AMERICAN

WOMEN

Selected Historical Highlights

 

 

Researched and compiled by:

Aileen C. Hernandez

Aileen C. Hernandez Associates

818 - 47th Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94121[1]

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 1995

Aileen C. Hernandez Associates[2]

 

 

 

This chronology is dedicated to the many people, particularly women, throughout the history of the United States who helped move the cause of gender equity forward. Because I am an activist and not a history scholar, I do not pretend that this document adequately records all the significant contributions that have been made in that cause.

 

The chronology began years ago, arising out of sometimes heated discussions in management seminars conducted by our company. It has been shaped and re-shaped and has seen several incarnations. AMERICAN WOMEN is an “excerpt” from a larger version, IN PURSUIT OF EQUALITY, which goes beyond the issue of gender equity to include other struggles for equality. I am convinced that these struggles are inextricably linked and that the United States will never reach its full potential until we fully understand and embrace “diversity” as an important and positive part of our national heritage.

 

I would like to dedicate this version of American Women to the memory of two of my colleagues who played important, but often unheralded roles in the “second wave” of feminism. Without their support and guidance, this chronology could not have happened.

 

In Memoriam

 

Patsy G. Fulcher: January 26, 1939 - January 16, 1994

 

Eleanor R. Spikes: July 26, 1936 - April 4, 1982

 

With gratitude for their wisdom and support,

 

- Aileen C. Hernandez

                                                                                   

AMERICAN WOMEN:

 

SELECTED HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

Women have been somewhat less than equal in the United States. Their history is replete with evidence of second-class treatment--sometimes those who protested the unequal status of females went unrecorded in “his-story,” or were ridiculed. Occasionally they were taken seriously. Their deeds were noted, becoming part of a loosely-woven, sometimes faded tapestry—a meager heritage to be passed on to nontraditional daughters seeking nontraditional role models.

 

To understand the present of women, it is important to know about their past. American women from all walks of life, from all racial and ethnic groups and from every area of the country have contributed to “her-story.” Individually, they made their marks; collectively, they provided needed inspiration for those who followed them. There are many whose names will never be known; there are some whose names are legend. Following is a highly selective view of women in United States history.   

 

1620 Male passengers on the Mayflower, carrying refugees from Europe to the New World were the only ones whose names appeared on the contract with the ship owner specifying the legal boundaries of their unique relationship. The Mayflower Compact, a significant document of American history, had no women signers because women had few, if any, contractual rights in the seventeenth century.

 

1776 Abigail Adams, in a letter to her husband John, entreated him to “remember the ladies” as he and his colleagues began the precedent-setting task of creating a new nation. She cautioned that, if women were overlooked, they would “foment a rebellion” that could impact negatively on the fledgling republic. John took her comments as a joke and wrote back that it was the first time that he heard that a “tribe more numerous than the rest” had grown discontent.

 

1777 Mary Katherine Goddard, a Baltimore printer, produced the authenticated copies of the Declaration of Independence for forwarding to each of the new “states” as an official record.

 

1778 Molly Pitcher, whose real name was Mary Ludwig Hays, replaced her dead husband as a gunner at the Battle of Monmouth (New Jersey) during the Revolutionary War. She was commissioned as a sergeant in the Continental Army by General George Washington and later received a pension for her service.

 

1792  Deborah Gannett was awarded a special citation by the General Court of Massachusetts in recognition of her service in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment.  Disguised as a man, and using the name Robert Shurtliff, she enlisted in May of 1782 and served for more than a year without pay. In its citation, the State commended Ms. Gannett for an “extraordinary instance of female heroism by discharging the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, at the same time preserving the virtues and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished...”

 

1794  Eli Whitney patented a device to separate cotton fiber from the seed and revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States. There is some evidence that the cotton gin was really invented by a widow, Catherine Littlefield Greene, in whose home Whitney was boarding. An 1883 magazine article suggested that Mrs. Greene did not patent her invention in her own name because she did not wish to be ridiculed by a society which “frowned upon any attempt at outside industry for women.”

 

1805  Sacajawea, a Shoshone woman who had been taken captive at the age of 14 by the Minatarees of the Knife River, became one of the guides of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as they set out to explore the Louisiana and Northwest Territories.

 

1807  The General Assembly of the New Jersey State Legislature passed a law restricting the right to vote to “free white male citizens, twenty-one years of age, worth fifty pounds.” The new law repealed a 1776 statute, incorporated into the New Jersey Constitution, which had permitted “all inhabitants” of full age and worth fifty pounds to vote. The 1776 law had been interpreted to include women and many of them had voted in the state from 1776 to 1807.

 

1821  Emma Willard, who had proposed a plan to the New York State Legislature in 1819 for the improvement of female education in the state, was selected by the Common Council of Troy, New York to run a female academy in their city.

