Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Records of various officers of the Michigan Conference of the National Organization for Women collected by one-time state presidents Margot Duley-Morrow and Alicia Perez-Banuet. Presidential files of Duley-Morrow, Nan Frost-Welmers, Shirley Monson, Lynn Hierholzer, Gloria Woods, and Alicia Perez-Banuet; files of state chapter developer Rhonda Drinan, and Macomb County chapter president Doris Little; contain correspondence, newsletters, clippings, mass mailings, agendas and minutes, photographs, and other materials concerning the formal and personal aspects of this feminist organization. Topics covered include the Equal Rights Amendment, the Project for Equal Education Rights, Women's Assembly III, and other issues pertaining to women's rights.

The Michigan NOW record group includes administrative records, files of individual presidents, newsletters from local chapters, records of the Michigan NOW PAC (Political Action Committee), and topical files of subjects of interests to the Michigan Conference such as the ERA, educational equity, and abortion rights.

The organization of the collection is rather artificial, both because the documents were in extremely poor order upon their accession and because there is only the broadest unity to the collection's components. The records have been grouped under the name of the individual most responsible either for their creation or for their accumulation and preservation. There were two individuals primarily responsible for these records coming to the Bentley Library. They were Margot Duley-Morrow (two-term president, 1981-1983) who donated records in 1984 and Alicia Perez-Banuet (president, 1997-1998) who donated materials in three major accessions.

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.