FOSL:: It’s DELAHANTY: Cate Fosl, Louisville, Kentucky, March 7, 2001.
[INTERRUPTION—TAPE STOPS] FOSL: Right. If you could just begin by giving me a real quick kind-of synopsis of your, your background, your—where you were born, where you grew up, the, your career, that sort of thing.DELAHANTY: Well, I really, I’m from Northern Illinois. I was born in Rockford, Illinois.
FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: And went to Rockford College, which at the time was a woman’s college
and rather well known in that part of the country. There were some wonderfully inspirational women who attended Rockford, such as Jane Addams who founded Hull House and just really very, I mean, really terrific women and the college 1:00encouraged women to assume leadership positions and so on. It was interesting, too, that when I first started at Rockford, I wasn’t, you know, much involved in student affairs or student government. I sort of just got accustomed to, to the college itself and to the requirements of the liberal arts curriculum, which I found to be fascinating. I think that everybody should start their life with a broad liberal arts education. But one day, somebody came up to me and said, “You know, are you going to spend the rest of your life playing bridge?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.” And she said, “Well, why don’t you come with me to one of these student, National Student Association meetings?” And I said, “Well, fine. That sounds good.” So, at any rate, I did. 2:00And became very involved in the National Student Association, which was a major factor, I felt, of, of progressive students in, at that time. And became a delegate and through that met my husband, and that’s—we married and came down to Louisville, which was his hometown. So, that’s how I ended up in Kentucky.FOSL: Right. What was your, what was your maiden name?
DELAHANTY: Sheslo. S-H-E-S-L-O.
FOSL: Oh, here we go.
UNIDENTIFIED: Here’s another lost student.
FOSL: Oh, alright. Come in. [INTERRUPTION—TAPE STOPS] FOSL: Okay. And your, you
were just spelling your maiden name.DELAHANTY: Yes. Uh-huh.
FOSL: Your family name.
DELAHANTY: Right. And so, at any rate, that sort of was an epiphany. The other
thing that got me involved 3:00and--and interested in politics particularly: the women at Rockford College campaigned for Adlai Stevenson when he was running for governor. And Adlai was the first Democratic governor elected in the state of Illinois for, I guess, a hundred years. It’s a pretty Republican—it was a pretty Republican state. So, you know, the, our fi-, my first time being involved in politics resulted in a s-, a successful outcome, and that was just kind of exciting too. I mean, it’s always nice to win an election, you know. So, at any rate, so that’s how I sort—I got involved in the student government politics and in real politics in Illinois. And, as I say, the day after I graduated from college, I got married.FOSL: All in the same week, huh?
DELAHANTY: And in the ’50s, that was kind of an interesting thing to happen to
women. I mean, you just felt like you had to get married right away and, and there, that was it, you know. There wasn’t much thought about career and marriage, but at any rate.FOSL: What, what year was it when you moved to Louisville?
DELAHANTY: Nineteen-fifty.
4:00FOSL: Oh.DELAHANTY: Yeah.
FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: Yeah. I graduated at the age of twenty and, you know, I was very
naïve and very young and felt that this was, this was what I was supposed to do.FOSL: Sure.
DELAHANTY: So, at any rate, and I always tell this story too. It was at a time
before the Catholic Church, you know, opened its windows under Pope John XXIII. And one of the things that I had, two things happened in my, during the process of negotiating with the church about my marriage. One was, I had this dear friend who had a beautiful voice and was a music major, but she didn’t happen to be Catholic. I wanted her to sing at my wedding, but she was not allowed to sing, which incensed me. And the other thing was that, at that time, the traditional wedding vows were to love, honor and obey. And I talked to the priest and said, you know, “I don’t think I can say that. I don’t think I can say ‘obey’ my husband, and I’m sure my husband doesn’t require me to say ‘obey.’” Well, I lost that, that, too. But 5:00I didn’t, when I was repeating the wedding vows, I sort of stumbled over the word obey, so I felt like I had won a, some kind of a victory. But at any rate, it, you know, it was, I think, having that wonderful opportunity of going to a woman’s college and having— FOSL: Yeah, I want to ask you about that.DELAHANTY: Yeah, and having the opportunity to, you know, the leadership
opportunities, I felt really were instrumental in, n-, number one, you know, all that I’ve accom-, accomplished, and secondly, setting the tone of my relationship with my husband, which was a very good, strong relationship. We were involved in many things together: Civil Rights and Human Rights. And I think that’s 6:00why he was always so supportive of me and my efforts in the Women’s Movement. So, I think, had I married a different person, being a product of the ’50s, that, you know, I might have been stymied in some way from fully experiencing all of the kinds, you know, the things I’ve been able to do.FOSL: Well, going back to Rockford College for a minute— DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: Did you have a lot of strong female professors and role models? I mean [
]— DELAHANTY: Oh, absolutely. Almost every—that’s the other interesting thing about the faculty. Most of the faculty were women faculty. There were very few men. I majored in political science and psychology, and it so happened that my major professor in psychology was a woman, but my major professor in political science was a man, so it was kind of an interesting combination and people couldn’t understand why I wanted to do a double major. 7:00FOSL: Someone check on that. And how or did that experience increase your awareness of sexism in society?DELAHANTY: Well, I tell you at that time, two things: first of all, my father
was involved in the labor movement. He was a steward in the factory where he worked. And I think he—and my mother was a working mother during World War II. Many women did work.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: So, I had two strong role models at home. I mean, my father
interested in, in union activities and union rights for workers and my mother being a working mother.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: So, you know, it was, that was kind—I guess that was unusual at the
time to have a working mother. But secondly, I think, Rockford College, in, in, in having, having the ability at school to see strong women in a teaching profession, 8:00women, you know, in positions of authority. There was a woman president, Dr. Mary Ashby Cheek. So it, it just seemed perfectly natural. I mean, the, we were surrounded by people who were interested in teaching us and helping us fulfill our potential and never letting us sort of, you know, kind of go by the board, if you will.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: So, there was always that feeling of comfort, comfort around other
women. And so, at any rate, I attribute, probably, where I am today to both my home and my parents, both strong parents, as well as to the fact 9:00that I went to a woman’s college and that somebody said to me, “Are you going to spend the rest of your life playing bridge, or are you going to get involved?” And I said, “Yes.” So it— FOSL: Who was that? That was— DELAHANTY: Yeah.FOSL: Well, what about your siblings? And did you have brothers and sisters?
DELAHANTY: I had an older brother and an older sister and a younger brother.
[clears throat] Excuse me. My two older—my brother and sister both went away to school, to the University of Texas, and my younger brother went away to school. I was the only person that stayed home, in my home community. But we were always a very close family. My mother was one of eight children. And we, we used to literally spend weekends at my grandparents’ home, all the cousins and all the aunts and uncles. So, we have a very strong family tradition and I think I’ve done, I’ve done the same thing for my children. You know, instilled in them a feeling of there’s always a support group there for them.FOSL: Right. Well, I guess what I was thinking about with the question about
your siblings 10:00was if you remember feeling that there were things you couldn’t do because you were a girl when you were growing up?DELAHANTY: No, not really. I think that, first of all, it, my parents always
stressed education. There was no doubt that we were going to go to college, number one. Number two, music was a very important part of our family. I played the violin for six years and piano. And my sister took piano lessons and voice lessons. And my old-, older brother played the trumpet. My younger brother played the flute. So, I think, you know, the richness of music, the feeling that, you know, we were going to be in edu-, be educated regardless of the cost or the struggle, and so, I think these are the kinds of experiences that encouraged me to feel that I—very comfortable.FOSL: Um-hm. Well, moving forward then to after
11:00your marriage— DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.FOSL: When you were living in Louisville, it sounded—I mentioned to you, I
think, that I had read the interview you did with Tracy K’Meyer— DELAHANTY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.FOSL: For the Civil Rights Project.
DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: And I wondered if, it sounded like that was really sort of the opening
wedge for you, in terms of social activism was the Civil Rights Movement. Was that correct or— DELAHANTY: Right. Yes, it is. My husband was very involved in, in—both of us—in the Kentucky Civil Liberties Union, when he graduated from law school. We went away for a couple of years to Washington, DC, and then came back. And I was thinking, and I don’t know whether I mentioned it previously, but one of the, there are a couple of things that were very 12:00important in our lives. Number one, we spent our early marriage going to meetings.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: I mean, that was our form, [laughs] our form of recreation. And Bob
was on the KCLU panel, and I remember a trip that we took with our youngest child. I had five children.FOSL: Right. Stairsteps or— DELAHANTY: Yeah, pretty much. I had five children
within ten years— FOSL: Uh-huh. Wow.DELAHANTY: So, I would say that’s kind of stairsteps. [laughs] FOSL: That’s
stairsteps. [laughter] DELAHANTY: But at any rate, we went to a meeting of SLAM, which was the Southern Lawyers Action Movement or something at Lake Junaluska and it was there that most of the people involved in the Civil Rights Movement were men, not women at the time, but there was a group of women who had gone to Cuba with, with Venceremos Brigade were there. And I was amazed at how strong they were 13:00and how assertive they were and I think it was, you know, that was a moment in my life which I consider to be kind of a, a change in the way I looked at the role of women in the Civil Rights Movement at the time.FOSL: This must have been late ’60s? By the early ’70s?
DELAHANTY: Let’s see. My husband graduated from law school and started
practicing, I think in ’52, ’53, in that—and, so, this was maybe the late, the late ’50s, early ’60s.FOSL: Oh, okay.
DELAHANTY: Yeah. Yeah. So, at any rate, we came back to Louisville from
Washington, DC in a very difficult time in the history of Louisville. That was the time with the, the Braden trial.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: And I think I mentioned what my husband’s involvement was.
FOSL: Yes, you did.
DELAHANTY: But, at any rate, one of the things—oh, so we went, so that was a
kind of an eye-opener for me, that particular conference. And then, KCLU 14:00with Susie Post’s leadership as executive director, formed a women’s committee. And Anne Braden was a member of the committee. And it was at the, it, I think that committee, I, the more I think about it, was so significant to the women’s movement in Kentucky because it was right during the discussion of the Equal Rights Amendment. And I remember going out to Fort Knox to give a speech to women on the post and not very welcomed at that, about the Equal Rights Amendment. It was in the process of that committee that Anne found out that the, there was a be a, a con-, 15:00convention or a conference in Washington of women leaders from throughout the country, looking at the possibility of establishing some kind of multi-partisan group, which became the National Women’s Political Caucus. So, nobody could attend. I had some time, at the time, and so I said, “Oh, I’ll go to the—,” you know. I volunteered to go to this meeting. Well, that really was an epiphany for me. I mean, the, that meeting in Washington with people like Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem and Jill Ruckelshaus and—I mean, it was the first time that I was really exposed to the philosophical premises of feminism, you know.FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: And that was a time when the worst thing you could say about a woman
was that she was a, a women’s libber. She was, a, a, you know, and it was almost a pejorative to be called a women’s libber.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: So, at any rate, I thought, this is great.
16:00Because what it captured for me was the following: I, although I’ve always been an advocate on issues, it, it put together phil-, a po-, political philosophy connected to real, the real world of politics and electoral politics, like other women’s organizations did not do. I was never a member—well, I, I’m now a member of NOW, but in the early days when there were all of these women’s groups starting up, I was never a member of NOW. I was never a member of the League of Women Voters. But the Women’s Political Caucus had an energy and had, to me, had the kind of action orientation that appealed to me.FOSL: Could I, could I get you to say a little bit more about that? I noticed in
this other interview you, the way you described it was as an opportunity to put principles together with politics.DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: I’m curious how you saw NOW as being different from that.
DELAHANTY: Well, to tell you the truth, I
17:00saw NOW as kind of a radical form of the League of Women Voters, as kind of a discussion group more into, you know, ruminating and con-, conversation, you know, about the issues.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: I had never belonged to a consciousness-raising group either. I mean,
I saw that little KCLU committee— FOSL: Right, right.DELAHANTY: As, as a consci-, not, because, as a, as my form of consciousness-raising.
FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: It was not kind of the introspective, personal consciousness-raising
that was going on in the community at the very beginning because we were focused on major, major discussions 18:00about women and women’s issues. So, at any rate, the caucus just seemed like a perfect fit for me. So—go ahead.FOSL: Could, could I back up a little bit and ask you about, you know, you’re
familiar that I’m doing this work on Anne Braden.DELAHANTY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
FOSL: You’d gotten to know Anne— DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: During that time. Was that the first time that you’d really gotten to know
her in the context of the [ ]?DELAHANTY: In a, in a, in a more personal way, I think. You know, KCLU at the
time, really shunned the Bradens— FOSL: Right.DELAHANTY: You know. It took years and years and years for KCLU to reconcile
itself with Anne. That was the interesting thing about my husband’s involvement because when we came back, the, the scene in Louisville was so emotional and so tense and so difficult, I, you just simply cannot imagine how, how people—I mean, it was as though they were social lepers or pariahs, I mean, and it—but, 19:00I think my husband was more comfortable than I about being involved as an attorney in that process and so on.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: So, but at any rate, and I always, you know, I, I felt that Anne was
a woman of principle that was, you know, kind of scary. I mean, the sacrifices that she and her husband had made to me were just absolutely amazing, you know. It took a lot of courage for her.FOSL: Who were some of the other women on that committee?
DELAHANTY: Marcie Segal, Dr. Marcia Segal for one. Susie Anne—I just can’t, I
can’t really, I think Susie probably could name more members— FOSL: That’s all right. She’s another person being interviewed, so I was just curious.DELAHANTY: Yeah. Well, on that committee.