 

1834  Prudence Crandall of Connecticut admitted a black student, Sarah Harris, to her school for girls and triggered a wave of vandalism that lasted for more than a year and finally resulted in the destruction of the facility by a mob of the town’s residents.

 

1836  Mary Lyon, a pioneer educator, received a charter to establish a school for women—the first such institution to be funded through an appeal to public philanthropy. The school, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, was established at South Hartley, Massachusetts.

 

1837  The first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women was held in New York City with more than 200 women from ten states in attendance. The group adopted a resolution calling upon women to use all their influence “to overthrow the horrible system of American slavery.” The meeting also voted to issue Angelina Grimke’s “An Appeal to Women of the Nominally Free States,” which challenged women to help bring slavery to an end she made a strong case for civil disobedience against the unjust laws of a system which maintained slavery and forbade anyone to teach slaves to read and write.

 

1848  The first women’s rights convention ever held in the United States was called together on July 19 in Seneca Falls, New York by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt Martha Wright and Mary McClintock. The mole than 300 women and men in attendance endorsed a “Declaration of Sentiments’ (paralleling the Declaration of Independence) which demanded an end to the unequal status of women. Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, one of 31 men to attend the convention, spoke in support of women’s right to vote.

 

New York State passed a Married Women’s Property Act providing that property owned by a woman before her marriage would not be subject “to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts.” Mississippi had passed a similar law in 1839; property law reform was a major focus of the early feminists.

 

1851  Sojourner Truth, a former slave, attended her first women’s rights convention (in Ohio) and took the floor to speak for women’s equality. In her now-classic “Ain’t I a Woman” speech, she joined the issue of women’s rights and Black rights as she argued against the men at the meeting who objected to providing women full rights because they were frail and needed the protection of men. When she finished speaking, there were roars of approval from the women in attendance.

 

1854  Margaret Douglass, a white woman from Virginia, was sentenced to one month in jail for teaching black children to read and write.

 

Harriet Tubman, known as the “Black Moses,” began one of her longest trips as a “conductor” on the “Underground Railroad” (neither underground nor a railroad). Tubman, like many others who opposed slavery, escorted slaves to freedom along a secret route. With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, the trip could no longer end in one of the free Northern states; the slaves had to be taken all the way to Canada. Tubman transported more than 300 slaves to freedom, and bragged that she “never lost a passenger.”

 

1855  Lucy Stone married Henry Blackwell in an unusual “equal rights” ceremony in which both protested the inequity of the marriage system. Lucy elected to keep her own surname after the marriage, rather than assume her husband’s name.

 

1860  A major strike of shoeworkers in Lynn, Massachusetts included 1,000 women who  marched through a vicious blizzard to call the public’s attention to the plight of the workers. In 1869, the Daughters of St. Crispin, a national union of women, was founded.

 

1864  Women and children were among the more than 200 Cheyenne Indians massacred at Sand Creek by Colonel J.M. Chivington and the Third Regiment of Colorado. Congress later awarded reparations to the widows and orphans of the men killed after a military investigation confirmed irregularities by Chivington and his troops.

 

1868  The 14th amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in spite of the opposition of many women’s rights advocates who were concerned that women’s rights were not mentioned.

 

1869 The American Women Suffrage Association was formed to fight for women’s right to vote; it was created after earlier suffrage organizations disbanded because of disagreement over whether the 15th amendment to the Constitution (guaranteeing voting tights for Black men) should be supported by suffragists.

 

1873  The United States Supreme Court, in Bradwell v. Illinois, upheld the judgment of an Illinois court that Myra Colby Bradwell could be denied a license to practice law in the state even though she had passed the qualifying examination. The court ruled the 14th amendment to the Constitution did not protect a woman’s right to practice law.

 

Susan B. Anthony went on trial in New York for attempting to vote in the 1872 elections. The judge dismissed the jury and assessed a $100 fine against Ms. Anthony. She refused to pay, saying “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

 

1875 The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the actions of Reese Happerstett, the Registrar of Voters who refused to permit Virginia Minor to register to vote in Missouri. The case, Minor v. Happerstett, established the precedent that the 14th amendment, while conferring citizenship on women, did not automatically give them the right to vote. This decision, coupled with the decision in Susan B. Anthony’s trial convinced women that they would have to seek a Constitutional amendment to get the right to vote.

 

1878 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton persuaded A.A. Sargeant, the Senator from California, to introduce a women’s suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution. The first vote on the amendment took place in the Senate in 1887 where it was defeated (34-16); the first House vote took place in 1915, when the amendment lost (204-174).

 

1889  Jane Addams and Ellen Starr opened Hull House in Chicago. It was a community center offering a variety of services to those in the neighborhood--from babysitting to art shows. The organization soon changed into a social reform group which worked to improve employment conditions for working class people in Chicago.

