The National Women's Conference held in Houston Texas (November 18-21, 1977) was organized after a 1975 United Nations "International Year of the Woman" conference was held in Mexico City. The UN later extended the "year" to an "International Decade for Women." Through a bill sponsored by Bella Abzug (1920-1998) five million dollars was allocated for women in each of the fifty states to meet and then convene nationally. At the conference, there were two thousand delegates and over 15,000 observers.
It concluded with a 24 point plan that broadly supported women’s equal rights to education, healthcare, minority rights, rights of older women, and sexual and reproductive freedom. The ultimate goals were to engender support for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment that had become politically stagnant (it still has not been ratified to this date), unify women with competing agendas, and to squash the conservative anti feminist movement lead at the time by Phyllis Schalfly (1924- ) at a competing conference held in the Houston Astrodome. The women seemed to accomplish most of their goals through thorough planning and congenial, if at times contentious, discussion over issues that affected all women. While the plan was not binding in any way, Betty Friedan (1921-2006) wrote of it and the conference in general in
Any qualified person doing scholarly research is permitted to use material housed in the Special Collections Unit.
Terms governing use and reproduction: Photocopying and scanning of materials is a fee based service available in the repository and is allowed at the discretion of the Archivist when in compliance to the Unit's policy on copyright and publication.
Records of the Chair, Rhode Island Organizing Committee for the National Women's Conference, Mss. Gr. 221, University of Rhode Island.
These records were compiled by Helen Migliaccio (now Helen Drew) in her role as first, temporary convener, then Chair of the Rhode Island Coordinating Committee and finally as one of the RI delegates to the National Women's Conference. The records contain planning materials, minutes of meetings, agenda items, notes, delegate nomination forms, and correspondence made in preparation for the national gathering and the report on the convention. Also included in these records is a 16 mm film 14 minutes in duration. The records are in very good condition. The dates range from December 1976 to March 1978.
The collection is arranged in one series as follows:
The collection was donated to the Special Collections Unit in June 2011.
The records contain planning materials, minutes of meetings, agenda items, notes, delegate nomination forms, and correspondence made in preparation for the national gathering and the report on the convention. Also included in these records is a 16 mm film 14 minutes in duration.