THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Dolores Alexander
August 10, 1931 – May 13, 2008
“We wanted to be a space for strong, independent women who would be hopefully involved in the women’s movement, and that did happen. After a while, women came from all over the world.” – Dolores Alexander about Mother Courage, 2005
Writer, reporter, restaurant owner. Helped organize NYC chapter of NOW, editor of NOW’s national newsletter, NOW Acts, 1967–1968. First executive director, NOW, 1969. Opened Mother Courage, the first feminist restaurant in the United States in Greenwich Village, owned and operated by Dolores Alexander and Jill Ward from 1972 to 1977. New York Radical Feminists. Co-founder, coordinator and fundraiser for Women Against Pornography 1979-1983. Bachelor of Arts, Language and Literature, City College of New York, 1961.
Photo. Joyce Vincent (left), Jill Ward (second from left), Dolores Alexander (second from right) and Rosemary Gaffney (right) celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Mother Courage with cake in the shape of a woman’s symbol. June 2, 1975. (From People Magazine)
More About Dolores:
- “Overlooked No More: Dolores Alexander, Feminist Journalist and Activist,” The New York Times, June 25, 2023
- North Fork Women
- “For Dolores,” by Jill Ward
- Dolores Alexander: Feminist and Friend 1931 to 2008, by Lisa Scott
- Mother Courage and Dolores Alexander, by Joyce Vinson
- “Ahead of Her Time for NOW,” Monroe County NOW
- “Women’s Lib Takes the Plunge – Into Business,” Newsday, October 1971
- Veteran Feminists of America
- Our Last Days with Dolores Alexander, Linda Clarke and Joan Casamo, 2008
- Gloria Steinem introduces Dolores, Celebrating Kate Millet, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York City, November 7, 1998.
- Muriel Fox honors Dolores, and Betty Friedan shares a moment, Celebration of NOW’s 30th Anniversary, November 1996.
- Dolores’s remarks, Salute to Catherine East at Seventh Regiment Armory, New York City, May 1993.
- Archives
- Papers of NOW officer Dolores Alexander, 1960-1973, National Organization For Women, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
- Dolores Alexander, interview by Patricia Trainor, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Records of the Tully-Crenshaw Feminist Oral History Project, 1961-2001
- Collection: Dolores Alexander papers, part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History Repository
- Dolores Alexander interviewed by Kelly Anderson Voices of Feminism Oral History Project oral histories, Smith College
- Mother Courage – NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
- Dolores Alexander – Wikipedia
- Cited in Barbara Love’s Book, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963 – 1975, pages 7, 8
