1962 |
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Pop and soul singer Dionne Warwick began collaborating with the composer
Burt Bacharach in 1962. They had thirty single hits and about twenty
best-selling albums in one decade. |
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1963 |
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New Jersey Congresswoman Florence Price Dwyer (1902-1976) sponsored successful
federal equal pay
legislation. |
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1964 |
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The first State Advisory Commission on the Status of Women was
established. Doris Hubatka, past president of the New Jersey Business and Professional
Womens Clubs, was elected chair of the group of fifteen women and four men. |
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Dr. Lena Edwards (1900-1986) was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by
President Lyndon B. Johnson. She practiced medicine in Jersey City and helped found a
maternity hospital in a mission in Texas. |
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1965 |
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The state legislature was
enlarged and new districts were drawn. This creation of new seats provided the opportunity
for the election of Mildred Barry Hughes (1902-1995), a Democrat from Elizabeth, as the
first woman elected to the New Jersey Senate. |
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Dorothea
Schwarcz Greenbaum, 1893-1986, became the first New Jersey artist to be
represented in the collection of the New Jersey State Museum. |
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1967 |
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Felician College, a four-year
women's college run by the Polish Felician Sisters of Lodi was developed from Immaculate
Conception Junior College which had grown out of the order's normal school founded in
1923. |
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1968 |
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Princeton University first admitted women undergraduate students. |
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1969 |
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Republican Millicent Fenwick (1910-1992) was elected to the state
assembly from Bernardsville. She initiated successful legislation (A-403) to prohibit
hiring discrimination in various fields by reason of race, creed, national origin, age,
marital status or sex. She was dubbed "Outhouse Millie" because of her efforts
to require decent pay and working conditions for the states migrant agricultural
workers. |
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The New Jersey Office on Women was established. The legislation was
supported by the only three female members of the state Assembly, Josephine Margetts (R.,
Morris County), Millicent Fenwick (R., Somerset County), and Ann Klein (D. Morris County). |
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1970 |
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The population of the state was over seven million people, of whom
30% were immigrants or the children of immigrants; 51.6% of whom were female and 10.7% of
whom were black. |
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The US Supreme Court refused to upset a lower court decision that
Wheaton Glass Co. in New Jersey must pay male and female assembly line workers the same
amount. |
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On August 26, women across New Jersey joined in the Women's March for
Equality in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th
amendment. |
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1971 |
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The states first feminist conference was held at Fairleigh
Dickinson University and attended by 350 women. |
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Wyona Lipman (c. 1929-1999), a former Essex County Freeholder,
became the first African American woman elected to the New Jersey Senate. She served nine
terms representing the 29th Legislative District. |
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1972 |
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The New Jersey legislature ratified the Equal Rights Amendment to
the U. S. Constitution. |
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The first statewide conference of the Commission on Women was held
in Trenton in September. |
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The first statewide conference of the multi-partisan Womens
Political Caucus was held at Rutgers University. |
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New Directions for
Women in New Jersey, edited by Paula Kassel (1917- ) of Dover, was the first
statewide feminist publication in New Jersey and the United States. |
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Republican Millicent Fenwick was appointed director of the
New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, the highest executive position in state
government held by a woman up to that time. |
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A federal court in Trenton declared unconstitutional the
states 112 year old abortion law, stating that the act was vague and an invasion of
privacy. |
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Officials of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic
Association announced that it was permitting females to try out for all varsity sports. |
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Rutgers College admitted women undergraduates for the first time in its
206-year history. |
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1973 |
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Ann
Klein (1923-1986), a Morris County Democrat, ran for the Democratic nomination for
governor. A former president of the New Jersey League of Women Voters, Klein was the first
Democrat elected to the state assembly from Morris County in 60 years (1971). Her effort
to win the gubernatorial nomination in 1973 was the first public challenge to the
Democratic Partys state nominating procedures. |
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The New Jersey chapter of NOW (National Organization for Women) was
chartered with Rosemary Dempsey as President. |
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The New Jersey Department of Defense announced that women would be
admitted into non-combat units, specifically transportation, administration, public
information and band companies. |
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1974 |
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Known as the political Year of the Woman, this was the first time two
New Jersey women were elected to the House of Representatives at the same time. Millicent
Fenwick, a Bernardsville Republican, and Helen Stevenson Meyner (1928-1997), a Democrat
from Phillipsburg, were elected from the fifth and thirteenth districts respectively.
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A New Jersey court ruled that Little League was a "public
accommodation" and had to admit females. As a result of the New Jersey ruling, the
national organization announced on June 12 that females would be allowed to participate in
Little League with males. |
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1975 |
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Esther Hymer (1898 - 2001) of Shrewsbury organized and was elected chair
of the committee for the International Women's Year and the Decade for Women. |
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New Jersey voters rejected the federal Equal Rights Amendment in a
statewide referendum. |
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New Jersey established a Division of Women under the Department of
Community Affairs. |
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Under Title 6 of the State
Administrative Code, equality in educational programs was mandated by the State Board of
Education. Such equality was to include classroom practices, hiring and personnel policy. |
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1976 |
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At the Republican National Convention, New Jersey Representative
Millicent Fenwick debated "Stop ERA" leader Phyllis Schlafly on national
television. Fenwick and other Republican ERA supporters, were taken off guard by the
assertiveness of the anti-ERA, anti-abortion faction in the Republican party. |
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1977 |
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Ruth Carpenter, a Hunterdon County Republican, was elected county
sheriff, the first woman to hold this post in New Jersey. |
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New Jersey Representative Helen Meyner (1928-1977) was a founder of
the Congresswomens Caucus. This organization of female representatives was designed
to focus on federal legislation of particular concern to women. |
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Two Princeton University students, Colleen M. Guiney and Kathleen A.