FOSL: But then, one more question about that time period. Anne
20:00tells a story about running into you in the post office when you had come back from this meeting, and how you just seemed so transformed.DELAHANTY: Well, [laughs] I, I was transformed. And I don’t remember the
encounter, but I do, I do know that had it not been for Anne Braden, you know, mentioning this—and Anne was a friend of Bella Abzug’s, and I think that’s how, Anne, how Anne knew of the, the meeting in Washington. So that was a very important epiphany for me. It really was.FOSL: And then, will, will you just kind of trace the development of your—
DELAHANTY: Of the caucus? 21:00FOSL: Yes, your involvement with the caucus and with the women’s liberation movement more broadly.DELAHANTY: Okay. Let me start with the caucus. So, at the caucus, the only other
woman from Kentucky was Rebecca Westerfield who was vice-president of the student government at the University of Kentucky. And she was still in school. And we sort of connected because we were the only women from Kentucky. We kind of looked up—and when we got back, I said to Rebecca, “We really need to start a caucus here in, in Kentucky.” So, in September of 1971, we convened—Rebecca—it was, we decided it would be in Louisville, rather than in Lexington, and so, being here in Louisville, I was pretty much kind of the site organizer. We met at the University of Louisville, but we worked closely together. And there were a radical group of women at K-, at the University of Kentucky at the time. And Rebecca being one of them. Pam Elam, E-L-A-M, 22:00was another. And so, we, we set about having this meeting and we were dete-, determined to do a couple of things. Number one, that we would invite all the total spectrum of women, you know, conservative Republican women, Democratic women. There were some women who considered themselves to be Socialist at the time, which was pretty radical. At any rate, we had this long list of people that, that I called. And two things, two things struck me. Number one, the Republican woman, Nelda Barton from Eastern Kentucky was on the Republican National Committee. Well, when she found out that her name appeared 23:00just before Anne Braden’s name on the list of conveners, she pulled out. She just said, “I will not be on the same program list or printed whatever with Anne Braden.” FOSL: And what was her last name?DELAHANTY: Barton. B-A-R-T-O-N. Then, I called Katie Peden, because Katie was
national president of VPW and she was an important figure in the Democratic party, and she scolded me and said, “You know, , why do you want to start a women’s party? You know, why don’t you just, you know, spend all your energy in the Democratic party?” And I said, told her that this was not going to be a political party, per se, and that it was a group of women who wanted to recruit other women to run for office and so on. So, she was not very encouraging about the, about starting up the Women’s Political Caucus, but it was, it was very, very exciting to me, because not only were we opposed to sexism, but we were opposed to racism, to institutional 24:00violence, and to poverty. And all four of these streams, you know, played in so, so much into both my personal and professional life that I thought, gosh, this is, you know, this is just a, a marvelous opportunity for women. So, the other interesting thing is that we organized ourselves as a statewide group and then from that spin, we spun, spun off two small local caucuses, one in Lexington and one in Louisville. I became the coordinator for the Louisville caucus, but there were four of us. There were two African-American women and two Caucasian women. And Barbara Hadley Smith, who now works for the Cabinet for Health Services, Marguerite Harris and Frances Thomas were the four coordinators. We didn’t want a hierarchical structure of president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. We called ourselves coordinators and there was going to be no one 25:00coordinator superior to others. I mean, that was— FOSL: Did that work?DELAHANTY: Reasonably, reasonably well. I tell you, the point, I guess, I’m
making is at the very beginning of the Women’s Movement, in terms of organizations, we were reluctant to have this kind of authoritarian structure and hierarchical structure. So, Frances Thomas, I think, was a welfare recipient. Margur-, Marguerite Harris was an activist in the c-, in the War on Poverty. 26:00And Barbara, at the time, was a newspaper reporter for the Courier. And I was in social work at the time. I have a masters degree in social work. So, we were a wonderful combination of people. And we tried to do some kinds of things in the community. Like, that was when cable TV franchises were first coming into play, and we were very involved in the public access issue. We even had a women’s, oh, movie festival. I mean, we just, you know, we tried everything we could to, to begin to move out into the broader world. But once again, our major focus was, you know, getting women to run for office. We were not very successful in, in, in in-, in including—or not including, but getting Republican women to join the caucus. I think that, at the time, people were pretty—they, we were considered a pretty radical group. I think 27:00our major accomplishment early on in the caucus was the delegate selection process in 1972. Number one, the local caucus and the Kentucky caucus challenged the credentials of some of the delegates to the state convention. We, I also introduced— FOSL: In [ ] in what way?DELAHANTY: We felt that—we were, we ran as an uncommitted delegate, as, as did
at the time, I think, Governor Ford’s people were also uncommitted to a presidential candidate. The other strong contingent of delegates to the convention were the McGovern delegates.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: So, it was a question of who were the bona fide uncommitted delegates.
FOSL: Oh, [ ].
DELAHANTY: So, at any rate, we went through the whole process of the credentials
committee and so on. And we, some of us were seated. 28:00The other thing that happened at the convention, which was, which was something else, was this whole incident with, I stood on the floor of the convention and asked the delegates to pass a resolution supporting the Equal Rights Amendment and was booed and jeered and screamed at and vulgar kinds of remarks. My husband was a delegate, and my son was a youth delegate from our district and, at any rate, but the women stood up, you know, very, not all the women, but the women from the caucus stood up and, and, you know, applauded me when I was in the midst of all of this. And fortunately, I couldn’t hear everything that was screamed and yelled out. I probably would have crawled under a chair 29:00or something. But, afterward, Endicott Peabody, who was running for vice-president—and at that time, you didn’t run for vice-president— FOSL: Right.DELAHANTY: President and vice-president were slated. So, he came over and he,
you know, s-, sat near me and said, you know, that I had done a very brave thing and that he, his mother was sort of like I was. She was very involved in Women’s and Civil Rights Movements in Massachusetts. That was pretty comforting, to both my husband, my child, and myself, because Sean was maybe eighteen or nineteen at the time— FOSL: Right.DELAHANTY: So, at any rate. But we didn’t get the resolution passed. They would
not pass the resolution. And then I became very involved, from ’72 to ’76, very, very involved in the National Women’s Political Caucus at the national level. I served on the by-laws committee that developed the structure of the caucus. I served on the administrative committee. At the time, the caucus was, their executive committee 30:00was comprised of kind of an administrative committee of maybe twenty-five to thirty women from various parts of the country that sort of governed the organization. And in 1976, I ran for chair of the National Caucus. And there were three candidates in that campaign: Audrey Cologne and, oh, gosh, the woman from Iowa, and myself. And what happened—and I had the support of the first president of the caucus, Sissy Farenthold, and the Texas delegation. I, as a matter of fact, Sissy had asked me to chair that national convention, which was held in Boston. So, I was on her executive committee and chaired the convention and ran for, for chair of the caucus. And as the votes were coming down, it became apparent 31:00that I was, you know, that the two Democrats were deadlocked. Roxanne Conlin was the other democrat from Iowa. So, I threw my support and my supporters to the Republican. She was an African-American Republican. So, she was the first African-American chair of the caucus. And as a re— FOSL: And what was her name?DELAHANTY: Audrey Roe Cologne. So, as a result of that, Audrey appointed me
chair of the planning and development commission of the caucus. And then, I served on the National Women’s Education Fund, which was kind of—that fund, and at the time, Betsy Wright, who was a, a strong supporter of Sissy’s and a strong supporter of mine, later became involved with the first Clinton campaign, was his chief of staff in Arkansas. So, at any rate, the friends that I made at the national level 32:00have really remained friends forever and ever. You can’t go through that kind of painful bonding process— FOSL: Um-hm.DELAHANTY: Fighting the world without, you know, acquiring friends. So, I joined
the board of the National Women’s Education Fund and later became president of the fund. The purpose of the fund was to develop both political skills workshops and a, and thr-, and throughout the country, as well as recruiting women for major positions on boards and commissions. So, the fund finally went out of existence, I guess, in ’78, 1978. We went from Betsy as, Betsy left us to go work for Clinton in Arkansas as his chief of staff 33:00and— [INTERRUPTION—END OF SIDE A] DELAHANTY: And Rosalie Whalen, a wonderful woman, became executive director, and then the fund transferred all of his assets to the women's campaign fund, which now exists. And at any rate, the thing once again, when we came together, women from all over the country, to the National Women's Political Caucus. None of us knew anything about anybody's background. I mean, you just accepted a woman for what she was, face value and her ability to become part of that movement. And then, well just sort of at some moment, we were sitting down, talking with one another, and we started sharing our experiences. And I was saying I was--I had five children, I was married to an attorney, and I was a social worker, and, you know, we just started---. 34:00Mouths dropped when we began to learn behind this. You know, our involvement in the caucus, these personal details. So, it was kind of the opposite from a consciousness raising--. --Group. You didn't start out, you know, personalizing your experiences, but you started out being part of this very important movement. So, at any rate, that's--that was my experience with the National Women's Political Caucus and the National Women's Education Fund. Being involved at the national level, with two big organizations like that, it was pretty tough to maintain relationships at the local level.FOSL: Yeah. It must have been.
