THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Mary Jean Collins
“A movement like this can empower you and give you a community that is with you for the rest of your life.”
Lifelong activist and organizer. National Organization for Women: Officer of Milwaukee NOW, 1967; President of Chicago NOW, 1970 and 1980; Midwest regional director, 1970-71; National board member; elected national action VP, 1982. Director of the Illinois ERA campaign. Deputy director of Catholics for a Free Choice. VP and national political director for People for the American Way. Veteran Feminists of America Board of Directors and Historian; co-chair of Pioneer Histories Project.
Interviewed by Kathy Rand, VFA Executive VP, July 2021
Photo 1. Catherine Conroy, Kay Clarenbach, Mary Jean and Gene Boyer. Photo 2. Lois Reckitt, Alice Chapman, Judy Goldsmith, Mary Jean, Walter Mondale, Sen Barbara Mikulski, Kathy Webb. Photo 3. Cover of Lois Herr’s book, Women, Power and AT&T, Winning Rights in the Workplace. Photo by Dori Jacobson.
More About Mary Jean:
- Mary Jean through the years
- Select Veteran Feminists of America Events
- VFA Goes to Washington, NOW 50 Years Celebration, Washington, DC – June 24 – 25, 2016
- Labor & the Women’s Movement, St. Louis, MO, September 27, 2014
- Alverno September 15, 2012 — “Empowering Women: A Tale Of Two Generations.”
- Mary Jean’s remarks, Honoring The Legacy of Betty Friedan, NYC, June 7, 2011
- “Unfinished Business of the Women’s Movement” Honoring Midwest Feminists, Chicago, IL August 27-28, 2004
- Salute to ERA Activists, Seawall Belmont House, Washington, DC May 6, 1999
- Select interviews and speeches
- Mary Jean Collins, June 2019, Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Reunion Collection, University of Illinois Chicago Library.
- University of Houston The National Women’s Conference: Taking 1977 Into The 21st Century, 2017
- Chicago Women’s History Center oral history interview, 2011
- On C-SPAN
- Chicago NOW Archival Films, Casey Kelly’s 1970s home movies
- Interview from the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, courtesy Chicago History Museum and WFMT
- Films
- She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry – a film by Mary Dore, 2014
- Intimate Portrait on Betty Friedan, 1999
- The Equal Rights Amendment: Unfinished Business For the Constitution, by Ruth Pollack, 1998
- Fighting For the Obvious, a television documentary, written by Lynn Kanter, produced by Virago Video, 1982
- Archives
- Papers of NOW officer Mary Jean Collins, 1966-1988 Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
- National Organization for Women, Chicago Chapter Records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago
- Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History
- Midwest Academy (Chicago, Ill.) records (Chicago History Museum)
- Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library
- National Organization for Women. Kenosha Chapter: Records
- Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University Chicago
- Cited in Barbara Love’s Book – Feminist Who Changed America– page 90