 

1890  Wyoming became a state, maintaining its constitutional provision granting women the vote. Congress tried to pressure the state to eliminate that provision, but Wyoming legislators preferred to remain a territory rather than accede to that demand. 

Forty-seven women were among the survivors of the massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek by the Seventh Cavalry.

 

1908 In its decision in Muller v. Oregon, the United States Supreme Court validated an Oregon law which limited the maximum number of hours women could work but placed no restrictions on the number of hours men could work.

                       

1909  Women were prominent among the signers of a special “Call to Conference” on the status of American Blacks; the meeting grew out of the concern about the escalation of brutality and lynching against Blacks in the North and the South. Among the signers were: Jane Addams, John Dewey, W.E.B. Dubois, Ida Wells Barnett, Lincoln Steffens, Mary Church Terrell, Oswald Garrison Villard and Mary Ovington. The meeting led to the incorporation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 

A general strike of shirtwaist makers was called in New York City to protest the “sweat shop” conditions in the garment industry. Over 20,000 women joined the strike which lasted for nearly three months.

 

1911  One hundred and forty-six people (mostly women and girls) died in a fire which swept through the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. The locked factory doors and the blocked fire escapes made it impossible for many of the workers to leave the building. The tragedy led to an investigation of factory conditions and the passage of several laws relating to fire safety.

 

1913  In a massive march organized by suffragist Alice Paul, thousands of women paraded in the nation’s capital in support of women’s suffrage. Controversy attended the march. Black suffragist Ida B. Wells was asked by the organizers not to participate lest her presence antagonize white Southern suffragists. Supported by her Illinois suffrage delegation, she marched anyway. Police violence against the marchers led to an investigation by the United States Senate and the subsequent dismissal of the City’s Chief of Police.

 

1915  Jane Addams became the Chair of the newly-formed Women’s Peace Party and a delegate to the International Congress of Women at the Hague. She was also instrumental in forming the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919.

 

1916     Jeannette Rankin was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Montana and became the first woman to serve in the Congress. She voted against the United States entry into the first World War and lost her bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1918. More than 20 years later (1940), she was successful in her race for a Congressional seat; she cast a lone vote against the United States’ entry into the second World War and in 1942 was defeated for re-election.

 

1917    Margaret Sanger’s trial for illegally operating a birth control clinic and “creating a public nuisance” began in a Brooklyn courtroom. She was sentenced to thirty days in the workhouse when she refused to promise that she would respect the law which prohibited the dissemination of birth control information. Her reply was, “I cannot promise to obey a law I do not respect.”

 

Militant suffragists were arrested in Washington, D.C. for blocking the sidewalk in a massive demonstration in support of the women’s franchise amendment to the Constitution. More than 200 women were arrested in the demonstration. Women set up a “silent vigil” at the White House gates; it lasted for eighteen months.

 

1920    With the scent of victory in the air, the last suffrage convention opened in Chicago in a carnival spirit. A new organization, the League of Women Voters, was formed to help educate women to their newly-granted political responsibility.

 

President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor. Mary Anderson became the first Director of the Bureau.

The nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, granting women national suffrage, was ratified on August 26, 1920 when Tennessee became the 36th state to approve the amendment.

 

1922    The Cable Act was passed by the United States Congress. While it reinforced women’s rights to citizenship, it also restricted that same right by declaring that any woman citizen married to an alien ineligible for citizenship would cease to be a citizen.

 

Rebecca Felton was the Senator from Georgia for less than a day. Appointed by the Georgia governor to fill the position on the sudden death of Senator Thomas Watson, Ms. Felton was not a candidate for the office. In the November elections, Walter George Won the seat, but a series of parliamentary maneuvers permitted Ms. Felton’s appointment papers to be presented ahead of those of the Senator-elect. Ms. Felton was seated, made a brief speech thanking the Senators for their courtesy in permitting her to become the first woman to sit in the United States Senate, and retired from office.

 

1923    Senator Charles Curtis of Topeka, Kansas introduced a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. It stated that “men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States...” and became known as the Equal Rights Amendment.

 

1924    Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act granting citizenship to American Indians formerly excluded from full participation in political rights.

 

1925    Two women were sworn in as governors--Nellie Tayloe Ross in Wyoming and Miriam Ferguson in Texas. Each was elected to the office as a substitute for a deceased husband.

 

1926    Gertrude Ederle, a nineteen year old New Yorker, set a record for swimming the English Channel in 14-1/2 hours and became an instant celebrity.

 

1931    Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her long work in behalf of peace. She was the first American woman, and only the second woman of any nationality to be so honored. Ms. Addams donated her peace prize money to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

 

1932    Hattie Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman elected to the United States Senate. Appointed to fill the unexpired term of her late husband, she ran for a full term and won. She lost her bid for a third term in 1944 to 3. William Fulbright.

