 | Detailed Timeline |
| Detailed Timeline |
1848 The world's first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19 and 20. A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is debated and ultimately signed by 68 women and 32 men, setting the agenda for the women's rights movement that followed.
1848 When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brings the southwest under U.S. law, married women living in the region lose their property rights, and can no longer enter into contracts, sue in court, or operate their own businesses.
1848 Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; almost a century passes before a second woman is added.
1849 Elizabeth Smith Miller appears on the streets of Seneca Falls, New York, in "turkish trousers," soon to be known as "bloomers."
1849 Amelia Jenks Bloomer publishes and edits "Lily," the first prominent women's rights newspaper.
1850 The first national women's rights convention attracts over 1,000 participants to Worcester, Massachusetts, from as far away as California. Only lack of space kept hundreds from attending. Annual national conferences are held through 1860 (except 1857).
1850 Quaker physicians establish the Female (later Woman's) Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to give women a chance to learn medicine. Due to threats against them, the first women graduated under police guard.
1851 Sojourner Truth gives her spontaneous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the woman's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.
1851 Myrtilla Minder opens the first school to train black women as teachers, in Washington, D.C.
1851 Under Oregon's Land Donation Act women are eligible recipients for the first time.
1853 Antoinette Brown (later Blackwell) is the first U.S. woman ordained as a minister in a Protestant denomination, serving two First Congregational Churches in New York.
1855 Lucy Stone becomes first woman on record to keep her own name after marriage, setting a trend among women who are consequently known as "Lucy Stoners."
1855 The University of Iowa becomes the first state school to admit women. In 1858, the board of managers tries, but fails, to exclude women.
1855 In Missouri v. Celia, a Slave, a Black woman is declared to be property without a right to defend herself against a master's act of rape
1859 American Medical Association announces its opposition to abortion. In 1860, Connecticut is the first state to enact laws prohibiting all abortions, both before and after quickening.
1859 The birth rate continues its downward spiral as reliable condoms become available. By the late 1900s, women will raise an average of only two or three children, half the number earlier in the century.
1860 Of 2,225,086 Black women, 1,971,135 are held in slavery. In San Francisco, about 85% of Chinese women are essentially enslaved as prostitutes.
1862 The Homestead Act promises 160 acres of free land to anyone who lives on it for five years. Many single women "prove up claims," especially teachers who work the land in the summer and teach school in the winter.
1862 Mary Jane Patterson is the first African-American woman to receive a full baccalaureate degree, from Oberlin College. Three European-American women had been graduated in 1841 from Oberlin College: Mary Hosford, Elizabeth Smith Prall, and Caroline Mary Rudd.
1862 Congress passed the Morrill Act, which established land grant colleges in rural areas. Through them, millions of women earn low-cost degrees.
1863 Olympia Brown, first woman to be ordained as a minister by the full authority of her denomination (Northern Universalists).
1865 Hundreds of white women go South to teach at Freedman Schools.
1866 14th Amendment is passed by Congress (ratified by the states in 1868), the first time "citizens" and "voters" are defined as "male" in the Constitution.
1866 The American Equal Rights Association is founded, the first organization in the U.S. to advocate national women's suffrage.
1867 Cigar makers are the first national union to accept women and African Americans.
1868 Sorosis founded, the first professional club for women.
1868Middle and upper class women establish the Working Women's Protective Union in New York; similar groups form in other cities. These unions give free legal aid to workers, act as employment agencies, and lobby successfully for laws to protect women workers.
1868 The National Labor Union support equal pay for equal work.
1868 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony begin publishing The Revolution, an important women's movement periodical. Other media ridicule their ideas, calling wider public attention to them.
1868 The African Methodist Episcopal Church establishes women's first official office within organized Christianity: "Stewardess," or assistant to the clergy.
1869 Women shoe stitchers from six states form the first national women's labor organization, the Daughters of St. Crispin. Folded in 1876.
1869 December 10: The first woman suffrage law in U.S. passed in the territory of Wyoming.
1869 In disagreement over the 15th Amendment, Anthony and Stanton withdraw from the Equal Rights Association to found the National Woman Suffrage Association. Its wide-ranging goals include achieving a federal amendment for the woman's vote.
