About this collection

Fueled by the popularity of United Nations’ 1975 International Women’s Year conferences, the U.S. Government funded a national conference and statewide meetings for women in 1977. Each state elected national delegates and voted on resolutions that were to be debated at the National Conference held in Houston, Texas, resulting in a National Plan of Action. Conference attendees discussed a wide variety of women’s issues, including education, equal rights, their role in the workforce and childcare. The Washington State Women's Conference was held in Ellensburg and hosted by the Central Washington State College Women's Center. The 1977 Washington State Women’s Conference & Related Materials Digital Collection is an artificial collection culled from multiple collections housed in the Central Washington University Archives and Special Collections. The collection (through public records, newspaper clippings, office files, video and scrapbook images) provides a sense of the excitement and disappointment felt by the women who planned and attended the 1977 Washington State Conference for Women. It also includes ephemera from the 1975 Berlin IWY Conference, at which noted political science author and former CWU professor, Dr. Usha Mahajani, attended as a delegate from India. Central Washington University women clearly impacted the IWY agenda—both locally and globally.

CWU Archive Collections Used Within This Collection

RG 061-06-49 C.H.A.M.P. Miscellaneous Files; Women’s Center 1975-1989 (Box 1 of 2) Women’s Conference Newspaper Clippings 1977 (Box 1 of 2) Scrapbook, 1976 (Box 2 of 2)

RG 027-06-61 University Relations Office—Newspaper clippings & Press Releases; Washington State Conference for Women 1977 (Box 17 of 17)

RG 042-06-66 Political Science Department—Usha Mahajani Papers; World Congress for International Woman’s Year—Berlin 1975 (Box 16 of 19)

WaW900R24 Recommendations of the Washington State International Women’s Year

VT-4257 Equal Rights Legislation: What Does it Mean?

Funding The 1977 Washington State Women’s Conference & Related Materials Digital Collection is grant funded through partnership with the Washington Women’s History Consortium. The Consortium, created by state statute (RCW 27.34.360) in 2005 as a Washington State Historical Society-led initiative, is dedicated to preserving and making available resources about Washington women's history. Please visit the WHC website for more information on the program, as well as women’s history-related finding aids and digital collections from other WHC partners.

Copyright The copyright interest in the newspaper material in this digital collection has not been transferred to CWU. The text and images may not be used for any commercial purpose without the permission of the copyright holder as specified. Copyright permission is the responsibility of the user.

Greenstone The 1977 Washington State Women’s Conference & Related Materials Digital Collection was created using Greenstone Digital Library Software, an open-source system. http://www.greenstone.org/.

CWU Special Collections & Archives / CWU Brooks Library / Copyright © 2007 CWU Archives

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