The papers of Dorothy McGuigan consist primarily of materials relating to her work and scholarly interests while at the University of Michigan. The most heavily documented areas of the collection pertain to her research and to her involvement with the Alice and Edith Hamilton Award at the University Michigan. The collection has been divided into five series: Scholarly Work, Lectures and Conference Papers, Research, the Alice and Edith Hamilton Award, and Organizational Affiliations and Interests.
Dorothy Gies McGuigan, born Dorothy Gies on November 12, 1914, received her Master of Arts from the department of English and comparative literature at Columbia University in 1939. Her thesis was entitled, "Women and Undisclosed Writing during the Restoration Period in England." Throughout her life she maintained her interest in historical research, particularly Austrian history, publishing The Habsburgs (1966) and Metternich and the Duchess (1975). McGuigan also continued to work on her masters thesis which she intended to publish as "Printers, Peddlers, Politicians: Women in Literary Trades: 1500-1700."
McGuigan came to the University of Michigan in 1955 as an instructor teaching business writing in the school of business administration, later in 1974, she was appointed lecturer in the English department. She also taught in the Residential College. While at the University, McGuigan was program director and editor at the Center for the Education of Women (formerly the Center of the Continuing Education of Women). While at the CEW she was able to pursue her interests in gender issues and women in higher education, and to "work to help women reach achievements beyond their expectations" (CEW scholarship descriptions). She published A Dangerous Experiment: 100 Years of Women at the University of Michigan (1970). She also edited Women's Lives: New Theory, Research, and Policy Issues: Papers from the Conference Held November 1979.
McGuigan was a driving force behind the Women's Studies Program and a founding member of the editorial board of the University Press series on Women and Culture series and the Alice and Edith Hamilton Award. The Women and Culture series was designed to encourage excellence in the new women's scholarship, to add stature and coherence to the field of women's studies, and to serve as a stimulus to younger scholars to research and write in these areas. The Hamilton award, funded by Horace Rackham Graduate School and the Alumni Office, was given for the best scholarly book-length manuscript dealing with some facet or facets of women's lives past or present. The award was named for Alice Hamilton, an alumnus of the University of Michigan Medical School (1893) and a pioneer in environmental medicine, and her sister Edith, a celebrated classics scholar and author of The Greek Way who taught at the University during the 1920s. Toward the end of her life, McGuigan helped to create the Committee for Gender Research to encourage research on gender issues.
Dorothy McGuigan died in October 1982. In 1983 the Center for the Education of Women created a scholarship in her name designed to recognize women pursuing their interest in women's studies or related fields.
