THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Barbara Mehrhof, Ph.D.
“The women that I met in the women’s movement were incredible. They were brilliant. They were creative and imaginative. They were funny. They had a sense of themselves. They were competitive. Sometimes they were insufferable. I’m very proud and grateful that I was there. That I took part in this. That I knew those women. And I have that fond memory, that we made history. We changed the world.”
Social worker, activist and author. A member of New York Radical Women, a founding member of Redstockings and The Feminists.
Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, January 2025
Photo 1. The Feminists’ zap action at the New York City Marriage Licensing Bureau on September 23, 1969. (left to right) Ti-Grace Atkinson, Linda Feldman, Pam Kearon, Sheila Cronan and Barbara Mehrhof. Image first appeared Life, May 18, 1970 [Photo by Mary Ellen Mark]. Photo 2. “Women Against Pornography” tour of Times Square, New York, 1979 [Photo by Marilyn K. Yee, The New York Times].
More About Barbara:
- On Class Structure Within the Women’s Movement by Barbara Mehrhof, Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation, 1970
- New York Radical Feminists Records, 1969-2011, Duke University
- Redstockings Abortion Speakout, March 21, 1969, New York City by Redstockings Women’s Liberation Archives for Action
- New York City League for Sexual Freedom and The Feminists files, circa 1964-1970. Cornell University Library
- Redstockings website
- Redstockings of the Women’s Liberation Movement facebook page
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, page 308