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National Organization for Women has Wisconsin ties
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Katherine "Kay" Clarenbach's journey started humbly enough in Sparta, Wisconsin on October 7, 1920. She went on to become one of the leaders in the women's movement in Wisconsin and the nation.
Many believe the feminist movement got its biggest boost during the Kennedy Administration when President John F. Kennedy created his Commission on the Status of Women. The commission successfully worked toward the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the first federal law that required equal compensation for men and women in federal jobs.
Clarenbach was now living in Madison, Wisconsin, teaching at Edgewood College and on the Board of Trustees at Alverno College, an all women college. In 1962, she was approached to organize a program of continuing education for women through the University of Wisconsin-Extension.
The next year Clarenbach was asked by then Governor Reynold's to chair the Wisconsin chapter of the Commission on the Status of Women. She chaired the commission for 15 years, helping change several laws unfair to women.
The Commission on the Status of Women released its findings that there was widespread discrimination and this led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act however, was rarely enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and President Johnson and the First Lady were simply blowing smoke up the feminists skirts while serving them tea at the White House.
Feminists realized they needed a national lobby to affect change. While attending a national conference of the Commission on the Status of Women, twenty-eight women met in the hotel room of Betty Friedman, author of "The Feminine Mystique" on June 29, 1966.
This meeting included Clarenbach, who from that meeting saved a napkin upon which Freidman had scribbled "NOW, the National Organization for Women -- to take the actions needed to bring women into the mainstream of American society -- now, full equality for women, in fully equal partnership with men." She also collected $5 from each of the attendees, the organization's first treasury.
Friedman had the national recognition and Clarenbach had the organization skills and together they were elected President and Chair of the Board. NOW was housed at Clarenbach's Madison faculty office at the University of Wisconsin.
Clarenbach stepped down from her Chair position with NOW in 1970, but she never stopped being active in the women's movement.
Kay Clarenbach passed away on March 4, 1994 due to complications from emphysema brought on by years of smoking.
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