 

1933    Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin distributed the first issue of the Catholic Worker in Union Square, New York. A feminist (she was arrested with Alice Paul in the 1917 Washington demonstrations for women’s suffrage) and a supporter of trade unions, Dorothy Day spoke out in behalf of the poor and downtrodden; the paper became a national best-seller.

 

Frances Perkins, a former Industrial Commissioner of the State of New York, was appointed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as Secretary of Labor; she was the first woman to hold a Cabinet-level position and headed the Labor Department for twelve years throughout the entire administration of President Roosevelt.

 

1935    The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) was organized with the assistance of Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of Bethune-Cookman College in Florida and a member of Franklin Roosevelt’s “kitchen cabinet.” Ms. Bethune became the first president of the NCNW and also headed the Negro Affairs Division of the National Youth Administration in the Roosevelt administration.

 

1937    Crystal Bird Fauset became the first Black woman to be elected to a state legislative post; she won a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Delegates as a Representative from Philadelphia.

 

1939    Jane M. Bolin became the first Black woman to be appointed to a judgeship; she was named by New York Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia to the Court of Domestic Relations in the nation’s largest city.

 

Marian Anderson, an African American, sang before 75,000 people in an Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The unusual performance was arranged by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when the organization refused to permit Ms. Anderson to sing in their building’s auditorium (Constitution Hall) because she was Black.

 

1948    Margaret Chase Smith, the woman who was to serve longer than any other woman as Senator (four terms), was first elected as Maine’s Representative from the Second Congressional District, replacing her late husband in that position. An independent Republican, Senator Smith, during the 1950’s, challenged the tactics of her fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy who ushered in an era of “red-baiting” public figures by suggesting that the United States was swarming with Communist spies. Although later discredited, McCarthy succeeded in damaging the careers of many people, including Hollywood stars and writers who were “blacklisted” as a result of his irresponsible allegations.

 

1942    President Roosevelt, by Executive Order 9163, established the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps for noncombatant service in the U.S. Army. The group was headed by Oveta Culp Hobby, who later became the first Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Each branch of the service had its women’s branch: the Navy (WAVES); the Coast Guard (SPAR) and the Marines (WAM). The women performed significant duty throughout the second World War and for some time after.

 

1944    Mitsuye Endo was ordered released from a War Relocation Authority Center after

the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Ex Parte Endo that the right to detain a citizen of Japanese ancestry ended when that person’s loyalty had been established. The case was one of a series of cases brought before the court challenging the internment of 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066 issued by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942.

 

1948    The Supreme Court of the United States supported the right of a Black woman, Ada Sipuel, to enter the University of Oklahoma Law School In Sipuel v. Oklahoma, state segregation laws were under challenge.

 

The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act was passed; it authorized the enlistment and appointment of women in the regular Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines; it also established a maximum quota of 2% for women in the regular Army.

 

California’s law banning marriages between whites and “Negroes, Mongolians, members of the Malay race or Mulattos” was struck down by the California Supreme Court by a 4-3 vote in Perez v. Sharp.

 

1950    Gwendolyn Brooks became the first Black to win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book Annie Allen. Ms. Brooks, a native of Topeka, Kansas, was reared in Chicago.

 

1953    Segregation in Washington restaurants was struck down by the United States Supreme Court in D.C. v. John R. Thompson Restaurant Co. The case was based on evidence gathered by a group of Washingtonians, headed by Mary Church Terrell, a Black woman who committed her life to the fight against segregation in the nation’s capital.

 

Oveta Culp Hobby, former head of the Women’s Army Corps, was selected by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to head the newly-created Department of Health, Education and Welfare. She was the second woman in history to hold a Cabinet post.

 

1955    Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to move to the back of the bus and triggered a year-long bus boycott which resulted in the end of segregation in public transportation in the southern states and the beginning of the modem day civil rights movement.

 

The Daughters of Bilitis, an organization supporting the rights of lesbians, was formed in San Francisco by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon who later co-authored the acclaimed book, Lesbian/Woman. Both women became activists in the National Organization for Women, encouraging the feminist movement to deal with issues affecting lesbians.

 

1957    Six young women were part of the “Little Rock Nine” as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), through its regional director Daisy Bates, continued its battle against segregated schools by seeking to enroll nine Black youngsters in Central High School in Little Rock. The action triggered demonstrations, a confrontation with Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus and intervention by the Federal government President Dwight Eisenhower ordered federal troops into Little Rock to protect the nine students in their efforts to comply with court decisions that the schools be integrated.

 

1960    Wilma Rudolph, a young Black woman, became a triple Olympic gold medalist as she took the 100-meter and 200-meter races and the 400-meter relay.

 

1961    Wisconsin became the first state in the United States to pass a law prohibiting discrimination in employment because of sex.