1869 The American Woman Suffrage Association if formed to secure the vote through each state constitution.
1870 In March, for the first time in the history of jurisprudence, women serve on juries in the Wyoming Territory.
1870 Iowa is the first state to admit a woman to the bar: Arabella Mansfield.
1870 The 15th Amendment receives final ratification. By its text, women are not specifically excluded from the vote. During the next two years, approximately 150 women will attempt to vote in almost a dozen different jurisdictions from Delaware to California, including the Grimke sisters in Boston, Sojourner Truth in Battle Creek, MI, and Matilda Joselyn Gage in New York. Even in South Carolina, a few black women, protected by Reconstruction officials, cast ballots.
1870 The first issue of the Woman's Journal appears, sponsored by the American Woman Suffrage Association and edited by Mary Livermore. It is published until 1917.
1871 The Woman's Centenary Association forms, the first national organization of church women. One goal is to promote the education of women ministers.
1872 Through the efforts of lawyer Belva Lockwood, Congress passes a law to give women federal employees equal pay for equal work.
1872 Charlotte E. Ray, Howard University law school graduate, becomes first African-American woman admitted to the U.S. bar.
1872 November 5: Susan B. Anthony and fourteen women register and vote in the presidential election to test whether the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment can be interpreted as protecting women's rights. Anthony is arrested, tried, found guilty, and fined $100, which she refuses to pay.
1873 The Association for the Advancement of Women is formed to promote both higher education and professional possibilities for women.
1873 Prof. Edward H. Clarke, Harvard Medical College, argues that higher education harms women and their future offspring. To women's real detriment, Clarke is widely believed and quoted for decades.
1873 Bradwell v. Illinois: Supreme Court affirms that states can restrict women from the practice of any profession to preserve family harmony and uphold the law of the Creator.
1873 Congress passes the Comstock Law, defining contraceptive information as "obscene material." As postal inspector, moralist Anthony Comstock seizes mail and shuts down newspapers carrying such information.
1874 The Presbyterian Mission Home, a women's shelter in Chinatown (San Francisco, CA), leads police-backed raids to rescue Chinese women held and abused as prostitutes or mujai (indentured servants). By 1908, about 1,000 have been housed and educated in the refuge.
1874 The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. The WCTU later becomes an important force for woman suffrage.
1875 Through her will, Sophia Smith is the first woman to found and endow a women's college. Smith College was chartered in 1871, opened in 1875.
1875 Minor v. Happersett: Supreme Court refuses to extend the 14th amendment protection to women's rights, denying voting rights to women.
1876 Matilda Joselyn Gage writes a Declaration of the Rights of Women, distributed on July 4 by NWSA women to crowds attending the massive Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Many women's networks grow out of this action.
1876 Ellen Swallow Richards opens the Woman's Laboratory at MIT, which lasts until the school admits women in 1883.
1877 Helen Magill is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. at a U.S. school, a doctorate in Greek from Boston University.
1878 The Susan B. Anthony Amendment, to grant women the vote, is first introduced in the U.S. Congress.
1879 Belva Lockwood is the first woman lawyer admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her years of lobbying pay off when Congress passes legislation permitting women to practice law in all federal courts.
1880 The 1870s have seen an 80% increase in the number of women teachers, mainly in the West.
1883 On November 16, at a Liverpool reception in honor of Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the women's rights movement becomes global when they are joined by women from England, Scotland, Ireland, and France.
1883 Mary Hoyt earns the top score on the first civil service exam and becomes the first woman (and second person) appointed under this new merit system. She starts out as a clerk in a Treasury Dept.
1884 Belva Lockwood, presidential candidate of the National Equal Rights Party, is the first woman to receive votes in a presidential election (appx. 4,000 in six states)
1887 For the first and only time in this century, the U.S. Senate votes on woman suffrage. It loses, 34 to 16. 25 Senators do not bother to participate.
1888 Led by Lillie Devereux Blake, New York suffragists win passage of a law requiring women doctors for women patients in mental institutions. In 1892 they secure matrons in all police stations.
1889 The work of educated women serving the Chicago poor at Hull House establishes social work as a paid profession for women. =
1890 The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) coalesces about 200 local clubs, many supporting a wide range of reform activities.
1890 National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), becoming the movement's mainstream organization.
1892 The University of Kansas offers an early example of a "women's studies" course through the sociology department, "Status of Women in the United States."
1893 Hannah Breenbaum Solomon founds the National Council of Jewish Women and becomes its first president. Within three years, 50 local chapters develop.
