Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers
Women's Resource Center (WRC)
The Coates Library Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers Women’s Resource Center was relocated and reimagined in Summer 2021. Located in a southeast corner of the Library with exceptional natural light and comfortable seating, the WRC houses more than 200 books on topics including gender, sexuality, sexual health, feminism and womanism, transgender issues, sexual and domestic violence, and women and gender studies. There are over 50 portraits of important people of all genders hanging on the walls.
Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers (b. December 25, 1920; d. April 19, 2013) was a lifelong philanthropist and was best known for her charitable activities throughout Texas and San Antonio on behalf of women and others in support of medical research, reproductive rights, education, and other issues. She served on many boards, including Trinity University, Texas Woman's University in Denton, St. Mary's Hall, Sunshine Cottage, San Antonio Symphony, Witte Museum, Volunteer Service Bureau, Planned Parenthood, The National Board of the Abortion Rights Action League as well as the Texas State Board. Her generous philanthropy includes the founding gift to the "Women's Legacy Initiative" of the United Way, the endowments of the Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers Chair for Breast Cancer Research and Treatment at UTHSC, the Excellence in Research Award given to the top researchers each year at Baylor College of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Cyclotron wing of the Research Imaging Center at UTHSC which is named in her honor, and the Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers Laboratory for the advancement of Neuroscience Research. Other groups that benefited from her financial support include the Family Violence Prevention Service, the Battered Women's Shelter, Girls Inc. of San Antonio, the Children's Shelter, Girl Scouts, the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and many more. Bowers worked on several political campaigns, always for candidates who were “pro-choice, pro-daycare, and pro-equal rights.”
Posthumously, Bowers has been recognized for underwriting all the expenses for Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued the landmark Roe v. Wade case in the U.S. Supreme Court that legalized abortion nationally in 1973. Her longtime friend remembers that “she was in the Supreme Court visitor's gallery when they announced Roe vs. Wade. Her core belief was that “if we're not in charge of our own bodies, we're not in charge of anything.”
Most of the books in the WRC are nonfiction guidebooks, essays, memoirs, and other educational titles. The collection gives special attention to books about and written by women, LGBTQIA2S+ folks, transgender and nonbinary people, Black people, indigenous people, and people of color. Trinity students are currently working on a companion website for the portraits hanging on the WRC walls.
The WRC welcomes people of all genders, sexualities, abilities, races, and ethnicities.