 

At the request of Women’s Bureau Director Esther Petersen, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10980 establishing the President’s Commission on the Status of Women. Chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the Commission did an intensive study of women’s lives. Their report, American Women, edited by Margaret Mead, was issued in 1963 and became a national best seller it detailed the many ways in which women in the United States were still treated as second- class citizens.

 

1963    The Equal Pay Act was signed into law; it required that women and men doing substantially similar work receive equal pay.

 

The Feminine Mystique, written by housewife and Smith College graduate Betty Friedan, was published, influencing many activists to join in the struggle to obtain equal rights for women.

 

Racial violence erupted in Birmingham, Alabama as four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addle Mae Coffins and Carole Robertson) were killed in the bombing of a Baptist Church on a quiet Sunday morning. The violent attack came just two weeks after the March on Washington in which more than 250,000 people (including Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose I Have a Dream speech electrified the group) gathered in the nation’s capital to demand a civil right law.

 

The violence continued with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Federal District Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath of office to the new President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, on the plane which carried Kennedy’s body back to Washington.

 

1964    The most comprehensive civil rights act in the history of the nation was signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. In Title VU of the new law, Congress banned employment discrimination on the basis of sex as well as discrimination because of race, color, creed, national origin and ancestry.

 

The integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party lost its bid to be seated as the official Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention. The MFDP, with Fannie Lou Hamer, Unita Blackwell and Ella Baker among its leaders, charged that the “regular” party denied Blacks the right to participate. MFDP refused a “compromise” which offered them two special delegate seats, but credentialed the “regulars” to represent Mississippi.

 

1965    Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenged the seating of the Mississippi Congressional delegation charging that Black voters were intimidated from registering so that only 6% of the eligible Blacks were on the voting rolls. The challenge failed, but triggered court actions which were successful in raising the number of Black voters in the state and, subsequently, the number of Black elected officials.

 

Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first Asian woman, and the first woman of color, to serve in the United States Congress when she was seated to represent Hawaii’s Second District She served six terms in Congress. In 1976, she ran for the Senate and lost. After more than a decade in local offices in Hawaii, she was re-elected as a member of Congress from the Aloha state in 1992.

 

1966    The National Organization for Women was born at a June meeting of Commissions on the Status of Women in Washington, D.C. when delegates decided that a “civil rights type” group was needed for women. Three hundred people had become members by the time an organizing convention was held in October 1966 (with 32 women and men in attendance). Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, was elected the first president of the group. Aileen Hernandez, a Black woman and the first woman member of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, became Vice-President West of the organization in 1967 and in 1970 was elected the second national president of NOW.

 

Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman to hold a Federal judgeship when she was appointed to the United States District Court in New York by President Lyndon Johnson.

 

1967    Government contractors were required to include women in affirmative action plans as a result of Executive Order 11375 issued by President Lyndon Johnson after pressure from women’s organizations. The new order supplemented presidential action taken in 1965 (by Executive Order 11246) to require affirmative action by federal contractors for racial and ethnic minorities.

 

1968    Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman to be elected as a member of the

Congress of the United States.  She ran as a primary candidate for the Presidency in 1972; in 1982, she announced her decision not to run for re-election, after serving seven terms as a representative from Brooklyn. She continues her interest in politics and has been a visiting professor at several colleges since her retirement from the Congress.

 

The Women’s Equity Action League was created to support women’s challenges against legal barriers to entry into the professions.

 

1969    President Richard Nixon’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities issued its report on the status of women.

 

1970    A nationwide “strike” of women was called on August 26, 1970 by the National Organization for Women to highlight the unfinished business in women’s rights. Thousands of women (and men) demonstrated in hundreds of American cities in support of the feminist cause.

 

1971    Romana Banuelos was named Treasurer of the United States by President Richard Nixon, the first Latina to hold the post.

 

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Phillips v. Martin Marietta, challenged a company’s practice of not hiring women with children of pre-school age as a potential violation of Title VU.

 

Employers who used selection procedures which had disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities or women were required to prove the relevance of those procedures or discard them for less discriminatory approaches to comply with a Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power. The case formed the basis for challenging height requirements in police departments, unnecessary academic requirements for entry-level jobs, and excessive experience requirements for promotional opportunities. Overturned by a series of decisions in the 1988-1989 term of the Court, the principles of Griggs were reinstated when Congress passed the 1991 Civil Rights Act.

 

1971    The National Women’s Political Caucus, a non-partisan coalition of women dedicated to increasing the number of men and women who support women’s equality in political positions, was formed at a conference called in Washington, D.C.

 

1972    The Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in 1923, was approved by 2/3 of the Congress and sent to the states for ratification. A preface to the legislation specified that the amendment had to be ratified within seven years of the date of its passage by Congress.

