Tish Sommers | |
---|---|
Born | Letitia Gale Innes September 8, 1914 Cambria, California |
Died | October 18, 1985 Oakland, California |
Other names | Letitia Burke, Letitia Sommers |
Occupation(s) | Activist, writer |
Letitia "Tish" Innes Sommers (September 8, 1914 – October 18, 1985) was an American author, a women's rights activist, and the co-founder and first president of the Older Women's League (OWL).[1][2][3]
Early life and education
Letitia Gale Innes was born in Cambria, California and raised in San Francisco, the daughter of Murray Innes and Katherine Dorsch Innes.[3] Her father was a mining engineer, and her mother was a teacher.[4] She studied dance in Germany in 1933.
Activism
In the 1950s, Sommers was a volunteer for social and civil rights causes in the South.[3][5] With the help of her friend Laurie Shields, she successfully lobbied 39 states and Congress to pass displaced homemaker laws,[6] which offered a network of job training and counseling centers for career housewives who went through divorce or the death of a husband.[3][5] Sommers coined the phrase "displaced homemaker."[2][7]
Sommers chaired the National Organization for Women's task force on older women in the 1970s.[8] She was also a NOW board member and led the Jobs for Older Women Action Project.[2][3][9] She co-founded the Older Women's League with Laurie Shields in 1980, and was its first president.[1][5]
Sommers was named one of the "Bay Area's Ten Most Distinguished Persons" by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974. She won the Western Gerontological Society Award in 1979, and the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation's Ministry to Women Award in 1981. In 1982, already facing a cancer diagnosis, she was keynote speaker at a conference on employment at Sonoma State University.[10]
Publications
- The not-so-helpless female: how to change the world even if you never thought you could; A step-by-step guide to social action (1973)
- Women Take Care: The Consequences of Caregiving in Today's Society (1987, with Laurie Shields and the Older Women's League)
Personal life and legacy
Innes married Sidney Arnold Burke in 1938; they later divorced. She married Joseph Sommers in 1949; they divorced in 1972. Sommers died from cancer in 1985 at the age of 71, in Oakland.[3] Some of her papers are held in the San Diego State University Libraries.[9] The Institute for Health and Aging established the Tish Sommers Senior Scholars program to honor her; it supports the work of older graduate and postdoctoral students working to improve the lives of older women.[2] In 1991, a biography of her was published, titled Tish Sommers, Activist: and the Founding of the Older Women's League.[11]
References
- ^ a b Borenstein, Audrey (1983). Chimes of change and hours: views of older women in twentieth-century America. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-0-8386-3170-6.
- ^ a b c d Love, Barbara J. (2006). Feminists who changed America, 1963-1975. University of Illinois Press. pp. 434–435. ISBN 978-0-252-03189-2. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
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: CS1 maint: postscript (link) - ^ a b c d e f "Tish Sommers | Older Women's Advocate Dies at 71: Tish Sommers Was Co-Founder of 15,000-Member Group". Los Angeles Times. 1985-10-19. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
- ^ "Formal Normal Student Married". Chico Record. May 3, 1904. Retrieved January 6, 2023.
- ^ a b c "Tish Sommers, 71, Women's Activist". Chicago Tribune. 1985-10-19. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
- ^ McCormack, Patricia (September 4, 1975). "Tish Sommers lobbies for Displaced Homemaker's act". San Bernardino Sun. pp. C-17. Retrieved January 6, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
- ^ DeLuzio, Crista (2009-11-12). Women's Rights: People and Perspectives: People and Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-59884-115-2.
- ^ "Ageism, sexism; They call it double jeopardy". Healdsburg Tribune. April 24, 1975. pp. B-2. Retrieved January 6, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
- ^ a b "Tish Sommers Papers". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
- ^ "Conference to Explore American Workplace". Healdsburg Tribune. March 3, 1982. p. 7. Retrieved January 6, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
- ^ "International Women's Movements". Rohan.sdsu.edu. Retrieved 2011-11-27.