Papers of Marilyn Webb, 1968-2006

Author, journalist, professor, and feminist Marilyn Salzman Webb was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Long Island. She received a BA from Brandeis University (1964), a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (1981), and a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Chicago (2019). In 1970, she co-founded, directed, and taught in the women's studies program at Goddard College. She also taught journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and founded the journalism program at Knox College. She is the author of The Good Death: The New American Search to Reshape the End of Life, and co-editor with Anne Waldman of Talking Politics from Naropa Institute: Annals of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. She was editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, senior editor at Woman's Day, McCall's, and US Magazine, and a writer for New York Magazine. Her pieces have appeared in numerous publications including The Village Voice, Ladies Home Journal, Glamour, Ms. Magazine, The New York Times, and USA Today.

Webb was active in Students for a Democratic Society and the women's movement in Chicago and Washington, DC, co-organizing the Sandy Springs and Lake Villa women's conferences and helping develop D.C. Women's Liberation. In 1970, she co-founded the feminist newspaper off our backs, and in 1975, she co-founded the feminist think tank, Sagaris, which grew out of the Goddard women's studies program. She often speaks with medical, religious, and lay groups about how to improve end-of-life care, and served on the boards of the Hospice Foundation and Compassion in Dying (now Compassion & Choices).