Susan G. Komen for the Cure® archives
to be preserved at SMU’s DeGolyer Library

Susan G. Komen for the Cure® archives will be preserved at SMU’s DeGolyer Library.

SMU’s DeGolyer Library and Susan G. Komen for the Cure® have formed a new partnership to preserve and chronicle the history of the international organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer.

DALLAS (SMU) — SMU’s DeGolyer Library and Susan G. Komen for the Cure® have formed a new partnership to preserve and chronicle the history of the international organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer.  Correspondence, advertisements and news articles are among Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s 29-year history that are now part of DeGolyer’s Archives of Women of the Southwest.

(l. to r.) Dean Gillian M. McCombs, Director of SMU's Central University Libraries, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and SMU President R. Gerald Turner at a reception announcing the partnership between SMU’s DeGolyer Library and Susan G. Komen for the Cure® to preserve and chronicle the history of the international organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer.
(l. to r.) Dean Gillian M. McCombs, director of SMU's Central University Libraries, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and SMU President R. Gerald Turner at a reception announcing the partnership between SMU's DeGolyer Library and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to preserve and chronicle the history of the international organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer.
The collection tells the story of Susan G. Komen for the Cure from its start as a grassroots effort to its role as the global leader of breast cancer awareness and the fight to find a cure. Since its founding in 1982, Susan G. Komen for the Cure has invested more than $2 billion to fight breast cancer, save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cure.

A sister’s promise in 1980 led to creation of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. When Susan G. Komen died from breast cancer at age 36, her sister, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, promised to do everything she could to end breast cancer, culminating with the founding of the organization that now bears her sister’s name.  Today Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists working in 50 countries around the globe.

“Susan G. Komen for the Cure has its roots in Dallas, where so many people in our community supported our work and helped build a movement against breast cancer,” said Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. “We’re grateful to SMU for helping to preserve that history here in Dallas where it all began.”

At DeGolyer, the personal papers, scrapbooks and photographs of Susan Goodman Komen as well as papers, photographs, clippings, publications, awards and artifacts will be preserved and cataloged for researchers.

“There’s really no other organization like Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and DeGolyer Library is honored to help preserve its history and its important work in the fight against breast cancer,” said Russell Martin, director of DeGolyer Library. “We thank the leaders at Susan G. Komen who have given these papers to SMU, and we welcome researchers who would like to study the papers and other materials in the Komen archives. The collection also has value as a teaching tool, in itself a case study in institutional effectiveness.”

The Archives of Women of the Southwest includes papers of leaders in women's organizations and social and political reform movements, papers of families and of women in private life, records of women's organizations and organizations concerned with women's issues, and oral history interviews.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools.

Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer. Today, Susan G. Komen for the Cure works to end breast cancer in the U.S. and throughout the world through groundbreaking research, community health outreach, advocacy and programs in more than 50 countries with a special focus on low-resource and developing nations.

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