DELAHANTY: Yeah, very tough. So, at the end of my experience at the national
level, I kind of came back home, and it was at that time that we had the Equal Rights 35:00Amendment fight, the pro-choice fight. Testifying, you know, before the General Assembly as a Catholic in favor of choice was kind of an interesting experience. Especially since, you know, our nephew was a priest, and we had pretty strong Catholic connections. So, at any rate, but I think that the 70s were the golden period of feminism in Kentucky. I mean, women were--there were women that were head of national organizations like Mary Rose Okan (??) and a number of--you know, there was just like a trail of Kentucky women involved in BPW and my involvement in the caucus and the Women's Education Fund, and Allie came along, Dr Hixson came along, and she got involved in the national Equal Rights Amendment movement, you know, the ERA Alliance and--and 36:00there were other opportunities for us. You know, the International Women's year, and we had such--.FOSL: Did you go to it?
DELAHANTY: --Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean, we had a fabulous delegation. People
could not believe that the women of Kentucky were in favor of, you know, promoting sexual preference or sexual orientation and childcare and pro-choice. And I mean, you know, that was amazing. The other thing that was very amazing locally was there were a number of women then who became involved in programs specifically for women, designing programs for women. That's the era in Louisville when the Rape Relief--well, we called it rape relief program started. The Creative Employment Program, non-traditional programs for women, with Betsy Jacobus and Ellen Ewing. Domestic violence, I mean, you know.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: Those were grassroots women's programs developed by the women in Louisville.
FOSL: Let me go back to your point about how---how it looked outside the state--.
DELAHANTY: Yeah.
FOSL: --In terms of the kind of groundswell--.
37:00DELAHANTY: Yeah--FOSL: --Of women's liberation activism here, would you say that was mostly Louisville?
DELAHANTY: Louisville and Lexington. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I think that there were
students at the University of Kentucky who were very, very involved, amazingly so. And, you know, it's too bad Rebecca is in San Francisco, because I think Rebecca was very, very important in the Lexington scene. You know, they had, in fact, I would say at one time, the University of Kentucky was much more radical than the University of Louisville.FOSL: I think that's true.
DELAHANTY: Yeah, and I don't think people realize that, FOSL: And how--how did
this sort of message play in Louisville? You know what I mean, like in terms of media coverage, in terms of community? I mean, you said that was, I mean, and I---it sounds amazing 38:00to speak out that way, as a Catholic, but how did that reverberate?DELAHANTY: Well, to be honest with you, I don't think the media paid much
attention to us. Yeah, I think I have, you know, darn few articles in the newspaper about the Women's Political Caucus. There was an article when I ran for national chair, but there, I mean, there weren't, there weren't talk shows talking about the women's movement. I think we just, we just struggled on our own within it, but it was--the community widened more, I mean, the women's groups and their outreach and what they were doing, you know, widened the circles of involvement. It just was amazing. And what also was amazing 39:00was, when the three programs, women's programs, started and operated by women, were folded under the YWCA. I mean, that was a real watershed.FOSL: And when was that?
DELAHANTY: Oh, gosh, I'd have to check with Betsy, but I suspect it was maybe
the late 70s, early 80s, and it stayed, and then the YWCA [Young Women's Christian Association] broke off from the national organization and became the Center for Women and Families.FOSL: Oh, is that right?
DELAHANTY: Yeah, yeah.
FOSL: I just--I didn't know that history.
DELAHANTY: Yeah . . .
FOSL: That's really interesting. Now I know.
DELAHANTY: Yeah, yeah. I think one of the problems, it was a--there was an
interesting organizational problem, and that is the YWCA. Once the women's organizations were folded under the YWCA, 40:00there were a group of women in this community that I would call white establishment women, who decided that they--they decided to get involved and take over the YWCA and raise money. So, they took over this Henry Clay Hotel, which became the YWCA headquarters, and there was some interest in developing a women's health club, and, you know, kind of like the YMCA, and it was just a most pe--I was on the board. I finally quit, because, number one, it became so elitist, and number two, they treated staff very poorly. In fact, wouldn't let staff come to board meetings, as a matter of fact, it was just bizarre.FOSL: What ended up happening with that?
DELAHANTY: Well, they, first of all, they fired one director and hired another,
who was totally incompetent. And then they decided, I don't know what happened precisely, 41:00because I left the board under protest, when they would allow the staff people to attend a board meeting. I thought, "this is it. I mean, I cannot, I can't deal with this." It's not the way you treat women, you know. So, at any rate, then the decision was made to totally disengage. Because the YWCA was--was not quite what they were looking for. The new center, or the Center for Women and Families now, has the old traditional, elitist kind of organization, with kind of a very wealthy, prestigious kind of advisory committee, and then a board of directors that deals with the day-to-day operation. It's a wonderful, wonderful program. Now I'm not diminishing it any way, but it went far astray from the original women's programming, established 42:00as a grassroots kind of an organization.FOSL: Well, speaking of funding efforts, how did you all raise money for the
work that you were doing here in Louisville--here in the state?DELAHANTY: Well, most of us paid our own way to meetings. I mean, it was really
tough. And with the caucus, I mean, the dues were something like $5 a year. I mean, and then we would waive the dues for people--.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: --Who couldn't afford it. So, you know, I kept the caucus alive,
primarily because I was working and I had access to Xerox machines in my place of employment, and we all sort of stole from our employers.FOSL: Where were you working?
DELAHANTY: Well, I was working for the county, as a matter of fact [laughter],
in the---as a head of the Planning and Research Agency, and---. So, I mean, that's how the organizations--. --Were supported. We just either paid for it ourselves 43:00or used our places of employment or whatever. It just, you know, and in the women's organizations, I mean, the three women's organizations, finally, Creative Employment started getting--oh, that's another story--started getting some money from the Comprehensive Employment and Training Administration, CETA. And it so happened that I was chair of the CETA Planning Council at the time, and I had to really fight the people on the council to get funding for the--for this, for the comprehensive, I mean, Creative Employment Program. They didn't want to give money to, you know, for non-traditional employment opportunities for women, because they felt that the program was discriminating against men, for heaven's--.FOSL: Right. Wow.
