Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

From 1974 to 1977, Shirley Monson was the state chair for the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She was nominating chair of Focus: Michigan Women, which selected delegates to the 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas. The papers of Shirley Monson concern her various activities with women's organizations. Materials include correspondence, photographs, brochures and flyers, newspaper interviews, and clippings.

Monson's National Organization of Women (NOW) material includes correspondence from the approximately three year period when she was the state coordinator of NOW. The file on International Women's Year material consists primarily of correspondence pertaining to the conference. Also found here are newsclippings that include interviews with Shirley Monson as well as miscellaneous brochures and flyers from various Michigan-based feminist conferences and activities.

Photographs include photos of the International Women's Year conference sessions and delegates; photos of pro-Equal Rights Amendment march in Detroit during 1976 Republican National Convention and of "An Evening for the ERA," Dec. 9, 1977, at Orchestra Hall, Detroit; also informal portrait of Shirley Monson. All photographs are dated between 1974 and 1977.

Wyandotte, Michigan, businesswoman, chairwoman of the President's Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities during the Nixon Administration, later deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs. Papers and photographs relating to her interest in women's rights, the equal rights amendment, Republican Party politics, the activities of International Women's Year, 1975, and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.

The Virginia R. Allan Papers have been grouped both according to types of documents covering her entire career (biographical, correspondence, writings and speeches, etc.). These are followed by three series of files pertaining to Allan's activities and organizational affiliations within specific time periods in her career. These chronological divisions (with some overlapping of dates) are 1950s-1972, 1971-1977, and 1977-1985. Although each of these chronological series documents Allan's life-long interest in women's issues, there are obvious highlights to each. The first chronological series - 1950s-1972, is especially solid with material relating to Allan's association with the Michigan and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, and her service on the President's Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities. The second of these series - 1971-1977 - obviously documents Allan's work at the State Department, her role with the International Women's Year and her participation in the Mexico City Conference in 1975. And the third chronological series - 1977-1985 - contain files pertaining to her participation in the second and third United Nations International Women's Conferences and to her faculty responsibilities at George Washington University.

The collection concludes with a small series -- Groups and Activities -- which contains both material dated after 1985 as well as earlier materials, a series of Personal materials, and a series of Audio-Visual materials that includes photographs, a videotape, and sound recordings.