Segregation also caused divides because black women like, Mary Bethune, Elizabeth Carter Brooks, Mary Church Terrell, and Sue Bailey Thurman were barred from joining the "whites-only" Washington, D. C. branch, in spite of the women having specifically been asked to assist in the project by Porter. Rather than tackle racism outright, Beard simply allowed African American women to submit documents directly to her. That policy brought concerns from other factions, like Miriam Y. Holden (NWP), a scholar and collector, who worked for social justice with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who wanted a direct confrontation on the issue of racism. Coupled with financial issues, the discord and focus on other issues after the entry of the United States into World War II led Beard to resign in June 1940. The archives permanently closed in September because of the difficulties in raising charitable contributions not related to the war efforts. The records the Women's Archives had accumulated were dispersed widely. Some were returned to their donors upon request, others were donated to various libraries, such as Columbia Teacher's College, Connecticut College, Hunter College, the New York Public Library, and Purdue University. Still others became the foundational documents for women's collections at Barnard College, Smith College's Sophia Smith Collection, and Radcliffe College's Schlesinger Library. Through the efforts to collect documentation, the Women's Archives inspired other individual and institutional efforts to preserve documents about women and their history, which might have disappeared without the collective initiative. It was one of the earliest attempts in the United States to gather women's archival records and predated the development of the first accredited women's studies program in the United States by 34 years. It not only established protocols that collecting women's archives were valuable in shaping the historical narrative, but laid the "foundations of the feminist historiographical paradigm" and more generally of other marginalized communities. By redefining what materials constituted historical documents, through the inclusion of personal letters, journals, and other memorabilia, the Women's Archives recognized the value of and impact that personal records and oral histories had on public history. That vision influenced how contemporary archives are compiled, as did the focus on having broad accessibility to encourage scholarship.