 

Title IX of the Educational Amendments was passed by Congress to provide educational equity based on sex. The law barred discriminatory practices in educational programs and institutions, resulting in the integration of formerly sex- segregated classes (like auto mechanics and home economics) and the expansion of competitive athletics for girls and women.

 

            The United States Commission on Civil Rights was given jurisdiction to study sex discrimination in the United States and to recommend to Congress legislation to address any inequities found.

 

The jurisdiction of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was expanded to include state and local government agencies and private employers of 15 or more workers. The agency was also given the authority to sue discriminatory employers in federal court.

 

Billie Jean King beat her male opponent Bobby Riggs in a nationally-televised tennis match, thus paving the way for greater opportunities for women athletes in professional sports.

 

1973    An agreement between the United States government and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company set in motion a massive affirmative action effort to eliminate sex-based inequities in employment in the company. A consent decree, monitored by the federal courts, required special efforts to hire men into formerly female-dominated occupations and women into formerly male-dominated jobs.

 

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Roe v. Wade, issued a precedent- setting decision making abortion legal in the nation. The case was argued in the Supreme Court by Sarah Weddington, a young Texas lawyer.

 

In the Pittsburgh Press case, the Supreme Court banned sex-segregated “help wanted” advertising as a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended. The court decision ended a battle by the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) against the newspaper’s policy of permitting “Help Wanted Male” and “Help Wanted Female” columns for classified advertising.

 

Dolores Huerta was elected First Vice-President of United Farm Workers of America (AFL-CIO). The union, founded and headed by Cesar Chavez, was organized to improve the working conditions and benefits for agricultural workers in the southwest.

 

1974    Housing discrimination on the basis of sex and credit discrimination against women were outlawed by laws passed by Congress.

 

The Coalition of Labor Union Women was founded in Chicago; the group was organized to improve the working conditions of women and to increase the number of women in leadership positions in the trade union movement.

 

In defiance of church law, four Bishops in Pennsylvania ordained eleven women as priests. Among the new clergy was Pauli Murray, an African American civil rights activist and a founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

 

1975    President Gerald Ford appointed a Commission on International Women’s Year
 to plan the United States participation in an international conference held in Mexico City in June 1975. The Conference established an International Women’s Decade 0975-1985) and in November 1977, pursuant to a directive from new President Jimmy Carter, a National Conference was convened in Houston, Texas. More than 1500 delegates and alternates (observed by thousands of guests from all over the world) participated in the development of a National Plan of Action for the United States to address the many inequities faced by women. The National Commission which planned and implemented the precedent-setting meeting was chaired by Bella Abzug, the former Congresswoman from New York.

 

The Supreme Court, in Weinberger v. Weisenfeld, a case successfully argued before the Court by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, banned sex discrimination in Social Security benefits for surviving male spouses of covered female participants in the program.

 

1976    In Gilbert v. General Electric. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that Title VU of the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not require employers to provide pregnancy benefits for female workers.

 

1977    Jimmy Carter, former Governor of Georgia, was inaugurated as President of the United States. He named a number of prominent women to his administration including Antonia Chayes as Undersecretary of the Air Force; Shirley Hufstedler as head of the Department of Education; Patricia Harris - first as the chief executive of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and then as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services; Azie Taylor Morton as Treasurer of the United States; Alexis Herman as chief of the Women’s Bureau; Esther Peterson to oversee Consumer Affairs; Eleanor Holmes Norton as Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and Sarah Weddington (who had successfully argued the Roe v. Wade abortion case before the Supreme Court) as Special Assistant to the President.

 

1978    Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, amending Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to protect the job rights of pregnant women.

 

1979    The period for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment was extended to June

30, 1982 after a petition by the National Organization for Women was approved to allow a ten-year (rather than a seven-year) period for securing approval of the amendment by a minimum of 38 states.

 

1980    In Gunther v. Washington, the Supreme Court decided that workers could file complaints with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as amended, in order to evaluate the concept of “comparable worth.” The issue resulted in cases challenging pay differentials between jobs held predominantly by women and those held predominantly by men.

 

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidelines declaring that “harassment on the basis of sex is a violation of Section 703 of the Civil Rights Act.” As with harassment on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion, employers were held responsible for maintaining a workplace environment free of harassment

 

1981    Ronald Reagan took office as President of the United States. During his tenure in office, he appointed the first woman member of the Supreme Court of the United States. Sandra Day O’Connor, an Arizona lawyer and also the first woman to be a majority leader of a state legislature, took her seat as an Associate Justice among her eight male colleagues.

 

1982    The Equal Rights Amendment failed ratification. Three states short of the required 38 when the June 30, 1982 deadline expired, the amendment was reintroduced in Congress, but no action on its passage was taken.