DELAHANTY: --Sakes. So, I mean, so I felt, you know, that the CETA
44:00program really helped sustain that Creative Employment Program. Of course, then you sort of crossed a threshold where those programs, once they were part of the YWCA, became institutionalized and began receiving grants and public monies.FOSL: Well, going back a little bit to your coming, sort of back into the local
work, after the stint with the National Women's Political Caucus, could you describe the ERA ratification efforts here?DELAHANTY: Well---.
FOSL: I'm about to run out of tape, but go ahead, but I'll just. Right.
DELAHANTY: Okay, I was trying to, I think that it finally came down to the fact
that all women's organizations realized, unless we were part of the Constitution 45:00of the United States, we weren't going to get anywhere. And one of the first coalitions evolved around the Equal Rights Amendment, the caucus and NOW [National Organization for Women ] and BPW [Business and Professional Women's Foundation] and other groups, just decided that they would make this one of their priorities. BPW in Kentucky, was probably the leading women's organization, whose sole focus was on the Equal Rights Amendment. More so than the caucus or now I would--I think. It was when that network came together, and I think Allie Hickson was really very instrumental. Because that became her overriding concern, and she just simply dedicated her full time to making that alliance happen. We also involved the Coalition for Labor Women, and I think--that 46:00too brought in Nell Horlander--. --And another whole group of people. And so, I think that that was the first really coming together of various women's groups around the ERA. That--the other thing that really was a rallying point, was number one, when the General Assembly decided they wanted to rescind the ERA--.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: --After having--.
FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: --The strategy we used initially to get the ERA ratified was when
Wendell Ford was governor, and we just kind of did a quick and dirty with the General Assembly. I mean, they ratified it before they really understood what was going on.FOSL: Well, it is pretty straightforward, you know.
DELAHANTY: Well, but believe me, to get the General Assembly of Kentucky to be
out front, you know, and this kind of thing, was an amazing accomplishment. 47:00I think, the other thing that happened, the caucus urged Governor Ford to reinstitute the Commission on Women. It had been dormant.FOSL: I meant to ask you that.
DELAHANTY: Yeah, it had been dormant, and so, we--that was one of the--I think,
one of the things that the--the caucus put a lot of pressure on Wendell to get it moving again, and as a result of that, that the first Commission on Women, after a period of dormancy over a number of years, was comprised of some very remarkable women. We had--Thelma Stovall was on it, and Martha Lane Collins, and she wasn't governor at the time, of course, and I was on it, and Marie Abrams was chairperson, and I was absolutely--I mean, I have him give him credit. He just constituted an amazing-- 48:00[tape cuts off] I chaired the Legislative Task Force on the commission, and the two things we did, which I thought were kind of amazing, we passed, or got the Assembly to pass, an omnibus bill, which attempted to neutralize gender in every statute--. --And it got passed, but I think it kind of has fallen by the board. What we tried to do, is to say that the language should be such, should be so neutral that you--that any reference to he or she in language was to be, somehow or other, we would talk about people or persons, rather than gender. The other thing that we did was 49:00to pass a fair credit law, which would enable, I mean, which would prohibit discrimination based on gender, with regard to credit, and that that struggle--. I mean, people simply don't realize in those days, that women could not get credit in their own right, and my own personal experience. I tell this story all the time is when I tried to get a credit card in my name, and the bank manager--at the time, you applied through the bank, and the bank manager, you know, shoved my application to the side. And I went back in two months later and said, "where's my credit card?" And he said, "well, are you getting a divorce from your husband?" I said, "no." He said, "well, why don't you just use his credit card? You can use his credit card." I Said, "no, I want a card that says ‘Dolores Delahanty.” And finally, I told him about the fair credit law, and 50:00finally got my own credit card but I mean, nowadays, people, anybody can get a credit card, but in those, you know, in the 70s, you simply, I mean, it was very tough for women. So, and we insisted on having, you know, establishing women the right to have credit and credit history in their own name. Which was very significant for being able to buy a house or whatever.FOSL: Oh, wow.
DELAHANTY: The other thing that happened as a result of my activity was that I
was appointed, under [Jimmy] President Carter to serve on the Secretary's Committee on the Rights and Responsibilities of Women for AGW, which is now at Health and Human Services and was very involved and concerned about pension reform. Particularly as it related to Social Security, and I think as a result of some of the activity of our secretary's committee, we held 51:00hearings throughout the country, based on pension rights, and particularly were able to get the rule with regard to Social Security changed, so that a woman, after ten years of marriage, could be eligible for Social Security--.FOSL: And if you got divorced, that was the end of it. I remember that (??).
DELAHANTY: That was not available to women at the time, you had to be married
for something like twenty years.FOSL: That's right.
DELAHANTY: If you--and so, I think those were, you know, and that was another
watershed for economic security, for women. This whole issue of pension reform, which really occurred during the Carter administration, people simply don't realize that, you know, some of the changes that were made at that time. So, at any rate, so we had the Equal Rights Amendment, 52:00as a major rallying point, and then of the International Women's year in Houston, with our wonderful, wonderful delegation, and I must say that Allie was a very autocratic chairperson. I mean, there were those of us that felt she wasn't behaving like a true feminist, because she---she really conducted that dele--you can talk to Susie about this, but---. You know, Allie is just a wonderfully intelligent, bright, wonderful woman. But as--you know, it was, it was as many of us on the delegation, who were more accustomed to consensus and evolving, things were not quite as happy under that kind of a chairpersonship, but we accomplished a great deal, I thought, with the International Women's year. The next big, big issue than in the 70s, go ahead.FOSL: Yeah. Actually, I wanted to ask you one more thing about the ERA battle.
53:00Was there an organized anti-ERA group here?DELAHANTY: Oh, sure--.
FOSL: And---and----.
DELAHANTY: ---They brought--.
FOSL: --And who were some of those---or what was that group?
DELAHANTY: Well, part of, I think many of them, were also people who were
involved with Right to Life, and I think the two issues were joined, and I would say that what they did, essentially was to bring in--the woman, Phyllis Schlafly.Fosl: Phyllis Schlafly.
DELAHANTY: Oh, that was just a horrible moment for us, and--.
FOSL: I wondered if that was.
DELAHANTY: Yeah, they brought [her] under the auspices of the Eagle Forum, and I
think she was the---the strong person involved with the---in the rescission.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: And they all wore pink, and they came to the General Assembly in
their---their pink outfits and so on, [chuckles] and--.FOSL: Who were these women, not so much names as you know,
54:00the women--.DELAHANTY: Well, they were, probably--they were church women, you know,
not--Church Women United were very involved in our coalition as well. We had Methodist--some Methodist women were very involved, particularly at the national level. United Methodist churches were--. But, but I think they were primarily women who were, you know, kind of the--the Right to Life Group. The very conservative Christian group. And I think this, and this is my theory only, that the Equal Rights Amendment really mobilized the more conservative churches, and the---began to give some emphasis or some feeling 55:00of power through Phyllis Schlafly's appearance, to the Right to Life Movement, to Margie Montgomery, and that sort of hit its peak when we had our International--Conference--the White House Conference on Families, and there was this--. The Houston conference encouraged a kind of--a family, a national family conference that then began to look at family issues like choice and childcare and so on. And by that time, when we had our convention, our state convention in--in Frankfort, with regard to that family conference, and then another one here in Louisville. We were just be--that was the sort of the turning point to me, when the conservatives started really fighting the women's movement in Kentucky, it was amazing, FOSL: Yeah, Church of the United were (??). Huh, around the family conference. 56:00DELAHANTY: Yeah, yeah.FOSL: That sort of mobilized them.