1893 Colorado is the first state to adopt a state amendment enfranchising women.
1894 The monthly Woman's Era begins publication with national news of the growing black women's club movement, legislation, and family life issues. Edited by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of the civic-minded New Era Club.
1895 Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes the first volume of The Woman's Bible, in which she revises biblical passages that degrade women. Reviled but not deterred, she publishes a second volume in 1898.
1896 The National Association of Colored Women, founded by Margaret Murray Washington, unites Black women's organizations, with Mary Church Terrell its first president. The NACW becomes a major vehicle for attempted reform during the next forty years.
1899 National Consumers League is formed with Florence Kelley as its president. The League organizes women to use their power as consumers to push for better working conditions and protective laws for women workers.
1900 Two-thirds of divorce cases are initiated by the wife; a century earlier, most women lacked the right to sue and were hopelessly locked into bad marriages.
1900 Nannie Helen Burroughs' speech to the National Baptist Convention, "How the Sisters are Hindered from Helping," results in the formation of the Women's Convention, which becomes the largest Black women's organization.
1903 Middle class reformers and women labor organizers join forces to form the national Women's Trade Unions League (WTUL), to bring public attention to the concerns of women workers.
1908 Muller v. Oregon - US Supreme Court declares unconstitutional protective legislation for women workers.
1909 Women garment workers strike in New York for better wages and working conditions in the Uprising of the 20,000. Over 300 shops eventually sign union contracts.
1910 The number of women attending college has increased 150% since 1900
1910 Wasington State: Women win the vote.
1910 The first large suffrage parade in New York City is organized by the Women's Political Union.
1911 Jovita and Soledad Pena organize La Liga Femenil Mexicanista (League of Mexican Feminists) in Laredo, Texas. Its motto: "Educate a woman and you educate a family."
1911 The most elaborate campaign ever mounted for suffrage succeeds in California by 3,587 votes, an average of one in every precinct.
1912 20,000 suffrage supporters join a New York City parade, with a half-million onlookers.
1912 Juliette Gordon Low founds first American group of Girl Guides, in Atlanta, Georgia. Later renamed the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the organization brings girls into the outdoors, encourages their self-reliance and resourcefulness, and prepares them for varied roles as adult women.
1913 Ida Bell Wells-Barnett founds the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, the first black women's suffrage association in Illinois, through which she pressed for integration of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, which later becomes the National Women's Party. Members picket the White House and engage in other forms of civil disobedience, drawing public attention to the suffrage cause.
1913 On March 3, 5-8,000 suffragists parade in Washington, D.C., drawing people away from newly-elected President Wilson's arrival in the city. They are mobbed by abusive crowds along the way.
1913 On May 10, the largest suffrage parade to date, including perhaps 500 men, marches down Fifth Avenue in New York City.
1914 Margaret Sanger calls for legalization of contraceptives in her new, feminist publication, the Woman Rebel, which the Post Office bans from the mails.
1915 40,000 march in New York City suffrage parade, the largest parade ever held in that city.
1915 A transcontinental automobile tour by suffragists, including Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field, gathers over a half-million signatures on petitions to Congress.
1916 October 16: Margaret Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, open the first U.S. birth control clinic, in Brooklyn, NY. It was shut down ten days later; the women were tried and imprisoned.
1917 During WWI women more into many jobs working in heavy industry in mining, chemical manufacturing, automobile and railway plants. They also run street cars, conduct trains, direct traffic, and deliver mail.
1917 Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
1917 January: National Woman's Party pickets appear in front of the White House holding aloft pro-suffrage banners. They remain there despite frigid weather or violent public response.
1917 October: 168 National Woman's Party members are arrested and convicted for peacefully picketing the White House for woman suffrage, becoming the first U.S. citizens held as political prisoners. In prison, they staged hunger strikes and were force fed. In response to public outcry, they are eventually released without comment or pardon.
1918 January 8: New York v. Sanger. Margaret Sanger wins her suit in New York to allow doctors to advise their married patients about birth control for health purposes.
1919 Lena Madesin Phillips founds the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs to address the needs of white collar women workers. 26,000 women join the first year.
1919 Madeline Southard forms the American Association of Women Preachers, which begins publishing the journal Woman's Pulpit in 1921.
1919 The House of Representatives passes the woman suffrage amendment, 304 to 89; the Senate passes it with just two votes to spare, 56 to 25.
1920 Female college undergraduates have doubled in number since 1910.
1920 The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to advocate for and keep statistics on women in the workforce.
