Documenting Women’s Activism and Leadership
in Chicago, 1945-2000
Project Launch
The Chicago Area Women's History Council kicked off its new project, "Documenting the Women's Movement in Chicago, 1960s-1980s," with an inaugural program and a standing-room only crowd at the Chicago History Museum on Sunday, March 16, 2008. For more photos of the event. For information about the program and speakers.
Over 160 attendees including historians, archivists, movement leaders, organizers, activists, media professionals, oral interviewers, and many others, participate in a lively discussion about the new project and unique aspects of Chicago's women's movement. Sara M. Evans, historian, and Mary Jean Collins, activist, were featured speakers along with Elizabeth Myers, archivist, and Erin McCarthy, oral historian. A reception, cosponsored by the Veteran Feminists of America, honored movement activists included in Feminists Who Changed America 1963 - 1965. If you were there, we'd like to know what you thought. Give us your feedback.
In 2009 we changed the name of our project to "Documenting Women's Activism and Leadership in the Chicago Area, 1945 - 2000" to reflect recent women's history scholarship that identifies "The Long Wome's Movement."
This project will identify and preserve resources to document women’s contributions during this period, with a particular emphasis on the Chicago women’s movement 1960s - 1980s. This grassroots effort brings together scholars, archivists, activists and community leaders to update the research we undertook in producing Women Building Chicago, A Biographical Dictionary, 1970-1990. For more information about the project click on the links to the left.