DELAHANTY: Yeah, and that's--Lucy Freibert was involved in that. I was involved,
I'm trying to remember, I think Nell [Horlander] was involved. Allie Shirley was involved, and it just seemed to kind of turn ugly at that point. Before that time, because of the lack of media attention and so on, the women's movement really flourished, I think, in the 70s, but then we began to see the kind of turning to the right in terms of attitude. It was a very---kind of an ugly conference, very ugly. It just--it didn't focus on issues at all. It focused more on winning, winning the battle against the women's libbers and the feminists, you know, who were concerned about childcare issues--.FOSL: Yeah.
DELAHANTY: --And employment issues and so on.
FOSL: So, they sort of took over this conference.
DELAHANTY: Well, they did--they took over--at the national level, they tried to
take over. I don't think they were that--quite 57:00that successful at the Kentucky.FOSL: I don't know that history at all. That's very interesting.
DELAHANTY: Oh, it's---it was fascinating. It was just, I remember one workshop
where Lucy was and it had to do with [clears throat] choice, and as a nun, she was simply vilified--.FOSL: Oh, I know--.
DELAHANTY: --In that workshop, it was horrible, and we all went to that workshop
to support her. Because we knew that some of the Right to Lifers were just going to come down hard on Lucy because of her belief in choice, but I think that was the first time where I've seen, you know, some real ugliness occur[ed], and it was all around Lucy.FOSL: Oh, so, would you say that it was pretty much the same people that were
involved in the pro-choice efforts as the people who were dealing with women's health concerns like the rape crisis and--.DELAHANTY: Yeah.
FOSL: --And the domestic violence--.
DELAHANTY: I would say that there were [was] a core
58:00of women who--who really worked together in all of these--in all of these issues. And I don't know when, and I can't tell you when, probably in the early 80s, when there was kind of a demen--. Well, when professional women kind of--you started seeing the--Women Lawyers Association sort of organize, and a lot of--you began to see more of the traditional professions began to organize of women's, I don't want to call them auxiliaries, but opportunities for women to associate with each other.FOSL: Right. What sort of effect did that have on the---.
DELAHANTY: Well, I think, I think women then lost, lost touch with the base of
feminism and feminist values and the way, you know, women looked upon themselves, and I think they, they lost their history in the 80s, 59:00I really do.FOSL: Would you characterize the women's movement here in Louisville as largely white?
DELAHANTY: Yeah. I mean, there have always been, you know, a few African
Americans involved. As I say, we tried really hard in the very beginning with--.FOSL: It sounds like it.
DELAHANTY: --Two coordinators and so on, and I think that African American women
just saw their struggles much differently. You know, first of all, there was the unfair label placed on feminists, that they were anti-man and anti-family. I think that the conservatives captured the rhetoric and captured the language of the feminists, so that the feminists were put in a very defensive position.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: And you know, I think the other thing is that
60:00African American women oft--always felt that they were liberated, that they had to work for a living, that they--when they were single parents, and so there, they felt their issues were different than those of white women.FOSL: What about--you mentioned CLUE, this Coalition of Labor Union Women, was
that a strong group here in Louisville?DELAHANTY: oh--yes.
FOSL: It was.
DELAHANTY: Oh, yeah.
FOSL: Okay.
DELAHANTY: And primarily---.
FOSL: Was that (???).
DELAHANTY: Not really.
FOSL: Oh, is that right?
DELAHANTY: Primarily, CWA, Communication Workers of America. That's where Sue
Cook came out of. That's where Nell came out of. CWA probably had the strongest influence, in terms of women in the labor movement. Because the other unions were not allowing women to have leadership positions. You know, that was amazing, because you had a lot of women working in distilleries.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: In fact, one of the things the
61:00caucus got involved in was, the lawsuits with regard to discrimination of women in distilleries--.FOSL: Yeah.
DELAHANTY: --At Seagram's and---.
FOSL: Is that right (??).
DELAHANTY: --And, you know, we, I guess, that aside from trying to and really
accomplishing, the restructuring of the Democratic party locally, you know, with the insistence that there be a---a man, woman, and youth, as part of--part of the structure, in '72, going to the national convention. We were, you know, we were involved in some of the major employment and economic issues, I think, more so, FOSL: I wanted to ask you about the campaign to eliminate, like, sexism, you know, sex segregation in the classified ads. Do you remember that going away?DELAHANTY: No, no, FOSL: Because there, I know that, like in the 1960s, that was
just commonplace.DELAHANTY: Yeah, right.
FOSL: And at some point, that was eliminated--.
62:00DELAHANTY: Yeah.FOSL: And I was just wondering if there was a local---.
DELAHANTY: No, no.
FOSL: --Campaign or--. Well, here's a big question, how did your feminism affect
your personal life?DELAHANTY: Well, that's--people used to tease my husband all the time, is your
wife out of town again? You know, who does the cooking, so on and so forth. Our marriage relationship, you know, I worked while my husband was going to law school, then I went to graduate school, and I went to graduate school in social work. Because I was able to get an NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] grant. I would have gone to law school probably--.FOSL: Oh, is that right?
DELAHANTY: ---If they had supported me, but I couldn't get--those are my
choices, law school or social work. And I had five children at the time, and I was working, and Bob was very supportive of me. He got a lot of teasing. I was gone from home, two trips to Washington during 63:00the 70s.DELAHANTY: Washington during the ’70s. My children were all born in, between
1951 and 1961, so a lot of, you know, a lot of the, the care for my kids while I was on these out of town trips fell on my husband. I think that my children probably suffered more because of my husband’s involvement in representing African American clients who were involved in the, in the riots and involved in the open housing demonstrations. I know that when I went to my—my three sons, three of my four sons went to DeSales, and the priest there said to me, “You know, you, there’s also a mission to be served at home, Mrs. Delahanty, you know, why are you gone so much?” and so on. So, I mean, people were aware of the fact, and, and 64:00I don’t think—I think my husband took the teasing very well, but I’m sure it was hurtful to him.FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm. But in terms of, in your own mind, did it cause a lot of
sort of cognitive dissonance to leave the children and do this and this. I mean, it sounds like— DELAHANTY: Well, as a— FOSL: [ ] DELAHANTY: Well, as a working mother, you do carry a burden of guilt because you’re leaving your children, and at time, you know, when I was working, we would drop one, the baby off at a baby sitter and a couple of kids off at school and a couple of pe-, kids off at a childcare center at a neighbor’s house. I mean, you just feel, you know, at the time felt very guilty. So, I always carried a burden of guilt about leaving my family and leaving my children to do these things.FOSL: Um-hm. And they attended Catholic schools?
DELAHANTY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
FOSL: So, you think they took a lot of heat for you?
DELAHANTY: Oh, yeah. Oh, positive. Oh, yeah.
FOSL: For all of your lifestyle choices.
DELAHANTY: Yeah.
