Nina Swaim Papers

Background on Nina Swaim

Born in Sherborn, Massachusetts in 1938, Eleanor "Nina" Swaim was brought up by conservative parents. As a child, she attended St. Mary's, a school located in New Hampshire. She graduated with her B.A. from Boston University and an M. Ed. from Columbia University. She dedicated her life to research and learning more about her world.

Despite her traditional upbringing, her radicalization and dedication to activist causes began in the mid-1960s while enrolled in college. Nina started her lifelong engagement in activism in response to the Vietnam War by participating in campus protests at Columbia University. She worked in a GI bookstore near a military base to help soldiers protest against the war. She entered the printing trade not long after working with the New Victoria Press in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

As a radical feminist and environmentalist, Swaim made worldwide connections, collected data, and joined others in protests focused on local change. Her research and activism included international concerns and she traveled to multiple countries within Europe and Africa. Most of her research investigated African women, the environment, and the connections between these areas of interest and community. A significant area of study was the government and feminist movements in Mozambique.

In 1980, Swaim co-wrote the book "A Handbook for Women on the Nuclear Mentality" with Susan Koen, emphasizing the antinuclear movement. By the 2000s, Nina and her friends started protesting nuclear movements in New England. She protested throughout the first decade of the 2000s, working with the Upper Valley Energy Coalition. A month before her death in 2015, Swaim and several of her friends, including her husband Doug, were arrested for protesting a fracked gas pipeline in Williston, Vermont.

Nina was also a published author and a creative writer. She appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers regarding political, environmental, and social reform. She was an avid beekeeper, giving lectures and advice on caring, raising, and saving bee populations. In October of 2015, Swaim died from a stroke at the age of 77.