World Center for Women's Archives was an organization established by Rosika Schwimmer and Mary Ritter Beard in the hopes of creating an educational collection which women could consult to learn about the history of women. The center was located in the Biltmore Hotel at 41 Park Avenue in New York City. It closed in 1940, but the efforts made to establish a center to collect records encouraged several colleges and universities to begin develop similar archives of women's history. It was one of the earliest efforts to collect women's documents in the United States, predated the first accredited women's studies course in the U.S by 34 years, and preserved materials about women which otherwise might have been lost. It also redefined the way that historical documents were selected for archival inclusion. By changing what documents were noteworthy, using personal records to shape public history, the Women's Archive legacy was foundational to the development of feminist theory.