FOSL: Well,
65:00what, at what point did you first seek political office?DELAHANTY: Well, actually, two things. My outlets were helping women in
campaigns, school board campaigns, Susie’s campaign when she ran for state representative, my husband’s campaigns when he ran for judge, my children’s campaigns when they ran for judge. I didn’t actually run for office until 1993 when I ran for Congress in the May primary. And lost to Mike Ward. And then this last election. So, I, you know— FOSL: Um-hm.DELAHANTY: Really, my family is a pretty political family. My, I have two sons
who are judges right now— FOSL: Oh, wow.DELAHANTY: So there are three of us holding public office. It’s a very
interesting kind of thing. I think 66:00that my husband probably smoothed the way, in terms of, even though he was considered to be a pretty progressive or liberal lawyer, he was still pretty much respected, I mean, you know, his integrity, so our base is in a blue collar conservative area of the South End, you know.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: And I think it’s just because of, you know, his integrity and the
integrity of our family that people are willing to accept us regardless of what they may consider to be, you know, liberals. But I think, for the most part, people know that we’ve devoted our lives to, you know, not to economic gain but to working for people.FOSL: Right. Right. I, can you, can you remember the first
67:00campaign that you worked in to support a woman?DELAHANTY: Well— FOSL: For office.
DELAHANTY: Well, I guess there were a couple of them. Probably the one that
really was the most disappointing was when Susie ran for state representative against Gerda Bendel. And it was the last weekend of the election, just before the Tuesday, that all of the churches were, you know, bombarded with these pro-life kinds of fliers against Susie that, and that was a really big disappointment, because we had worked very hard to try to get her elected.FOSL: What year was that?
DELAHANTY: Oh, I don’t, I don’t know. You’re going to have to ask Susie when she
ran. [laughs] FOSL: I, I will. [ ] DELAHANTY: It was in the ’70s.FOSL: And one thing you haven’t talked about at all was the, the rallies in, in
support of the ERA 68:00and in support of choice and, and women’s rights rallies. Is that, can you talk about that experience a little bit?DELAHANTY: Well, I, I tell you, the, the marches and the rallies and so on are,
are just so much a part of, of organizing and getting things done. And, and once again, the rallies provided a real bonding experience. If you march with somebody, like we marched in, in, to the Capitol in ’64, with regard to the Civil Rights legislation, you know, it’s like, they’re part of your family for life.FOSL: Yeah.
DELAHANTY: And I think rallies serve that kind of purpose. I remember the first
Women’s Political Caucus national convention in Houston when we marched. There was a strike at the time in Houston and 69:00we, you know, the whole convention left the convention and went to march, I mean. People don’t march any more. And they— FOSL: Right.DELAHANTY: [laughs] That’s too bad because it’s just kind of an exciting thing.
But I just saw the rallies as both an organizing and a bonding experience and an important tool for the Women’s Movement.FOSL: Oh, going back, back to this question of statewide organizing— DELAHANTY: Um-hm.
FOSL: You mentioned that most of the efforts, the organized efforts were in
Louisville and Lexington. Were there other small groups or individuals that, that were part, that you worked with on a state-wide basis?DELAHANTY: Well, to begin with, there was a group in Owensboro.
FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: There was a strong group in Northern Kentucky. Hannah Baird— FOSL: Uh-huh.
DELAHANTY: Who is currently in the, chair of the commission was an early member
of the caucus. Martha Pickering was one of the, in Louisville, was one of the people 70:00in both NOW and the caucus. She sort of transcended both organizations. So, I would say that—and then there were isolated individuals in Eastern Kentucky like Josephine Richardson and so on, people who had, who didn’t have a caucus locally— FOSL: Um-hm.DELAHANTY: But who were involved with caucus activities. Far Western Kentucky
bey-, there were—oh, there was a Bowling Green chapter, as a matter of fact, with Pat Kapoglis and— FOSL: Oh, I [ ] Owensboro. I [ ] met Pat. I interviewed her for another project.DELAHANTY: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, at one time, we never got as
far west as Paducah, but Bowling Green, Owensboro, Northern Kentucky, and Louisville and Lexington all had caucus, small local caucuses.FOSL: Um-hm. We talked about the, you know, the organized opposition.
71:00What about any kind of infiltration within the, the women’s community that you worked with in Louisville. You know, you, some of the recent history that has come out of the Women’s Movement, there’s been some discussion of that. Was that something that was— DELAHANTY: I think that was more evident in the Civil Rights Movement in this community than it was in the Women’s Movement. So, I mean, we didn’t see that as a problem. There, at one time, in Louisville, there was kind of, oh, I don’t know, some opposition to including lesbian women, both in NOW and in the caucus, and I think that we were just strong enough to make certain that that wasn’t a wedge.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: So, and, and I think that, that particularly came to the fore
72:00in the discussions when the three women’s programs moved into the Y. Because Betsy Jakovis who was head of the Creative Employment Program had hired a number of women l-, who were lesbian and people were, you know, trying to use that as a, an argument to not include them in the YWCA.FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: But, but I think that was the only, to me that was one of the most
uncomfortable things when, when we had to—I remember giving a speech about sisters and sisterhood, and that’s another thing that, the word sisters and sisterhood was so important in the women’s movement, and it’s just, that kind of disappeared off of any discussion in this day and age about the importance, what 73:00sisterhood meant symbolically and how important that concept was.FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm. Speaking of that, you mentioned it sort of like blackout in
the mainstream media, but I know in the research that we’ve done, we’ve located, there was a little [ ]— UNIDENTIFIED: New womankind?FOSL: Yeah, new womankind.
DELAHANTY: Um-hm.
FOSL: A little, kind of like leaflet that was published for a while.
DELAHANTY: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty much done by NOW, I think.
FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: But in, in a group of—see, NOW was really at one time the most
radical, the most progressive of all the women’s organizations.FOSL: And who were the people that were most active in that?
DELAHANTY: Oh, Emmy Hixon, Allie’s daughter. Ellen Ewing, Betsy Jakovis—I’m
trying to remember. You should really talk with Ellen Ewing because Ellen was involved not only in NOW but in the Creative Employment Program 74:00with Betsy.FOSL: When they first started those women’s services before they were absorbed
by the YWCA, they just raised money and—do you know?DELAHANTY: Well— FOSL: I’m just curious how they made this stuff happen.
DELAHANTY: Well, it, I, I tell you, you need to talk to Betsy Jakovis about that
because she was executive director. She’s now at Just Solutions, okay?FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: And Betsy and Ellen started Creative Employment. And I think Creative
Employment moved from being just a volunteer kind of a, a grassroots organization. It was, it was transitioned into a, more social agency during the time of the comprehensive employment and training act.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: Betsy would know at what point—because Rape Relief
75:00was like a one person operation with volunteer advocates.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: As was the domestic violence program. And I’m trying to remember when
the first city/county money went into those two programs. And I think—and it was before they joined the YWCA. And I think there was a lot of pressure for them to join the YWCA because of money, you know.FOSL: Right. Right. Hm. Gloria, did you have other questions? Did that cover
everything that you wanted to ask?UNIDENTIFIED: I think so. I can’t think of anything. Right now, I’m just trying
to take it all in.FOSL: Well, I have two more questions. One is a very global kind of question
which is what did the modern Women’s Movement in Kentucky accomplish?DELAHANTY: Well, let me look at the time.