1920 Despite the efforts of a number of black women voters' leagues, when Black women try to register to vote in most southern states they face property tax requirements, literacy tests and other obstacles.
1920 On August 26, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing American women citizens the right to vote. It is quietly signed into law in a ceremony to which the press and suffragists were not invited.
1920 Suffrage passed, Carrie Chapman Catt founds the League of Women Voters to educate the newly enfranchised voters about the issues.
1921 The American Association of University Women is formed.
1921 Margaret Sanger organizes the American Birth Control League, which evolves into the Federation of Planned Parenthood in 1942.
1923 Supreme Court strikes down a 1918 minimum-wage law for District of Columbia women because, with the vote, women are considered equal to men. This ruling cancels all state minimum wage laws.
1923 Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party succeed in having a constitutional amendment introduced in Congress which said: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." In 1943 the wording was revised to what we know today as the Equal Rights Amendment.
1924 The National Association of College women is formed by Black women, to parallel the AAUW.
1924 Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first woman elected governor of a state.
1926 Bertha Knight Landes is the first woman elected mayor of a sizable U.S. city (Seattle).
1928 The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women is organized by women as women's history is ignored by the American Historical Association. Their triennial conferences will promote historical scholarship by women throughout the century.
1932 The National Recovery Act forbids more than one family member from holding a government job, resulting in many women losing their jobs.
1932 Hattie Wyatt Caraway is the first woman elected to U.S. Senate. She represents Arkansas for three terms.
1933 Frances Perkins, the first woman in a Presidential cabinet, serves as Secretary of Labor during the entire Roosevelt presidency.
1935 Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies challenges sex-role assumptions.
1935 Mary McLeod Bethune organizes the National Council of Negro Women as a lobbying coalition of black women's groups, and serves as president until 1949. The NCNW becomes foremost at fighting job discrimination, racism, and sexism.
1936 United States v. One Package declassifies birth control information as obscene. Contraceptive devices can finally be imported to the United States.
1938 Crystal Bird Fauset of Pennsylvania becomes the first black woman elected to a state legislature, by an overwhelmingly white district.
1940 One-fifth of white women and one-third of black women are wage earners. 60% of the black women are still domestics, compared with 10% of white women. Among Japanese American women workers, almost 38% are in agriculture and 24% in domestic service.
1941 A massive government and industry media campaign persuades women to take jobs during the war. Almost 7 million women respond, 2 million as industrial "Rosie the Riveters" and 400,000 joining the military.
1945 The Equal Pay for Equal Work bill is again introduced into Congress (see 1872). It passes in 1963.
1945 Women industrial workers begin to lose their jobs in large numbers to returning service men, although surveys show 80% want to continue working.
1948 Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) becomes first woman elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right. In 1964, she becomes the first woman to run for the U.S. Presidency in the primaries of a major political party (Republican). She serves in the Senate until 1973.
1950 30% of all women are in the paid labor force. More than half of all single women and more than a quarter of married women.
1955 Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization, is founded in San Francisco.
1955 Women earn an average of 63=9B for every dollar earned by men.
1956 The Presbyterian Church of the USA approves ordination of women; Margaret Towner is first ordained.
1957 The number of women and men voting is approximately equal for the first time.
1960 The Food and Drug Administration approves birth control pills.
1960 Women now earn only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men, a decline since 1955. Women of color earn only 42 cents.
1961 Birth control pills are approved for marketing in the United States
1961 Pres. Kennedy creates the President's Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Fifty parallel state commissions are eventually established.
1963 The Equal Pay Act, proposed twenty years earlier, establishes equal pay for men and women performing the same job duties. It does not cover domestics, agricultural workers, executives, administrators or professionals.
1963 The report issued by the President's Commission on the Status of Women documents discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life. It makes 24 specific recommendations, some surprisingly far-sighted (example: community property in marriages). 64,000 copies are sold in less than a year and talk of women's rights is again respectable.
1963 Betty Friedan's best-seller, The Feminine Mystique, detailed the "problem that has no name." Five million copies are sold by 1970, laying the groundwork for the modern feminist movement.
1964 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination by private employers, employment agencies, and unions based on race, sex, and other grounds. To investigate complaints and enforce penalties, it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which receives 50,000 complaints of gender discrimination in its first five years.
