CWLU Herstory Blog

Located close to the Capitol building in the heart of the federal city is the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum, the headquarters of the National Women's Party and the former home of women's rights leader Alice Paul.

The Sewell Belmont House now offers a free downloadable guide for a special walking tour of Washington DC women's suffrage history. For a copy, visit the Museum's homepage.

If you have never visited the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum, it is open 5 days a week, staffed by friendly and knowledgeable docents. A donation of $5 per person is suggested.

You can walk through the rooms where women's history was made and get a deeper appreciation of First Wave feminism. If you are a student or a researcher, the Museum has an archive of national Women's Party documents, photos, banners, newspapers, cartoons, buttons and more.

If you are unable to actually visit the building, the Museum now has an online digital collection which you can visit here .

 

We learned of the death of Barbara Seaman last week from Jennifer Baumgartner's remembrance on Feministing and we are updating our original blog entry with an announcement of a memorial service in Barbara's honor. If you are in the NYC area, please attend if you can.

A memorial service for Barbara Seaman will be held on Thursday, March 6 at 5:30 pm at the Riverside Memorial Chapel at 180 West 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.

Barbara Seaman was one of the leaders of the women's health movement. Way back in the 1960's, she warned us about the dangers of birth control pills in her magazine articles and in her book The Doctor's Case Against the Pill . It was largely due to her efforts that warnings were placed on the pill and people became aware of the dangers of excessive estrogen ingestion.

 

Join the National Organization for Women Foundation, National Council of Negro Women, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research for the 2008 Summit on Economic Justice for Women, April 11-12 in Atlanta, Georgia. The summit is dedicated to "Bringing Together Research and Advocacy--from Local to Global--to Advance Economic Justice and Empowerment for Women"

Don't miss the reduced early registration fee. Make your plans now to join with grassroots activists, researchers, and academics to address the critical economic issues facing women in the U.S. and abroad.

Goals for this unique conference include expanding the body of knowledge on critical economic issues; increasing our understanding of the global economic challenges women face; building and strengthening alliances in the economic justice movement; developing recommendations and strategies for enhancing women's economic empowerment; and informing policies globally and locally, including helping to shape the 2008 U.S. presidential election debate.

Submit a workshop or research paper. Workshops will blend research and grassroots action, offering participants an opportunity to hear from experts and apply action strategies to address economic inequality. The deadline to submit a proposal is Feb. 15.

If your chapter or organization would like to be a sponsor, exhibitor or advertiser, learn more online or contact us by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone at 202-628-8669, ext. 117.

Historian This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is writing a biography. No, not of Betty Friedan the author, but of The Feminine Mystique, a book: its history and influence.

Stephanie Coontz needs your help.If you are willing to talk about this, or can direct her to someone else who might, you can send her your memories directly, or you can correspond informally by e-mail, or she can send you a few survey questions, whichever is easiest. Please address correspondence to her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . And if you have suggestions of other people for her to talk to, all such suggestions would be gratefully received.

She is eager to hear from several different groups of people as described by below:

1. People who read the book when it first came out, or whose mothers or grandmothers read it, and what the impact of that was. Some people have described the impact it had on their own lives; others have described the impact it had on their mothers, or that their mothers’ reactions to it had on them. For many, the effect was truly life-changing. For others, it was frightening or produced deep ambivalence. For still others, it didn't resonate at all. I am interested in hearing all these stories, or if you know people who have such stories, I’d appreciate your putting me in touch with them.
   
   
2. I am also interested in talking to people who read the book some time later, to find out how they came to do so and how it impacted them (or in some cases, disappointed them) then.
   
   
3. I am even interested in talking to people who did not read the book but knew of it, and what their impressions of it were. (I have found a surprising number of women who were young feminists in the 1960s and thought they had read the book, but when they went back to it realized that they had not; it was the title alone that confirmed ideas they had gained elsewhere.)
   

 

 

On the anniversary of Roe v.Wade, the Chicago Tribune ran an article about Gaylon Alcaraz and the Fund. For your convenience we have republished it below.

 

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Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal;

Chicago Abortion Fund helps poor pay for services 35 years after Roe, group uses old spirit to get service for all

By Judy Peres
Tribune reporter
January 21, 2008

The voice on the other end of the phone line was soft but urgent.

"My daughter needs help," the woman said. "She's gotten herself into a situation."

Emelda Ortiz had heard the story before -- many times. Once a week for two hours, Ortiz staffs a hot line for women and girls desperate to terminate unwanted pregnancies but unable to afford the procedure.

Thirty-five years ago Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court said women have a constitutional right to choose abortion. Yet that right is difficult

Do have some cool NOW stories to tell?

Would you like to sweep up the shards from that glass ceiling you broke and tell the world how you did it? How about that time you went to the big feminist demonstration and you were sure that the next day the walls of discrimination would come tumbling down? OK, maybe they just crumbled a little, but it sure felt good didn't it? What was your "Aha!" moment when you realized that being female was more than just sugar and spice and everything nice? How about the box of old leaflets and NOW chapter notes that you just can't throw away, but is starting to smell a little funny in your basement?

The NOW Oral History Project wants you.

On January 22, the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, NARALPro-Choice America is asking pro-choice bloggers to join them for Blog for Choice Day!

Blog for Choice Day provides us with an opportunity to raise the profile of reproductive rights in the blogosphere and the media, while celebrating Roe's 35th anniversary. Plus, it's a great way to let your readers and the mainstream media know that a woman's right to choose is a core progressive value that must be protected.

This year's topic: tell us, and your readers, why it's important to vote pro-choice. For more info, visit the Blog for Choice page.

 

Veronica Arreola is one of those people who get to live out their dreams.

A committed feminist, she wanted to direct a program that would encourage young women to remake the fields of science and engineering. She is now the director of University of Illinois at Chicago’s Women in Science and Engineering program (WISE).

“The job I have now, five years ago was on my 10-to-15-year list of things to accomplish,” Veronica told the UIC News.

Your Infogal has had the pleasure of working with Veronica on several projects. She is amazing. She blogs, she protests, she organizes, she raises her child, she leads, she laughs and she is so supportive of the women who want to do some real science and engineering.

Go Veronica!

 

For the past 17 years, students at the University of Maryland have participated in a rape awareness program where victims and advocates against sexual violence hang T-shirts along a huge clothesline on campus. Some victims also write the names of their assailants on their shirts.

Yes it is and the CWLU doesn't even have a MySpace page. How could it? The organization disbanded in 1977.

But that doesn't stop young people from decorating their MySpace pages with posters from the Chicago Women's Graphics Collective. The most popular ones are "Lesbian Pride", "Sisterhood is Blooming", "Lipstick and Blood" and "Abortion is a Personal Decision Not A Legal Debate".