Papers of Dolores Bargowski, 1943-2008

Feminist and lesbian activist Dolores Bargowski grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in a working class family with five children. The first member of her family to go to college, she attended Monteith College (part of Wayne State University), beginning in 1964, and studied philosophy and the arts. By 1967 she was president of the Monteith student government, and became involved in the civil rights movement. In response to the sexism exhibited by groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, she and Barbara Burris organized one of the first seminars on women's issues in the country. Offered in the fall of 1967 at Monteith College, it was called "Society in Woman" and it led to the organization of the first college chapter of the National Organization for Women. Other actions included filing complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding the hiring of women, organizing teach-ins, attending the 1967 conference of the National Organization for Women, and participating in the 1968 protest of the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In 1969 Bargowski moved to New York City where she became involved with Women Make Movies, The Feminists, Class Workshop, and Radicalesbians. She participated in the National Organization for Women's Second Congress to Unite Women (spring 1970), pointing to the need to consider class and sexual orientation issues in order to make the women's movement more inclusive. In 1971 she moved to Washington, D.C., where she wrote and distributed a pamphlet entitled "Notes toward a Women's Analysis of Class" and contributed to Dykes for an American Revolution (1971). She was a member of the Furies, a collective that published a newspaper nationally, and a founder of Quest: A Feminist Journal (1973).