Patricia Rusch Hyatt papers

According to the "About the Authors" page of her book "American Women on the Move," "Patricia Rusch Hyatt, a journalism graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, has worked as feature writer at The Houston Chronicle, and as a freelance writer/editor and a consultant. She chaired the NOW Education Task Force in Fairfax County, Virginia, and founded the Nelly Bly Clearing House on non-sexist textbooks. Hyatt wrote"Coast to Coast with Alice,"(Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books, Lerner, 1995), on the first woman to drive a motorcar cross-country, and"The Quite Contrary Man,"(New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2011), named one of the New York Public Library's 100 Best Children's Books of the Year. A violinist and a master gardener, she is also a playwright member of Dramatists Guild, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Princeton Research Forum for Independent Scholars." While a stay-at-home mom in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hyatt also wrote non-sexist curriculum for Unitarian Sunday schools, attended consciousness raising meetings, joined her local NOW chapter, and spoke in area schools regarding sexist sterotpes in children's literature. In 1975, then deputy director of International Women's Year (IWY) at the State Department, Catherine East asked Hyatt to work on issues surrounding the need for affordable and high quality child care. By 1977, Hyatt was working full-time in the IWY Public Information Office, culminating with the Houston Convention. Almost forty years later, she and Shelah Gilbert Leader co-authored"American Women on the Move: The Inside Story of the National Women's Conference, 1977" (2016).