The Equivalents

A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s

By: Maggie Doherty

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

The timely, never-before-told story of five brilliant, passionate women who, in the early 1960s, converged at the newly founded Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study and became friends as well as artistic collaborators, and who went on to shape the course of feminism in ways that are still felt today.

In 1960, Harvard's sister college, Radcliffe, announced the founding of an Institute for Independent Study, a "messy experiment" in women's education that offered paid fellowships to those with a PhD or "the equivalent" in artistic achievement. Five of the women who received fellowships - poets Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin, painter Barbara Swan, sculptor Mariana Pineda, and writer Tillie Olsen - quickly formed deep bonds with one another that would inspire and sustain their most ambitious work. They called themselves "the Equivalents". Drawing from notebooks, letters, recordings, journals, poetry, and prose, Maggie Doherty weaves a moving narrative of friendship and ambition, art and activism, love and heartbreak, and shows how the institute spoke to the condition of women on the cusp of liberation.

Cover photographs: Anne Sexton, 1961 by Rollie McKenna © Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation. Courtesy Center for Creative Photography. Print: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Rollie McKenna; Women's liberation demonstration © Freda Leinwand (detail). Print: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Edge of cover image: Red, White and Gray, 1971 by Barbara Swan (detail). Used with permission from the Alpha Gallery, Boston.

©2020 Maggie Doherty (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"The Equivalents is such an exciting, engaging, and important book that I loathed doing anything but reading it. With great psychological acumen, and ever-mindful of the nuances of class, race, and gender, Maggie Doherty brings these women vividly to life, allowing us to hear them speak, to feel their conflicts and their triumphs. By the end, I was electric with insights into my own relationships and work, and, perhaps surprisingly, I felt very optimistic about the future. Being creative while female has never been easy, and our best hope for resolution is this variety of historical excavation, one that shows us how people have tried to resolve it before, so we may learn and keep pushing forward, newly enlightened.” (Kate Bolick, author of Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own)

"Maggie Doherty’s revelatory history of female artists and their influential friendships stands as triumphant testament to the powerhouse first known as Radcliffe’s Institute for Independent Study. Later known as the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, this multi-disciplinary fellowship program continued to rescue, support, inspire and strengthen women scholars and artists for nearly forty years. When Harvard swallowed Radcliffe in 1999, Radcliffe College ceased to exist, and the resulting quid pro quo endowment admitted men to what had been 'a room of one's own' for Sexton, Kumin, Olsen, Swan, Pineda, and many women after them. Maggie Doherty's The Equivalents reminds us that generative 'women's work' can literally light up the darkness that discourages women's voices - just when we need them the most." (Jayne Anne Phillips, Bunting Institute Fellow, 1980-81, author of Black Tickets and Lark and Termite)

'In her thrilling book, Maggie Doherty brings to vivid life the long-hidden history of a glorious American experiment that gathered creative women for a year of community in the shelter of a great university. The emotional power of The Equivalents lies in its revelation of the incremental impact of community on each of these formerly isolated women, prophetic of what would happen two years later with the publication of The Feminine Mystique and the arrival of Second Wave feminism." (Honor Moore, author of Our Revolution)

Ever-Evolving...

Doherty provides dimension surrounding our historical why, how we arrived here and asks the direct question - and call to action - to craft the next chapter. Compelling, comprehensive context.

Excellent, all women must read

Good writing, good stories, important friendships. Great book for woman past and present. loved this.

A great read

This book is a wonderfully told history of early events in the fight for women’s rightful place in society through the lens of an institute, art, friendship, and, inevitably, of class. Beautifully read.

Toxic feminism and complaints

I have loved Anne sexton for a long long time , but this rendition comes off as non stop complaining, immaturity and toxic feminism. No a poet cannot have it all. No a woman cannot do it all , this being a great mother and a great artist. There is a lot of ego here and a lot of narcissism. These women became successful and published , even wealthy yet the author is constantly complaining about men or society as if men only do what they want to do and never sacrifice. Deeply immature philosophy and often very selfish and self indulgent.