Our History

In 1974, Wellesley College President Barbara Newell, Ph.D., founded the Wellesley Center for Research on Women in Higher Education and the Professions. With seed funding from the Carnegie Corporation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, the center set out to create a home for feminist social scientists to do the kind of bold, audacious research and action programs that they could not do anywhere else.

In 1981, the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies was founded with a generous grant from Grace W. and Robert S. Stone. The center, first led by Jean Baker Miller, M.D., author of the groundbreaking book, Toward a New Psychology of Women, became the origin of Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT), recognized by the American Psychological Association’s Theories of Psychotherapy Series as ‘one of the 10 most important psychological theories today.’

The Center for Research on Women joined with the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies in 1995 to become a single organization: the Wellesley Centers for Women. Since then, research scientists and project directors at WCW have conducted groundbreaking interdisciplinary studies on a broad range of social issues, including education and child care, economic security, mental health, youth and adolescent development, and gender-based violence.

Our Leadership

Center for Research on Women (1974 - 1995)

Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies (1981 - 1995)

Wellesley Centers for Women (1995 - present)