In September 1981 the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to Radcliffe College and matching gifts from many generous donors, began a project to record the autobiographical memoirs of a group of women who served in the executive and judicial branches of the federal government. The purpose of the project was to interview selected women who held civil service of appointed positions and to make the interview transcripts available to students and researchers interested in tracing the careers and contributions of women who began their government careers during the first half of the twentieth century, and includes narrators from such varied fields as law, education, economics, business, engineering, and medicine. The memoirs are supplied to the Columbia Oral History Collection as part of an ongoing exchange.