Mary Ellen S. Capek discusses her career, the development of A Women’s Thesaurus, and her work with the National Council for Research on Women. She was editor and coordinator of the “Women’s Thesaurus” Task Force. She describes her work with colleagues on the task force, including Sarah Pritchard, Sue Searing, Cheryl Sloan, and Pat King. She discusses the difficulty of conducting feminist research, the role of organizations and institutions in responding to that challenge, and the role of the Women’s Thesaurus in facilitating research on women. She also reflects on the intersection of gender, race, and class in the development of controlled vocabularies.
The interview was conducted for the Ways of Knowing Oral History Project. The interview took place virtually on July 26, 2022; recorded locally by Hannah Crawford at Mary Ellen’s home in Corrales, New Mexico. The interviewer is Amanda Belantara, who is based in New York City.