 

1983    Margaret Heckler was appointed by President Reagan as the Secretary for Health and Human Set-vices. In 1985, in what has been identified as a White House “power play” by Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan to get her off the Cabinet, Ms. Heckler was “promoted” to the post of Ambassador to Ireland.

 

Sally Ride became the first American woman to participate in a space mission, when she rocketed into space with her male colleagues aboard the space shuttle Challenger. One year later. Dr. Kathryn Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space.

 

 

 

1984    The Democratic Party, in convention in San Francisco, nominated Geraldine Ferraro, a member of the United States Congress from New York at the time, as its candidate for Vice President. The Democratic ticket lost the election. Ms. Ferraro sought the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in the 1992 primaries, but lost to a male candidate in a hotly contested race, which also included former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman.

 

1986    In Grove City v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, narrowed the scope of Title IX of the Education Amendments act of 1972. Earlier interpretations of the law had permitted federal officials to with draw all federal funds from an institution with a discriminatory program. Under Grove City, funds could only be withdrawn from the specific program being challenged, not from the entire institution.

 

In Vinson v. Mentor Savings and Loan, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sexual harassment of an employee by a supervisor did constitute a violation of Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended. The Court indicated that such harassment could create a “hostile or abusive work environment” and was unlawful The Court also indicated that the employer’s lack of knowledge of the particular instances of harassment “does not necessarily insulate an employer from liability.”

 

Astronaut Judy Resnik and Christa McAuliffe, a civilian school teacher, were among the seven crew members killed when the Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986 soon after its takeoff on a space mission.

 

1987    By a 6-3 vote, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Johnson v. Santa Clara County Board of Transportation, that an employer may consider gender as one factor in determining promotion into a category of jobs where a striking statistical imbalance exists. The Court upheld the decision of the California transportation agency to promote a woman (Diane Joyce) to the position of dispatcher (which no woman had ever held in the county agency) even though a male applicant was recommended for hire by a screening panel which rated him two points higher than Ms. Joyce after interviewing all seven applicants deemed qualified. When Ms. Joyce was selected over Mr. Johnson who was the panel’s choice, he sued charging sex discrimination. The Court denied his claim by affirming the agency’s authority to appoint a well-qualified woman to the position.

 

1988    In response to the Grove City decision of the Supreme Court, Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, reinstituting the government’s authority to withdraw all federal funds from institutions with discriminatory programs.

 

1989    Elizabeth Dole was named Secretary of Labor and Carla Hills Trade Representative, Cabinet level positions in the administration of President George Bush.

Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Cuban ancestry, became the first woman of Hispanic heritage elected to the United States Congress, representing the Miami, Florida area.

 

1990    Antonia Novello was named U.S. Surgeon General, the first person of Hispanic heritage to hold the post.

 

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress, opening up the possibility of new job opportunities for disabled people.

 

1991    Succeeding Elizabeth Dole who had been selected as Secretary of Transportation, Lynn Martin was named Secretary of Labor by President George Bush. She was a former member of Congress and initiated studies on the so-called “glass ceiling” during her tenure. Congress passed a new Civil Rights Act, which President George Bush signed after vetoing a similar bill in 1990 which he called a “quota bill.” The legislation reinstituted protections which had been challenged by recent Supreme Court decisions. Under the new law, women were also given the right to sue for damages, although a “cap” was set on the amount that could be sought.

 

Clarence Thomas became the second Black man to serve on the United States Supreme Court when he was confirmed by the Senate in one of the closest votes in history (52 to 48). During the hearings on his confirmation, Thomas, nominated by President George Bush to succeed retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, was charged by lawyer Anita Hill with having sexually harassed her. Televised nationally, the hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee dramatically underscored the fact that only two women were then serving in the United States Senate, Barbara Mikuiski of Maryland and Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas. No women served on the Judiciary Committee.

 

1992    Elaine Chao, Director of the Peace Corps during the Bush Administration and the highest ranking Asian Pacific American appointee in the history of the federal government, was named Chief Executive Officer of the United Way of America.

 

Elizabeth Dole was selected to head the American Red Cross.

 

More women than ever before in the history of the United States ran for and were elected to Congress. Carol Moseley Braun, representing the state of Illinois, became the first African American woman ever to sit in the United States Senate. California voters sent two women, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, to represent them in the Upper House of Congress. Also elected was Patty Murray from the state of Washington, bringing to six the number of women in the United States Senate.

 

1993    Janet Reno became the first woman in history to serve as the Attorney General of the United States. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, after two prior nominations of women to the post ran into trouble, Ms. Reno was a former prosecutor in Florida. Also appointed to the Cabinet were Donna Shalala (as Secretary of Health and Human Services) and Hazel Rollins O’Leaiy (as Secretary of Energy). Roberta Achtenberg, a lesbian activist from California, was named to the post of Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Judith Heumann, a pioneer activist in the disabled rights movement, was named as Assistant Secretary for Special Education, and former Women’s Bureau Director Alexis Herman became a Special Advisor to the President on the White House staff and former Colorado State Senator Polly Baca was placed in charge of consumer issues.

