Friendship through the Archives

Few individuals—and even fewer undergraduates—are exposed to the archives, but the letters, lists, diaries, and other materials therein can be life-changing. In 2011, Devi Lockwood ’14, then a Harvard sophomore, received a Schlesinger Library grant to support research there. In the archives, she encountered the papers of Cora Brooks, a poet still living at the time, which sparked a meaningful friendship. As she later wrote in the New York Times, “For many people, roommates and romances are the most important relationships of their late teens and early 20s. For me it was Cora Brooks, a poet and activist 51 years my senior.”

The Radcliffe Moment

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In 2011, Radcliffe awarded Devi Lockwood ’14, then a Harvard sophomore, a grant to support research on 13 poets whose papers were archived in Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library. As Lockwood later wrote about her research, “I started alphabetically: Brooks, Cora. I never made it to the others.”

Few individuals—and even fewer undergraduates—are exposed to the archives, but the letters, lists, diaries, and other materials therein can be life-changing. These collections allow scholars of all ages to make unexpected connections across history and time. In Lockwood’s case, what began in the Library blossomed into an in-person friendship; she described her relationship with Brooks as one “beyond the generational divide.” As she wrote in the New York Times years later, “For many people, roommates and romances are the most important relationships of their late teens and early 20s. For me it was Cora Brooks, a poet and activist 51 years my senior.”

Lockwood is accomplished—a journalist, 2018 National Geographic Explorer, and author of a book on climate change, published by Simon & Schuster—but still young. Despite her youth, some of her writing is already part of the archival record. The letters she wrote to Brooks are now stored in the same boxes that she explored as a student, left as a breadcrumb trail for some future student to follow. As Lockwood says: “The archives are always speaking, if only we know how to listen.”

A COLLEGE STUDENT + A POET/TEACHER

The People

Devi Lockwood ‘14

Commentary and Ideas editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer
Author of 1,001 Voices on Climate Change (Simon & Schuster)
Former editor and writer at the New York Times Opinion section
2012 Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Research Fellow, Harvard University

Cora Brooks (1941–2018)

Poet, playwright, teacher, and activist

Cora Brooks. Photo by Terry Allen

Portrait of a younger Brooks, ca. 1990s. Photo courtesy of Papers of Cora Brooks, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Learn More

Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships
Schlesinger Library
Violence Against Women Research Guide (Cora Brooks), Schlesinger Library
Papers of Cora Brooks, Schlesinger Library

See other Radcliffe Moments.