By Maya BoucheblThe International Women’s Year Commission chose Houston to host the National Women’s Conference. The main venues and hotels were located downtown, shown here in 1977. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library flickr. In the months leading up to the National Women’s Conference of November 1977, the staff of the International Women’s Year (IWY) Commission […]
By Miranda Ruzinsky The official conference report published in 1978 for President Jimmy Carter and the public featured, left to right, Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot, and Michelle Cearcy on the cover page. Photo by Adela Alonso, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. “WALK A CELEBRITY MILE!”: This call to action circulated around Houston in 1977 on a poster advertising […]
By Mackenzie Vance Participants at the NWC used their crafting skills to create buttons and pins, as well as other graphics, to visually communicate their ideas and beliefs. Photo courtesy of the Dorothy Marder Papers, Peace Collection, Swarthmore College. As more than 20,000 attendees flocked to the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC), they did so with excitement […]
Introduction by Caitlyn Jones-Excerpts from oral histories conducted by Lena Craven and Caitlyn JonesRepresentative Bella Abzug, at the podium, is flanked by the torch relay runners (in blue), First Lady Rosalynn Carter, former first ladies Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, and Maya Angelou. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. When the National […]
By Livia Lee Garza National Women’s Conference relay runners wore blue “Women on the Move” shirts as they carried the “torch of freedom” from Seneca Falls to Houston. Image courtesy of the Houston Area NOW and Other Feminist Activities Collection. All photos are from Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. “There was never anything like it.”This opening […]
Women have played significant roles in the history of Houston’s cultural development. Some have had talent; some have had resources; some have had influence as powerful journalists or fundraisers. Among these women were Houston’s cultural impresario Edna Saunders and the formidable journalist Wille Hutcheson. Three other remarkable women, however, were historically strategic in shaping Houston’s […]
“It was a life-changing thing to meet her. It was like she had a magic bubble of enthusiasm around her, and you could not walk by without getting some of it on you,” said Judy Jones, a former student of Patsy Swayze. The two met after Jones won the Miss Houston Pageant in 1959, and […]
On June 23, 1972, nearly thirty-five years prior to the passage of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or educational program that receives federal funding, there was the Scottish Brigade Drill Team. Beatrice Lytle, the group’s sponsor, organized the Scottish Brigade Drill Team in September of 1937 in conjunction with the newly […]
By Christine Le with Jacob LoewGeneral Barrye Price, LTC Melissa Comiskey, and 2LT Katelyn Kubosh have each played a role in opening doors to women in the U.S. Military. Photos courtesy of the U.S. Army.Serving in the military requires a noble spirit along with a strong passion for service and our nation. Enlistment, training, service, […]
By Sarah ChikhaniIn the early 1990s, Sister Annette McDonagh and Sister Pauline Troncale carpooled to work at San José Clinic in Houston’s Second Ward. Every morning, Sister Annette, a pharmacist in her seventies, would bless the clinic with a splash of holy water and pray that she would not make any mistakes. Recalling the story with a laugh, Sister Pauline, who was CEO of the clinic at the […]
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