THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Mary Otelia Eastwood
June 1, 1930 – Oct. 10, 2015
“I don’t think I would be comfortable with a lot of notoriety – that isn’t where I get my self-satisfaction. It is important that some women be in the limelight, as role models, but for myself, I like it just the way it is.” – Mary Otelia Eastwood
Attorney, author, activist. Executive secretary for the civil and political rights committee, President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 1962 – 1963. Mary Eastwood and Catherine East were largely responsible for persuading Betty Friedan to start NOW, 1966. Worked on recommendations submitted to the EEOC on interpretation of the sex discrimination provisions of Title VII and served as staff for special task forces of the Citizens Advisory Council on the Status of Women on family law and reproductive control, and the ERA. A founding member of the board of Human Rights for Women. President Carter named Eastwood acting special counsel of the Merit Systems Protection Board, 1980.
Photo. Muriel Fox, co-founder of the National Organization for Women, chair of Veteran Feminists of America, ambassador for the women’s movement and author, with Mary Eastwood, 1998.
More About Mary:
- Remembering Mary Eastwood, by Jacqui Ceballos, October 15, 2015
- Discussion on “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII,” by Pauli Murray and Mary Eastwood. Breaking Down Patriarchy! Podcast with host, Amy McPhie Allebest, May 25, 2021
- Veteran Feminists of America events
- National Organization for Women
- Archives
- Mary O. Eastwood Papers, 1915-1983; Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
- “Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement,” August 17, 1998, PBS Wisconsin, American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Mary Eastwood clip begins at 17.3
- Mary Eastwood interviewed by Muriel Fox: 1992. Records of the Tully-Crenshaw Feminist Oral History Project, 1961-2001 (inclusive), 1990-1993 (bulk), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.
- Mary Eastwood, “Constitutional Protection Against Sex Discrimination: An Informational Memorandum Prepared for the National Organization for Women (NOW) Regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and Similar Proposals,” November 1967, Pauli Murray Papers: Series II, 1935-1984, Box 55, Folder 956, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. 9 pp.
- University of Wisconsin Law School
- The Oral History Project at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Recorded September 17, 2010
- Records of the White House Office of Counsel to the President: A Guide to Its Records at the Jimmy Carter Library
- On C-SPAN
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, pages 129 – 130