1964 Patsy Mink (D-HI) is the first Asian-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
1965 Griswold v Connecticut, Supreme Court overturns one of the last state laws prohibiting the prescription or use of contraceptives by married couples.
1965 Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order 11246 takes the 1964 Civil Rights Act a step further, requiring federal agencies and federal contractors to take "affirmative action" in overcoming employment discrimination.
1965 Weeks v. Southern Bell marks a major triumph in the fight against restrictive labor laws and company regulations on the hours and conditions of women's work, opening many previously male-only jobs to women.
1966 Fifty state Commissions on the Status of Women convene in Washington, D.C., to report on their findings.
1966 In response to EEOC inaction on employment discrimination complaints, twenty-eight women found the National Organization for Women (called NOW) to function as a civil rights organization for women.
1967 Chicago Women's Liberation Group organizes, considered the first to use the term "liberation."
1967 New York Radical Women is founded. The following year they begin a process of sharing life stories, which becomes known as "consciousness raising." Groups immediately take root coast-to-coast.
1967 California becomes the first state to re-legalize abortion.
1967 Executive Order 11375 expands Executive Order 11246's non-discrimination measure to include women. Enforcement is not won until 1973, however.
1968 New York Radical Women garner media attention to the women's movement when they protest the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City.
1968 The first national women's liberation conference is held in Chicago
1968 The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) is founded.
1968 EEOC rules that unless employers can show a bona fide occupational qualification exists, sex-segregated help wanted newspaper ads are illegal.
1968 Federally Employed Women is founded to end gender-based discrimination in civil service jobs. Within two decades, FEW has 200 chapters nationwide.
1968 The Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement appears in Chicago, edited by Jo Freeman and others. By 1971, over 100 women's movement newsletters and newspapers are being published across the country.
1968 National Welfare Rights organization if formed by activists such as Johnnie Tillmon and Etta Horm. They have 22,000 members by 1969, but are unable to survive as an organization past 1975.
1968 Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) is first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
1969 Chicago women set up "Jane," an abortion referral service. During four years of existence, it provides more than 11,000 women with safe and affordable abortions.
1969 The Boston Women's Health Book Collective publishes the self-help manual Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women, incorporating medical information with personal experiences. Nearly 4 million copies sold as of 1997.
1969 California adopts the nation's first "no fault" divorce law, allowing couples to divorce by mutual consent. Other states follow rapidly.
1969 In Bowe v. Colgate-Palmolive, the Supreme Court rules that women meeting the physical requirements can work in many jobs that had been for men only.
1970 Betty Friedan organizes first Women's Equality Day, August 26, to mark the 50th anniversary of women's right to vote.
1970 North American Indian Women's Association is founded.
1970 Sexual Politics, by Kate Millett, is published
1970 The Comision Feminil Mexicana Nacion is organized to promote Latina rights. Founders include Graciella Olivares, Gracia Molina Pick, Francisco Flores, and Yolanda Nava.
1970 The North American Indian Women's Association is founded.
1970 San Diego State College in California establishes the first official, integrated women's studies program.
1970 Women wages fall to 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. Although nonwhite women earn even less, the gap is closing between white women and women of color.
1970 The Equal Rights Amendment is reintroduced into Congress.
1970 Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church agree to ordain women; the Lutheran Church: Missouri Synod does not. Barbara Andrews becomes first woman ordained.
1971 The first battered women's shelter opens in the U.S., in Urbana, Illinois, founded by Cheryl Frank and Jacqueline Flenner. By 1979, more than 250 shelters are operating.
1971 New York Radical Feminists holds a series of speakouts and a conference on rape and women's treatment by the criminal justice system. Susan Brownmiller's book, Against Our Will, is one result. Another: the establishment of rape crisis centers across the country.
1971 For the first time in its 130 yrs, attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully uses the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn a sex-biased law in the Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed.
1971 Ms. magazine first appears as an insert in New York magazine. Gloria Steinem, Ms. co-founder and editor, becomes a leading journalist and media personality for the Second Wave.
1971 The non-partisan National Women's Political Caucus is founded to encourage women to run for public office.
1972 The first emergency rape crisis hotline opens in Washington, D.C. By 1976 400 independent rape crisis centers operate nationwide offering counseling, self-defense classes, and support groups.
1972 Title IX of the Education Amendments requires that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
1972 In Eisenstadt v. Baird the Supreme Court rules that the right to privacy encompasses an unmarried person's right to use contraceptives.
