Tuesday, June 28 - Thursday, June 30, 1966: National Organization for Women

The largest feminist organization in the United States, NOW began when a group of representatives attending the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women became angered by their unsuccessful attempts to force the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce federal regulations ending sex discrimination. Meeting with Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique" and a guest speaker at the conference, the invited group of 28 women and men decided to establish a civil rights organization for women.

     -- From Records of the National Organization for Women, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe University: @ and @

     -- Photo from October 29-30 organizing conference in Washington, D.C.: @ (Jewish Women's Archive)

     -- Photo key: @  (Lawrence Wilkinson)

* Summary of founding (NOW website): @

* Statement of Purpose (adopted October 29, 1966; NOW website): @
* "Honoring Our Founders and Pioneers" (NOW website): @

* Feminist Majority Foundation: @

* "Women's Movement, 1960-1990" (from "Encyclopedia of American Social Movements," 2015): @

* Summary from "The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts" (2014): @

* Summary from "A Century of Women: The Most Influential Events in Twentieth-Century Women's History" (Deborah G. Felder, 2003): @

* Summary from "Encyclopedia of Women and Gender" (2002): @

* "Militant Women Rap Male Discrimination" (Associated Press, November 22, 1966): @

* Earlier post on Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" (February 1963): @

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