Chicago Women’s Organizations, 1945 - 2000

As a significant aspect of our ongoing project “Documenting Women’s Activism and Leadership in the Chicago Area, 1945 – 2000” we have researched, identified, collected and preserved archival material and documentary evidence of Chicago women’s organizations during this period. For this purpose we define a “women’s organization” as one that was established primarily for the benefit, empowerment, enlightenment, advancement or general well-being of women. Generally, it was women themselves that created and nurtured these organizations.

CWHC currently maintains reference files on 338 women’s organizations that were active at some time during the second half of the 20th century in Chicago. Some of these individual files are very extensive and connect to organizational papers that have already been deposited in local repositories. However, many of the organizational files we have represent groups whose papers have not been collected elsewhere, many are generally unknown and some previously undocumented.

Presented here is a spreadsheet that lists all 338 organizations plus some basic information about each one.  We will be continually updating this database as new information is recorded.

If you were personally involved in one of these organizations, especially a lesser known one (we already have a huge amount of information about NOW and Chicago Women’s Liberation Union) and you have personal papers or archival information to share, please let us know!