Named a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker
"Superb history . . . Turk has done a much-needed service, writing the first full history of NOW . . . As Turk deftly guides her readers through NOW’s roller coaster of victories and defeats, we come away with a clear blueprint for change–replete with cautionary tales–as we face new challenges to women’s freedom and equality. The Women of NOW can show today’s feminists the path forward. It is a must-read." —Clara Bingham, The Guardian
“Turk’s true subject is NOW’s early years. Her account reveals a uniquely ambitious political organization, one that achieved remarkable successes while struggling with divergent feminist visions, competing egos, and insufficient funds.” —Moira Donegan, The New Yorker
"Terrific . . . Turk is insightful about NOW’s achievements in helping to gain equal status for women . . . [and] cleareyed about NOW’s shortcomings." —Barbara Spindel, Christian Science Monitor
“[A] nuanced understanding of [NOW's] institutional history . . . Establishing and maintaining NOW has been hard and valuable work, Turk amply demonstrates.” —Carl Rollyson, The New York Sun
"The Women of NOW gives an in-depth look at a vital part of feminism in America. The perfect read for those interested in women’s history, American history, and politics." —Booklist
"[A] smart, clear-eyed history . . . a timely addition to the history of 'second wave' feminism that illuminates today's debates about women's rights." —Publishers Weekly
"Turk tells a lively story of the development of the National Organization for Women . . . A thoroughly researched and well-balanced history." —Kirkus Reviews
“Finally, we have a book that centers a diverse array of women leaders who built NOW, a singularly important American organization formed to end male supremacy. The Women of Now is an excellent work of history and essential reading for those who continue to fight for a society that values the experiences, recognizes the rights, and supports the aspirations of all women.” —Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality
“Katherine Turk’s The Women of NOW: How Feminists Built an Organization That Transformed America is popular history at its most captivating: The story of a vital and complex moment in time, told with sensitivity, nuance, and an eye to the future. Anyone interested in America will be fascinated by this book. For a new generation of feminists, it is necessary reading.” —Kate Bolick, author of Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own
“A rich and textured account of the way NOW came together and came apart. Turk provides a deeply researched history of complex organizational politics and a vivid portrait of a group of remarkable women who devoted their lives to achieving equality. Turk’s description of NOW’s significant accomplishments and its disappointing failures offers important lessons that may guide us as we face the challenges of a post-Dobbs world.” —Drew Gilpin Faust, author of Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury
“Katherine Turk’s The Women of NOW charts the emergence, growth, and endurance of one of the twentieth century’s most important organizations engaged in the struggle for equality. To tell this story, Turk introduces us not only to NOW’s famous founders but to many of the forgotten women who built the organization—women like Aileen Hernandez and Mary Jean Collins, whose ethnic and class backgrounds challenged NOW’s early assumptions that gender alone defined a woman and shaped her goals. Throughout the narrative, Turk demonstrates a profound understanding of the larger social context in which NOW arose and the growth of identity politics that threatened NOW’s survival. Beautifully written and remarkably well-researched, this is a book that should be read by every American committed to the ongoing campaign for equality, in which NOW still plays a critical role.” —Carol Berkin, author of Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence
“Katherine Turk’s rigorous archival research and groundbreaking cross-country reporting have culminated in this essential contribution to the history of feminism in America. The Women of NOW tells the story of a group of women, and three of their unsung leaders, who tried to change the world—and in so many ways, did.” —Ada Calhoun, author of Why We Can't Sleep
“Katherine Turk’s masterful The Women of NOW offers a long overdue and definitive look at the pathbreaking National Organization for Women and how it transformed both American feminism and American life. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what feminism is—or could be.” —Mary Ziegler, author of Roe: The History of a National Obsession
“Illuminating, unflinching, and galvanizing above all, The Women of NOW is more than a fascinating and accessible guide to the most influential American women’s political organization. It is a timely call-to-arms in a post-Roe society that reminds us that history may rhyme but it does not need to refrain. This will certainly be a favorite among activists, teachers, and students for many years to come, but, more importantly, it’s the kind of work that gives us hope in the fierce urgency of NOW.” —Charlotte Clymer, writer and activist
“I lived through the history inscribed in this book but I never understood it anywhere as richly as I do now, having had it all laid out for me with impressive clarity and imagination, as Katharine Turk has done.” —Vivian Gornick, author of Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader
"With The Women of NOW, Katherine Turk offers vivid prose and dramatic stories about the central role the National Organization of Women has played and continues to play in advancing American women’s rights through robust action—underscoring issues as urgent in the 1960s as they are now." —Daniel Horowitz, author of Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique
07/03/2023
This smart, clear-eyed history of the National Organization for Women’s most tumultuous years spotlights three women who were “loyal yet critical” members of the advocacy group. According to University of North Carolina historian Turk (Equality on Trial), these women were instrumental in stretching the organization’s “core belief—a centrally organized feminism for all women and their male supporters—in different directions as far as they could.” Aileen Hernandez, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who worked as a union organizer before joining the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1965, saw feminism at the heart of every social justice movement. Serving as NOW’s second president, she pushed the organization to address all problems women faced—including racism, classism, and homophobia—and not just gender-specific ones. Former beauty queen Patricia Hill Burnett, a wealthy white Republican, was a Michigan housewife and mother of four who envisioned NOW in the vanguard of an international feminist movement. As a member of the national board through 1975, she was tasked with setting up NOW chapters around the world. Meanwhile, Mary Jean Collins, who was raised Catholic in a lower-class white Wisconsin community, focused on securing male allies for NOW and was appointed the organization’s Midwest regional director in 1970. Detailing how failed initiatives, such as the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment, led to internal divisions among NOW’s leadership and members, Turk expertly unpacks a complex institutional legacy. The result is a timely addition to the history of “second wave” feminism that illuminates today’s debates about women’s rights. (Aug.)
2023-05-17
How the influential women’s organization evolved.
Historian Turk tells a lively story of the development of the National Organization for Women by focusing on three activist members: Aileen Hernandez, Mary Jean Collins, and Patricia Hill Burnett, women whose vastly different backgrounds shaped their views on feminism. Hernandez (1926-2017), a New Yorker, was the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. In 1965, after a decade spent organizing textile workers, she was appointed to the newly established Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. However, she soon became disillusioned “in her quest to make government power work for women.” Burnett (1920-2014), married to a wealthy Detroit businessman and the mother of four, was a frustrated artist, chafing against society’s “expectations for a moneyed white wife.” Collins (b. 1939) was raised in an Irish Catholic family that struggled financially, and after college, she worked in the corporate world, where sexism was rife. Turk traces the women’s careers and growing influence in NOW: Hernandez became its second president, succeeding Betty Friedan; Burnett led the organization’s international program; in the 1980s, Collins became one of NOW’s two vice presidents. The author also reveals the “smoldering disagreements,” internal rivalries, and financial problems that beset the organization from the start. Disagreements arose over NOW’s position on the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion; lesbian, transgender, and Black women felt excluded from NOW’s largely White, middle-class membership. Turk recounts NOW’s protests against sexism “in churches, law, employment, beauty pageants, Little Leagues, advertising, toys, and more,” and she sets the organization’s goals and strategies in the context of an increasingly polarized political arena. Admitting that she considers herself a beneficiary of NOW’s achievements, she recognizes that she lives in a world “where elite women can scale the heights of influence while their sisters suffer crushing inequality and insecurity; a world where sexism thrives, but often in disguise; a world whose backlash to feminism is evidence of the movement’s continued power.” The book includes 16 pages of black-and-white images.
A thoroughly researched and well-balanced history.