76:00You know, in terms of, of legitimacy for women, you know, both economic, social, you know, the whole childcare movement, we were one of the first communities in the country to have a community coordinate-, coordinated childcare organization. I think that issues like childcare and equal employment opportunities and the fair credit law—all of these, I think, really helped considerably and it wouldn’t if it hadn’t been for the Women’s Movement, I don’t think we would have gotten as far as we did in Kentucky because Kentucky is not, you know, it’s not like California or New York. So, 77:00I think it just pushed us sort of—we were there with the, with the with the big states, you know.FOSL: Right. Right. [ ] DELAHANTY: It provided national leadership, you know.
So, I think we gave a voice to the women of Kentucky and I think that was very, very important in the, in the ’70s. You know, it was, I, as I say, the ’70s as far as I’m concerned were the golden age of feminism. And then, you didn’t hear the words in the ’80s, you know, women’s liberation and feminism because it had been so, it had become institutionalized.FOSL: Right. And, and demonized at the same time, I think, against feminism.
DELAHANTY: Well— UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah.
DELAHANTY: Yeah. Well, feminism is not as—I think it, I think that the, the
really, I think, women’s libbers and liberation were, were really, 78:00became so, such pejorative terms that they, they’re no longer in vogue and probably never will be. The whole idea of liberation, you know, which is such a beautiful concept: to, to be free, to be who you want to be.FOSL: Right. Hm. Well, this is a question I always ask in every interview that I
do, but is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you think that I should have on this tape of your recollections of the Women’s Movement here in, in Kentucky and in Louisville.DELAHANTY: No. I simply feel that, you know, it’s not, many of us were
transplanted Kentuckians, but I always say that one of the reasons we were able to do so much and go so far is the fact that, that in Kentucky there is, there’s the ability to kind of be free, 79:00so to speak, to, to be able to express yourself and to—it’s a small enough state and a small enough community that if you want to do something, you can do it.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: You know, it’s, I, I never felt that there were any barriers that,
that, you know—pain, hurt, yes. And I’m sure my husband suffered economically because of his involvement in the Civil Rights, but, but I think, you know, that’s one of the wonderful things I felt about Kentucky, being a transplanted Kentuckian.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: And a lot of women who are born here and raised here, you know, women
didn’t have this feeling that you often encounter, you know, “Well, you don’t sound like you’re from Kentucky.” Or, “Were you born here? Where’d you go to high school?” I mean, I don’t think women were challenged in that way. At least not the women I knew.FOSL: Meaning, considered outsiders?
DELAHANTY: Yeah. Yeah.
80:00FOSL: Uh-huh.DELAHANTY: There was another wonderful woman who was involved very early in the
women’s political caucus named Bea Johnston who lives on Possum Path in the South End. And Bea, you know, was, her husband was a teacher and Bea did not work. She had two kids. And she was—and she was a Republican. She was one of our token Republican women. And, you know, somehow or other the, the caucus transformed her from a Republican to a Socialist and I mean [laughs]—but I think what, what transformed her was, she was always looking for a place where she could be accepted for who she was and what she was as a woman and that’s what the caucus and that’s what the Woman’s Movement did for women in Kentucky.FOSL: Huh. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: I think that’s really all the questions
81:00that I have.DELAHANTY: Okay [INTERRUPTION—TAPE STOPS] FOSL: Just shifting our conversation
for a minute to the, the idea of the Socialist caucus— DELAHANTY: Um-hm.FOSL: Within the early Kentucky Women’s Political Caucus.
DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: There, there, there was Anne, Nancy Gall-Clayton, I guess, was involved.
DELAHANTY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
FOSL: Johanna Camenisch.
DELAHANTY: Uh-huh.
FOSL: Are there other people that you can place within that political—
DELAHANTY: Well, I think that there were some of the, the Elam twins from Lexington and even Rebecca at the time. You know, early on, I think Rebecca’s involvement with the radical students and UK. I mean, she, she moved— FOSL: Uh-huh.DELAHANTY: To the center, but I was trying to think of, oh, Pam McMichael— FOSL: Uh-huh.
DELAHANTY: And—because I think that the Socialist caucus and some lesbian women,
you know, were kind of, 82:00who were part of that Socialist caucus were really the pariahs of the Women’s Movement for a long time, and there was, you know—once again, when we invited people to belong, we, we invited the full range of people.FOSL: Right. Right.
DELAHANTY: Anne being probably the most prominent. But I think then, what
happened was, the, the Socialist caucus dissolved and moved into NOW and left the caucus probably as we began looking at the national conventions in ’72 and really began looking at reform of party structure and that was totally not, of no interest.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: Because the Social-, Socialist caucus were more interested in issues
and, and matt-, particularly institutional violence, you know, the peace movement.FOSL: Right. And the Vietnam War. [ ] DELAHANTY: And the Vietnam War. Exactly.
So, I think that, 83:00that’s when many got involved in the peace movement. And then, of course, the impeachment of Richard Nixon. I mean, you had so many interesting political issues, you know, around the early ’70s.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: Fascinating issues so that— FOSL: But it wasn’t a real debate as to
whether to include Anne, that, it was sort of accepted from the— DELAHANTY: Well, there was, you know, as I say, the, Mrs. Barton said, no, she wouldn’t be involved.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: I think that, you know, probably was one of the reasons why a lot of
Republicans weren’t involved. They thought this was, you know, another Communist-run organization.FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: So I think that—but we were always insistent that, you know, we make
a, make a place at the table for Anne and the Socialist caucus and the lesbian caucus and, you know. Because in the name of sisterhood, you know— FOSL: Right.DELAHANTY: We were going to move together.
FOSL: Right. Well, you mentioned
84:00the difficulties of trying to balance, you know, drawing in Republicans— DELAHANTY: Yeah.FOSL: And not becoming, you know, too whatever—dominated by the Socialist caucus.
DELAHANTY: Yeah. Yeah.
FOSL: So, I, I would think that was quite a feat.
DELAHANTY: Well, it was tough getting everybody to focus on getting women
elected to office.FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: And, and I think that, that the Socialist caucus was really not that
interested in getting women elected to caucus—I mean, to, to office. And that was the primary purpose of the Women’s Political Caucus. So, I think once we, you know, were focused on that and having skills workshops and so on, recruiting women— FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm.DELAHANTY: That, that was too, maybe, mechanical.
FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: But there was always a philosophical basis for the women we selected.
FOSL: Right.
DELAHANTY: You know, they had to be pro-choice. They had to subscribe to, you
know, the whole issue of, of prohibition of violence and so on.FOSL: Yeah, I was going to ask you, do you still stay with those four principles?
85:00DELAHANTY: Yeah. Yeah. And then later, the caucus added ageism.FOSL: Uh-huh.
DELAHANTY: So that was the, the final kind of focal point of the caucus.
FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm. So, would you say that Anne played a useful role in the sort
of early Kentucky Women’s Political Caucus?DELAHANTY: Not so—well, probably, I don’t think she participated that much in
the formation or the leadership of the caucus.FOSL: Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: But I would say that the fact that she knew that this national group
was forming—she brought the information to the women locally— FOSL: Right.DELAHANTY: Was really kind of the seed that was planted— FOSL: Um-hm. Um-hm.
DELAHANTY: For the formation of the caucus.
FOSL: Um-hm. Hm. Okay. Well, I, I just wanted to get that.
DELAHANTY: Yeah.
FOSL: So, thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
86:00