THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Marjorie Bell Chambers, Ph.D.

March 11, 1923 – August 25, 2006

“Women have come a long way in our struggle for equality in law and before the courts of law. But there are still in this country some Neanderthal men whose perceptions are blinded by ancient custom and self-conceit.”

Educator, Author, Historian, Politician. A lifelong advocate for women’s rights. Became a national spokesperson for the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment. The first woman to run for Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico, a national president of the American Association of University Women and the president of Colorado Women’s College and Colby-Sawyer College. Served as an adviser to four presidents and 10 governors of New Mexico in multiple appointed positions and commissions. Chaired the National Advisory Council on Women’s Educational Programs under President Gerald Ford and the Committee for Women under President Jimmy Carter.

Photo 1. Founders of the National Organization for Women at the first national meeting in 1966. Left to right: Dorothy Haener, Sister Joel Read, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Betty Friedan, Inez Casiano, Richard Graham and Inka O’Hanrahan. (Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Harvard University). Photo 2. NOW chapters nationwide barraged EEOC offices with baskets of red tape to protest the agency’s failure to desexigrate Help Wanted ads. San Francisco protesters included NOW’s secretary-treasurer Inka O’Hanrahan (third from left), second President Aileen Hernandez (holding tape) and lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon (far right). (Photo by Morton-Waters Co. December 14, 1967)