique photographs. Due to the destruction of many rare historical objects during the Korean War, photos like these represent an important cultural recovery. This discovery led to a collaboration with the National Archives of Korea to digitize the recovered photographs. Currently, Perrone is co-authoring an edited volume entitled Rutgers Meets Japan: A Trans-Pacific Network of the Late Nineteenth Century. For the book, coming out from Rutgers University Press this year, she invited scholars in art, history, and Asian studies to analyze the early transnational relationship between Rutgers University and Japan.

Throughout her career, Perrone has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to researching, preserving, and advocating for the archival records of women. She is particularly recognized as an expert on the archives of women’s religious communities. Her scholarly output includes numerous publications on women’s religious education, state-level voting rights history, and women artists’ archives, with notable works such as The Douglass Century: Transformation of the Women’s College at Rutgers University and On Account of Sex: Women’s Suffrage in Middlesex County, New Jersey. In 2013, she contributed a chapter to Perspectives on Women’s Archives (SAA). Her chapter, as well as the book, has spanned disciplines to reach historians, librarians, and other scholars thinking about the effect and importance of women’s archives. Her broad impact is also evident through her international and interdisciplinary speaking engagements: from New Jersey and Texas state and regional historical associations to MARAC and SAA to the Universities of Keio and Rikkyo in Tokyo, Japan.

Within SAA, Perrone has had a profound impact, particularly in mentorship. She has spent more than twenty years acting as a mentor through SAA’s Mentorship Program. She has also acted as a Navigator during SAA’s Annual Meeting since the program’s inception in 1997. In addition to her mentorship activities, Perrone has served as vice chair and chair of the Manuscript Repositories Section and has contributed to the Archivists of Religious Collections Section. She chaired the Women’s Collections Roundtable—now the Women’s Collections Section—where she revised and expanded the first directory of professionals overseeing or interested in women’s collections. This proved to be a crucial networking tool in the era before the internet was broadly accessible. In addition to her work at SAA, Perrone has worked with the American Historical Association, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, and Archivists of Congregations of Women Religious to advance the cause of archives.

Speaking about Perrone’s work, one supporter wrote that she has an “unwavering dedication to researching, preserving, and advocating for the archival record of women. She has remained steadfast in her commitment to ensuring that SAA recognizes and includes women’s experiences in the historical record.” Another supporter remarked, “Dr. Fernanda Perrone represents the best that the archival profession has to offer. She is a leading figure who unselfishly gives her time and energy to promote her profession.”