In remembrance: Lorraine Macchello

Lorraine Macchello, who passed away in February 2025, is remembered for her many contributions during the formative years of the Center for Research on Women (CROW), now the Clayman Institute. She began in 1985 as a secretary, and retired in 1990 as an office manager and administrative assistant. Macchello also served as associate editor of the CROW Newsletter, a position she continued part-time until 1994. 

Stepping up at a pivotal time, Macchello contributed to CROW in so many ways that Edith Gelles, senior scholar and an affiliate of the Institute for almost 40 years, considers her a founder. “She was a brilliant woman, who was instrumental in the survival of CROW in its earliest years,” Gelles said.

Macchello previously had worked one year in Stanford’s personnel department and then five years in the Italian division of the department of French and Italian. She brought her organizational skills, her special expertise as an editorial assistant, and a bilingual facility in Italian to the CROW position. At the time of her retirement, an item in the Newsletter noted Macchello’s hand in many Institute activities, including the visiting and affiliated scholars program, the production of Institute publications such as book manuscripts and the Newsletter, and the coordination of grant and research proposals. 

Gelles, a noted historian, reflects: “So many women are lost to our histories. Lorraine was a woman who ‘made a difference.’ We who were there at the beginning loved her and respected her.”