1972 Congress extends the Equal Pay Act to include executives, administrative and professional personnel.
1972 Congress passes the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, giving the EEOC power to take legal action to enforce its rulings.
1972 After languishing since 1923, the ERA is passed by Congress on March 22 and sent to the states for ratification. Hawaii approves it within the hour. By the end of the week, so have Delaware, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Idaho and Iowa.
1972 Ms. magazine begins regular publication, reaching a circulation of 350,000 within a year.
1972 Barbara Jordan (D-TX) becomes first Black woman elected to Congress from a Southern state.
1972 Sally Priesand becomes first U.S. woman ordained as a rabbi in Reform Judaism.
1973 Billie Jean King scores an enormous victory for female athletes when she beats Bobby Riggs in "The Battle of the Sexes," a televised tennis tournament watched by nearly 48,000,000 people.
1973 The National Black Feminist Organization is established.
1973 9to5: National Association of Working Women, is founded by Karen Nussbaum in Boston. Nussbaum later becomes Director of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor.
1973 The Civil Service Commission eliminates height and weight requirements that have discriminated against women applying for police, park service, and fire fighting jobs.
1973 The Office of Federal Contract Compliance issues guidelines prohibiting sex discrimination in employment by any federal contractor and requiring affirmative action to correct existing imbalances.
1973 The U.S. military is integrated when the women-only branches are eliminated.
1973 In a suit brought by NOW, Pittsburgh Press v Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, the Supreme Court affirms the EEOC ruling against sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers. This opens the way for women to apply for jobs previously limited to men and offering better pay and advancement opportunities.
1973 In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court establishes a woman's right to abortion, effectively canceling the anti-abortion laws of 46 states.
1974 Alliance of Displaced Homemakers is founded by Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields to address issues of divorced and widowed homemakers seeking employment.
1974 Little League agrees to include girls "in deference to a change in social climate," but creates a softball branch specifically for girls to draw them from baseball.
1974 MANA, the Mexican-American Women's National Association, organizes as feminist activist organization. By 1990, MANA chapters operate 16 states with members in 36.
1974 Hundreds of colleges are offering women's studies courses; there are over 80 full programs in place. Additionally, 230 women's centers on college campuses provide support services for women students.
1974 The Women's Educational Equity Act, drafted by Arlene Horowitz and introduced by Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI), funds the development of nonsexist teaching materials and model programs that encourage full educational opportunities for girls and women.
1974 Coalition for Labor Union Women founded
1974 The Coalition for Labor Union Women is founded, uniting blue-collar women across occupational lines.
1974 Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur determines it is illegal to force pregnant women to take maternity leave on the assumption they are incapable of working in their physical condition.
1974 The Equal Credit Opportunity Act forbids sex discrimination in all consumer credit practices; extended to commercial credit in 1988.
1974 Ella Grasso becomes the first woman to win election as governor in her own right, in Connecticut.
1974 The number of women in public office begins to rise. Women now hold 8% of state legislative seats and 16 seats in Congress. By 1986: 14.8% of legislative seats, and 24 seats in Congress. In 1997: 21% of legislative seats, 62 seats in Congress.
1974 Through a series of Mujeres Pro-Raza Unida conferences, Texas Chicanas have organized a statewide network to promote Chicana awareness, political campaign strategies and organizing techniques.
1975 The first women's bank opens, in New York City.
1975 Taylor v. Louisiana denied states the right to exclude women from juries.
1976 Dr. Benjamin Spock eliminates sex-bias in his revised Baby and Child Care.
1976 Organization of Pan Asian American Women is founded to impact public policy.
1976 The United Nations "Decade for Women" begins.
1976 Title IX goes into effect (see 1972 entry). Opening the way for women's increased participation in athletics programs and professional schools, enrollments leap in both categories. Title IX withstands repeated court challenges over time (see 1997 entry).
1976 Alliance for Displaced Homemakers founded by Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields, moving the issues of divorced and widowed homemakers seeking employment into the public discussion.
1976 U.S. military academies open admissions to women.
1976 Working Women: The National Association for Office Workers is formed. In four years it has over 10,000 members.
1976 In a groundbreaking law, marital rape becomes a crime in Nebraska.
1976 Women Against Violence Against Women, stages the first major demonstration against pornography, in Los Angeles.
1976 A New York Times survey shows that women's enrollment in theological seminaries has risen from 3% to 35% of all students within the previous decade.