Kouner (79) applied for membership in one of the three remaining male-only eating
clubs on the Princeton campus. They were rejected, and in 1978 Sally B. Frank (80)
filed a complaint against the three clubs with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights. By
1992, all the eating clubs were integrated. |
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1978 |
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Ruth Marcus Patt (1919- ) helped inspire written histories of the
African American and Hispanic communities of New Brunswick. |
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New Jersey established a Commission on Sex Discrimination. |
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Joyce Carol Oates, noted novelist and essayist, began
teaching creative writing at Princeton University in 1978. |
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1979 |
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New Jersey began "displaced homemaker" programs in
recognition of women who worked to provide unpaid services for families, but had no
personal resources; the programs included job training, job placement services and
financial management services. |
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New Jersey founded Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence
programs: these included shelter for women and their children and other social services
appropriated through private and public funding. |
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The Separate Property of Married Women Act safeguarded the property
of women owned at the time of marriage and property acquired thereafter. |
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1980 |
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Margaret "Marge" Roukema (1929- ), a Ridgewood Republican,
won election to Congress from the Seventh District, becoming the fifth woman to serve in
Congress from New Jersey. She served until 2003. |
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1981 |
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Jane Grey Burgio (1922- ), a Republican from West Caldwell, was
appointed New Jersey's first female secretary of state by Governor Thomas Kean. |
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Barbara Boggs Sigmund, Ann Klein, Barbara McConnell, Patricia
Sheehan and Marie Muhler founded the New Jersey Bi-Partisan Coalition for Womens
Appointments designed to promote the candidacies of women. Sigmund became the first woman
mayor of Princeton in 1983, and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for
governor in 1989. |
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Marilyn J. Morheuser
(1924-1995), director and leading attorney of the Education Law Center in Newark, filed
the landmark law suit Abbott v. Burke challenging discrepancies between wealthy
and poor districts in the funding of public education under the Public School Education
Act.
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1982 |
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In the second
political Year of the Woman, Millicent Fenwick won the Republican nomination to
become the first New Jersey woman to run for the U. S. Senate on a major party ticket. She
lost the close election. |
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Marie L. Garibaldi (1934- ), a
native of Jersey City, was sworn in as the first woman to serve on the New Jersey
Supreme Court. |
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The New Jersey Chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women
was founded. Janet Haynes of Jersey City, the first woman to serve as Hudson County Clerk,
Joy Turner, Lorraine Ewing and Gloria Buck were among the original organizers. This
non-partisan womens advocacy group focuses on health, education, housing and
mentoring of young women. |
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The Womens Rights Information Center opened in Englewood. |
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The second week in March in each year was designated as
"Womens History Week" in New Jersey in recognition of the significant and
diverse contributions of women to the state and the country. |
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Actress
Celeste Holm was appointed chair of the New Jersey Motion Picture and
Television Development Commission. |
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1985 |
|
Elizabeth Balsley became a member of the North Hunterdon, New Jersey
high school football team after the New Jersey Commissioner of Education ruled that
females could participate in contact sports. |
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1986 |
|
In Hackensack, Mary Beth Whitehead, a surrogate mother, lost her
suit to retain custody of a child born to her. Permanent custody of the infant girl was
given to the baby's father and adoptive mother. In 1988, the New Jersey Supreme
Court restored parental rights to Whitehead, permitting her visitation with the child. |
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The first solo exhibition of
photographs by a Newark-born award winning photographer, Helen Stummer, is
held at Rutgers University. |
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1988 |
|
Uniform Premarital Agreements allowed for specified agreement
between prospective spouses on disposition of property, income and earnings. |
|
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1990 |
|
Martha Stewart, celebrated arbiter of domesticity and native of
Nutley, launched her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, in which she frequently
reminisces about growing up in a Polish-American family in Nutley. |
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1992
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After failing to win US Supreme Court review of a 1990 New Jersey
State Supreme Court decision holding that eating clubs at Princeton University could not
deny membership to women, the last male-only club admitted its first female members. |
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1993 |
|
Christine Todd Whitman
(1946- ), a Somerset County Republican, was elected the first female governor of the
state. She appointed many women to high level state positions.
|
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In Congress, Representative Margaret "Marge" Roukema
played a key role in the passage of the federal Family Leave Act. |
|
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1997 |
|
Governor Christine Todd Whitman was elected to a second term in a
tight election race against Democrat James McGreevey. |
|
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1999 |
|
Lauryn Hill (1976- ), a native and resident of South Orange, became
the most celebrated star of the hip-hop musical world, winning three Grammy awards, two
Billboard Music Awards, and three NAACP Image Awards. |
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Evelyn Dubrow (1912 -2006), noted journalist and
Women's labor union lobbyist from Passaic, was awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by President William J. Clinton. |
|
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2000 |
|
Novelist and Princeton University Humanities
Professor Toni Morrison won the National Humanities Medal as the most
renowned black woman writer, 2000. |
|
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2001
|
|
Bernarda Bryson Shahn seated in her studio and surrounded by many of her
paintings, painted by Mel Leipzig.
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2002
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Janet Evanovich published her best-selling series about Stephanie Plum,
a Trenton-based bounty hunter. |
|
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|
|
|
Barbara Tomlinson, "Making Their Way: A Study of New Jersey
Congresswomen, 1924-1994,"(Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers, the State
University of New Jersey, 1996).
Irene Franck and David Brownstone. Women's World: A Timeline of
Women in History. (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1995).
Carmela Ascolese Karnoutsos. New Jersey Women: A History of Their
Status, Roles and Images. (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1998).
Joan N. Burstyn, ed., Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey
Women. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997).
Judith Freeman Clark, Almanac of American Women in the 20th
Century. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall Press, 1987).