Research Guides: President's Commission on the Status of Women: Home

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Start your archival research on The President's Commission on the Status of Women with this guide.

Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the President's Commission on the Status of Women undertook a 22-month study "to examine and recommend remedies to combat the... prejudices and outmoded customs [that] act as barriers to the full realization of women's basic rights." Its report, issued in 1963, spurred the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Dept. of Labor to spearhead the creation of state commissions on the status of women. By 1966, 45 states had commissions studying the condition of women within their jurisdictions, and by 1976, there were 82 local commissions, primarily in cities or highly urbanized counties.

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The J.F.K. Presidential Library and Museum also holds archival material on the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

Archival Collections

Commissions on the Status of Women
This collection is organized alphabetically by state and includes state and occasionally local commission reports, minutes, membership lists, brochures, newsletters, and task force and conference material.
President's Commission on the Status of Women
This collection contains minutes, transcripts, reports, correspondence, and press releases of the Commission. Included are background, interim, and final reports, as well as agendas and minutes of meetings of the Commission's subcommittees for home and community, protective labor legislation, education, social insurance and taxes, civil and political rights, federal employment policies and practices, and private employment.
Black Women Oral History Project
This project contains interviews of 72 African-American women who made significant contributions to American society in the first half of the twentieth century. Of particular note is an interview of Dorothy Irene Height, a member of the President's Commission on the Status of Women.
Catherine East (1916-1996)
A government official and feminist activist, Catherine East served in a senior capacity on all presidential advisory commissions on women from 1962 through 1977, conducting research and preparing position papers, publications, and reports on a wide range of women's issues. Hailed by Betty Friedan as the "midwife to the birth of the women's movement," East served as a staff member on President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women (1962-1963); executive secretary of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Status of Women and the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women (1963-1974); and deputy coordinator of the secretariat for the National Committee for the Observance of International Women's Year (1975-1976).
Mary O. Eastwood (b. 1930)
As technical secretary to the civil and political rights committee of President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women, Eastwood researched decisions involving women and the Fourteenth Amendment and became increasingly interested in the women's movement. With Pauli Murray she wrote the highly influential article "Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII," which appeared in the Georgetown Law Review (34, December 1965). She was very active in the formation of the National Organization for Women; a board member of Human Rights for Women, an organization formed in 1968 to help finance sex discrimination litigation and research projects on women's issues; and a member of Federally Employed Women, a group that sought an end to sex discrimination in the federal government.
Katherine Pollak Ellickson (1905-1996)
Labor economist Katherine Pollak Ellickson served as executive secretary of the President's Commission on the Status of Women from 1961 to 1963. She worked as an economist for the National Labor Relations Board (1938-1940) and the Social Security Board (1940-1941), as associate director of research at the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1935-1937, 1942-1955), and as assistant director of the social security department of the AFL-CIO beginning in 1955.
Betty Friedan (1921-2006)
Feminist, activist, and author Betty Friedan helped found the National Organization for Women and served as its first president. Her first book, The Feminine Mystique, was published in 1963. Afterward, Friedan quickly became a leading advocate for change in the status of women in the United States. Of particular note are folders 1750-1751, which contain Friedan's copy of the Report from the President's Commission on the Status of Women, her notes on the report, and a letter from Esther Peterson.
Evelyn Harrison
The first woman to graduate from the College of Engineering at the University of Maryland (1932), Evelyn Harrison was one of the highest ranking career women in the U.S. federal government during the 1960s and 1970s. As deputy director of the Bureau of Policies and Standards in the U.S. Civil Service Commission, she was a government spokesperson for equal opportunity for women and an advocate for the advancement of women within the federal service. In 1961 she assisted Eleanor Roosevelt and Esther Peterson in organizing the President's Commission on the Status of Women. She was also an alternate member on the Interdepartmental Commission on the Status of Women. In 1966 she was named assistant to the chairman for Federal Women's Programs, a newly created position to advise Civil Service Commission chair, John W. Macy.
Mary Dublin Keyserling (b. 1910)
An economist, government administrator, and director of the Women's Bureau (1964-1969), Keyserling graduated from Barnard College (1930), studied at the London School of Economics, and became executive director of the National Consumers' League in 1938. She was a personal advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt in the Office of Civilian Defense, an economist in the Foreign Economic Administration (1943), and chief of the Special Programs Division of the Office of International Trade of the Department of Commerce (1946-1949). From 1961 to 1963 she served on President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women.
Pauli Murray (1910-1985)
A lawyer, educator, political activist, and writer, Pauli Murray was the first woman to become an ordained Episcopal minister. She held a variety of jobs with organizations such as the Works Progress Administration and the Workers' Defense League. She attended Howard University Law School (1941-1944) and completed graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. During the 1940s she operated a law office in New York City and was later hired as an associate attorney for the law offices of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison (1956). In the 1960s Murray served on a study committee for the President's Commission on the Status of Women. Of particular note is Series II, subseries C: Work -- President's Commission on the Status of Women.
Maurine Brown Neuberger (1907-2000)
Neuberger was a U.S. Senator from Oregon, a member of the President's Commission on the Status of Women, and chairman of the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women (1966-1968).
Esther Peterson (1906-1997)
Active in the fields of labor, education, women's rights, and consumer affairs, Peterson was involved in union organizing, worker education, and labor and consumer legislation lobbying. She was executive vice chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women (1961-1963).
Marguerite Rawalt (1895-1989)
Attorney and feminist Marguerite Rawalt was active in the National Organization for Women (NOW) and chair of its legal committee (1966-1969), founder and treasurer of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, and an attorney for and president of the Women's Equity Action League. In 1961 she was appointed to the President's Commission on the Status of Women and subsequently served on other commissions, such as the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women and the District of Columbia Commission on the Status of Women. She was active in the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and was a founding member of Women United and the ERA Ratification Council.
Leila J. Rupp and Verta A. Taylor interviews
This collection consists of 25 audiotapes and transcripts of interviews conducted by Rupp and Taylor with women who worked for women's rights during the mid-twentieth century in the United States. Included are interviews with Catherine East, Mary Eastwood, Margaret Hickey, Pauli Murray and Marguerite Rawalt, all of whom were involved in the President's Commission on the Status of Women.
Somerville and Howorth family
Lucy Somerville Howorth was a lawyer and also a representative in the Mississippi legislature. She has been associated with the Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Jackson, Miss., and Washington, D.C., and the National and International Federations of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the American Association of University Women, Women in World Affairs, and the Assembly of Women's Organizations for National Security. In 1927, she was appointed U.S. Commissioner for the Southern District of Mississippi. She was a member of the Committee on Federal Employment for the President's Commission on the Status of Women. Of particular note are folders 179-186 on the President's Commission on the Status of Women.
Women in the Federal Government Oral History Project
This collection contains interviews of 39 women in appointive and civil service positions in various departments and offices of the U.S. federal government. Of particular note is an interview with Mary Dublin Keyserling, a member of the President's Commission on the Status of Women.