1976 The Episcopal Church votes to allow the ordination of women as bishops and priests, and recognizes the earlier "irregular" ordination of Jacqueline Means and ten other women.
1977 The First National Women's Conference is held in Houston, Texas, chaired by Bella Abzug. 130,000 women attended preparatory meetings held in every state to draft recommendations for a national Plan of Action and to elect 2,000 delegates to the conference - the most diverse group ever elected in the U.S. The delegates publish a 25-point Plan of Action.
1977 The National Women's Studies Association is formed to promote the field's development. By 1978 there are over 15,000 courses and more than 275 programs; by 1992 there are 670 programs.
1977 Congress passes the Hyde Amendment, eliminating federal funding for poor women's abortions. By 1995, only thirteen states still provide public funding for abortions.
1977 Between 1969 and 1977, the Supreme Court issues full opinions on 21 women's rights cases.
1977 Michelle Barnes wins the first sexual harassment suit, before the US. Court of Appeals for the Disrict of Columbia.
1977 The last state (Indiana) ratifies the ERA, but three more are needed.
1978 100,000 march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment in Washington, D.C..
1978 National Coalition Against Domestic Violence forms bringing shelters and other groups together to publicize the issue.
1978 The Older Women's League is founded to address age-and-gender discrimination issues including health insurance and retirement benefits
1978 For the first time in history, more women than men enter college.
1978 The Pregnancy Discrimination Act amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban employment discrimination against pregnant women.
1978 OFCC establishes quotas for federally funded construction projects: 6.9% women on work sites and 20-25% women in apprentiship programs. Still, by 1983 women were only 2% of the construction labor force.
1978 Publicity about the Oregon v. Rideout decision leads many other states to also allow prosecution for marital and cohabitation rape.
1978 The first national feminist conference on pornography is held in San Francisco, with a large "Take Back the Night" march. Soon thousands of women across the country stage similar marches.
1979 Owanah Anderson founds and directs the Ohoyo Resource Center to advance the status of American Indian/Alaska Native women.
1979 The National Association for Black Women Entrepreneurs is formed by Marilyn French-Hubbard to offer advice, training, and networking for black businesswomen.
1979 Rape crisis centers in 20 states join forces in the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
1979 Judy Chicago's art exhibit honoring notable women in history, "The Dinner Party," opens in San Francisco with record-setting attendance and vitriolic reviews.
1980 Jewell Jackson-McCabe founds the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.
1980 New EEOC guidelines list sexual harassment as a form of prohibited sexual discrimination.
1980 The "gender gap" first shows up at the election polls as women report different political priorities than men.
1980 The Reverend Marjorie S. Matthew is elected as a bishop of the United Methodist Church, becoming the nation's first woman to sit on the governing body of a major religious denomination.
1981 At the request of women's organizations, President Carter proclaims the first "National Women's History Week," incorporating March 8, International Women's Day.
1981 The National Black Women's Health Project founded to establish community-based self-help groups. (Mary would delete this)
1981 In San Jose, California, a strike of city workers wins salaries based on comparable worth for nearly 1500 women, a national first.
1981 Kirchberg v. Feenstra overturns state laws designating a husband "head and master," having unilateral control of property owned jointly with his wife.
1981 Sandra Day O'Connor is the first woman ever appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1993, she is joined by Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
1981 Sharon Parker and Veronica Collazo found the National Institute for Women of Color. First project: replacing phrase "minority women" with "women of color" in common usage.
1982 Ratification efforts for an Equal Rights Amendment fail despite a solid majority of the public -63%- supporting it. It is promptly reintroduced into Congress.
1982 Over 900 women hold positions as state legislators, compared with 344 a decade earlier.
1984 Sex discrimination in the admission policies of organizations such as the Jaycees is forbidden by the Supreme Court in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, opening many previously all-male organizations to women.
1984 EMILY's List (Early Money is Like Yeast: It Makes the Dough Rise) is founded to raise funds for feminist candidates.
1984 Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman vice-presidential candidate of a major political party (Democratic Party).
1984 The non-partisan National Political Congress of Black Women is founded by Shirley Chisholm to address women's rights issues and encourage participation in the electoral process at every level.
1985 Tracey Thurman of Connecticut is first woman to win a civil suit as a battered wife.
1985 Wilma Mankiller becomes first woman installed as principal chief of a major Native American tribe, the Cherokee in Oklahoma.
