This collection of Marilyn Stokstad's papers includes records, correspondence, photographs, and other materials regarding both her professional career and personal life. It includes reference materials and notes she gathered for publications, classroom lectures, and other scholarly activities; drafts of publications and other materials related to the publication process; materials related to exhibits Stokstad curated and more generally to her professional work and service; and correspondence, photographs, travel information, and other personal materials.

In addition to her doctoral dissertation research in Spain on Santiago de Compostela, Stokstad used a Fulbright Fellowship to Norway in 1951-52 to research and write her master's thesis on Norwegian mural painting. In all her travels, for schooling and research, she wrote home to her parents regularly, and those letters are preserved in this collection. These letters are both insightful and funny, revealing much about life and culture, including difficulties traveling to and from Carleton College due to a nationwide coal strike disabling local train service to Northfield, Minnesota. Some of the letters were numbered to establish sequence, but it is not known by whom, or when, and some of the numbers seem to have been duplicated.

Stokstad was a steadfast feminist, and her papers reveal key moments in that career in school as a student, as one of the February Sisters at the University of Kansas, as President of the College Art Association, and as someone who personally rewrote the canon of Western art history with an eye toward uncovering the contributions of women artists.

Because she was a lifelong student of art history,and lectured well past normal retirement age, research notes can be found in more than one series in this collection. Some reflect her own education. Many were part of her comprehensive study of art history for the 5 editions of her textbook, as well as for other books written previously.

Oversize and audiovisual materials have been physically separated and are described at the end of this finding aid.