Women's History Consortium RCWs

RCW 27.34.370 Responsibility 3

(3) Identifying short-term and long-term priorities of the consortium, with special emphasis on short-term priorities relating to preserving historical information from the last several decades before it is lost.

In order to fulfill this mandate, the Women’s History Consortium has set priorities for two initiatives in 2006 to begin this process:

• a. Recent Women’s History Collections Initiative. See description above on page 7, item #c.
• b. 1977 Ellensburg International Women's Year Conference Oral History Project The WHC has contracted with a professional oral historian to conduct an oral history project around the International Women's Year Conference in Ellensburg in 1977. This was a significant event in the Women's Rights Movement. The Conference was sponsored by the International Women's Year Commission, authorized and funded by Congress in response to a United Nations initiative. Attendees expressed divergent points of view, adopted policy resolutions, and elected delegates in Ellensburg. The delegates attended the national conference in Houston, Texas in November, 1977 where the policy resolutions from each state were considered.

OUTCOMES:

• 25 digitally recorded, proofread, edited oral history interviews—approximately 85 hours of recordings.
• Website introduction.
• Bibliography of resources on the 1977 Ellensburg and Houston International Women’s Year Conferences.