1986 The Supreme Court declares sexual harassment is a form of illegal job discrimination.
1986 The New York Times is the last among major dailies to allow use of "Ms." as a title.
1986 Amy Eilberg is the first women ordained as a rabbi by the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly.
1986 About 25% of scientists are now women, but they are still less likely than men to be full professors or on a tenure track in teaching. Only 3.5% of the National Academy of Sciences members are women (51 members); since the academy's 1863 founding, only 60 women have been elected.
1987 Responding to the National Women's History Project, the U.S. Congress declares March to be National Women's History Month.
1987 The Feminist Majority Foundation is founded by Ellie Smeal to help women candidates win public offices.
1988 Rev. Barbara Harris, an African-American, becomes the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church.
1989 300,000 marchers demonstrate for women's reproductive rights in Washington, D.C.
1989 In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the Supreme Court affirms the right of states to deny public funding for abortions and to prohibit public hospitals from performing abortions.
1990s Women in their twenties, calling themselves "the third wave," form myriad on- and off-campus organizations to tackle their generation's particular concerns and vulnerabilities.
1990 LaDonna Harris, Native American activist, estimates that women make up one-quarter of most tribal councils, and fill half the seats on many.
1990 The number of Black women in elective office has increased from 131 in 1970 to 1,950 in 1990.
1991 In Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Susan Faludi documents the attacks on women's progress during the last decade, "set off not by women's achievement of full equality but by the increased possibility that they might win it. "
1992 Women are now paid 71 cents for every dollar paid to men. The range is from 64 cents for working-class women to 77cents for professional women with doctorates. Black women earned 65 cents, Latinas 54 cents.
1992 Women owned business employ more workers in the United States than the Fortune 500 companies do worldwide.
1992 "The Year of the Woman." A record number of women run for public office, and win. Twenty-four are newly-elected to the House of Representatives (total: and six to the Senate. They include: the first Mexican-American woman and first Puerto Rican women in the House, Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY); the first black woman Senator, Carole Moseley Braun, D-IL; and both Senators for California, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, who are both Democrats.
1992 Women win all five of the gold medals won by Americans during the Winter Olympics.
1993 Take Our Daughters to Work Day debuts, designed to build girls self-esteem and open their eyes to a variety of career possibilities for women.
1993 The Family Medical Leave Act finally goes into effect. Vetoed by president Bush, it is the first bill signed by President Clinton.
1993 Fifty states have revised their laws so that, depending on the degree of additional violence used, husbancs can be prosecuted for sexually assaulting their wives.
1993 With the increased number of women members, the 103rd Congress passes into law thirty bills on women's issues during its first year, 33 during its second. The previous record for any year: five.
1993 Women hold a record number of positions in state as well as federal government. Are 20.4% of state legislators; 3 governors, 11 lieutenant governors, 8 attorneys general, 13 secretaries of state, 19 state treasurers. 6 women in the Senate, 48 in the House of Representatives.
1994 Every couple applying for a marriage license in California is given information about domestic violence.
1994 Congress adopts the Gender Equity in Eduation Act to train teachers, promote math and science learning by girls, counsel pregnant teens, and prevent sexual harassment.
1994 The Violence Against Women Act funds services for victims of rape and domestic violence, allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes, provides training to increase police and court officials' sensitivity and a national 24-hour hotline for battered women.
1996 U.S. women's spectacular success in the Summer Olympics (19 gold medals, 10 silver, 9 bronze) is the result of large numbers of girls and women active in sports since the passage of Title IX.
1996 United States v. Virginia affirmes that the male-only admissions policy of the state-supported Virginia Military Institute violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
1996 Total number of female bishops, priests, ministers, and rabbis: Baptist: 2,313 ministers; Episcopal: 6 bishops, 1,452 priests; Evangelical Lutheran: 1,838 pastors; Judaic, Reform: 259 rabbis; Judaic, conservative: 72 rabbis; Judaic, Orthodox: 0 rabbis; Latter-day Saints: 0 priests; Methodists: 10 bishops, 4,995 ministers; Presbyterian: 3,026 ministers; Roman Catholic: 0 priests; Seventy-day Adventist: 0 priests; Unitarian Universalist Association: 4,443 ministers; United Church of Christ (Congregationalist): 2,080 ministers.
1997 Elaborating on Title IX, the Supreme Court rules that college athletics programs must actively involve roughly equal numbers of men and women to qualify for federal support.