 

Dr. Jocelyn Elders was confirmed as Surgeon General, the first African American woman to hold that position. Her nomination by President Clinton sparked controversy because of her strong advocacy of school-based education on contraception as one way of reducing the constantly escalating number in of teen pregnancies.

 

President Bill Clinton withdrew the nomination of Lani Guinier, an African American woman and professor of law, to the post of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights after conservatives in the country protested her “radical” views for democratizing the political process.

 

Kay Bailey Hutchison, former Texas State Senator, was elected to the United States Senate to replace Lloyd Bentsen named by President Clinton as Secretary of the Treasury. Her election raised the number of women in the U.S. Senate to seven.

 

Madeleine K. Albright was confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a post originally held by Eleanor Roosevelt when the United Nations was founded in 1945 and later held by Jeanne Kirkpatrick during the Reagan /Bush Administration.

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by a 97-3 vote of the United States Senate as the second woman to become a Justice of the Supreme Court. Serving on the Court of Appeals at the time of her nomination, Ms. Ginsburg had played a major role in bringing gender discrimination cases before the Court in the 1970s.

 

1994    Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican, was elected Governor of the state of New Jersey; Ann Richards lost her bid for a second term as Governor of Texas.

 

At the request of President Clinton, Dr. Jocelyn Elders resigned as Surgeon General after comments she made in response to a question from a conference participant were interpreted by conservatives as advocacy of teaching teenagers about masturbation as a an alternative to sexual intercourse.

 

Rita Dove, a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner for Thomas and Beulah, a volume of poetry based on the lives of her grandparents, was named Poet Laureate of the United States, the youngest poet and the first African American to achieve that honor.

 

Dr. Mary Berry, a long-time member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and an African American, was appointed Chair of the Commission, the first woman to hold the post since the agency was created in 1957.

 

Author and editor Toni Morrison received the Nobel Prize for Literature. A prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, focusing on African American experiences, Ms. Morrison was cited for the over-all excellence of her literary works.

 

1995    Myrlie Evers Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was 1995 elected Chair of the Board of the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People. She is the second African American woman to hold that post in the history of the NAACP, which was founded in 1909.

 

 

 

 

AILEEN CLARKE HERNANDEZ

 

AILEEN C. HERNANDEZ is President and Founder of Aileen C. Hernandez Associates, an urban consulting firm started in l967 and based in San Francisco. She is former Commissioner of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, appointed by President Lyndon Barnes Johnson in 1965.

 

She was Assistant Chief of the Division of Fair Employment Practices for the State of California from 1962 through 1965, and the Education Director for the Pacific Coast Region of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union prior to that She migrated California from her hometown of Brooklyn, New York in 1951 when she was assigned to Los Angeles as an organizer for the garment union. In her eleven years with the ELGWU, she worked her way up to the post of Education and Public Relations Director for the Region. Ms. Hernandez has been active in both the civil rights and the women’s rights movements. She was the second National President of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and a founder of Black Women Organized for Action, Bay Area Black Women United and Black Women Stirring the Waters in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

She serves on numerous boards and commissions at the national and local levels. She is Vice-Chair of the National Urban Coalition; Chair Emerita of the Board of Working Assets Common Holdings (a socially responsible investment company whose board she chaired for 8 years); and a member of the University of California San Francisco Foundation. She is also on the Boards of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Women Policy Studies, the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights and the Center for the Common Good. She is an advisor to the Campaign to Abolish Poverty, Vice Chair of the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union and a member of the Advisory Council to the California Academy of Sciences. She is a life trustee of The Urban Institute, a member of the California Commission on Campaign Financing and Center for Governmental Studies and was on the Advisory Board to the Program for Research on Immigration Policy, jointly conducted by the Rand Corporation and the Urban Institute. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and tributes for her community service.

 

She has traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world, including Europe,

Latin America, China, and Africa.  As a member of a privately funded Commission, she

went to South Africa to study that nation’s apartheid system and its relationship to

American policy-making in 1981. The Commission issued a widely acclaimed report,

South Africa: Time Running Out.

 

As an urban consultant, she works with private corporations, governmental agencies and community organizations on a wide variety of issues that face cities. She has a Bachelor’s Degree, magna cum laude, in Sociology and Political Science from Howard University in Washington. D.C., a Master’s Degree in Government, with highest honors, from California State University at Los Angeles, and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Southern Vermont College. She was 1993 Regents Scholar in Residence at University of California. Santa Barbara and was selected as the 1993 Tish Sommers Lecturer by the Institute for Health and Aging of the University of California, San Francisco. She has also taught courses at the University of California, Berkeley and at San Francisco State University.