Dolores Alexander papers

Dolores Alexander (August 10, 1931 – May 13, 2008) was raised in a working-class Italian community in Newark, NJ, and educated in Catholic schools. She received her B.A. in Language and Literature from the City College of New York in 1961. During her senior year of college she was chosen by The New York Times to work for 10 months as a paid "stringer" or "cub reporter" to gain experience in journalism. After graduation, she worked from 1961 to 1964 as a reporter, copy editor, and bureau chief for Newark Evening News. Alexander then moved to Newsday, where she worked as a reporter, copy editor, and assistant women's editor, and was feature writer for Newsday's weekend magazine from 1964 to 1969. Alexander became active in NOW in 1966 after coming across a press release announcing the creation of a new women's rights organization. With her background in media, she chaired the Monitor Subcommittee of the National Task Force on Image of Women in Mass Media. In 1969, Alexander became the first executive director of the National Organization for Women (NOW). As executive director, she established a national office for NOW in New York City, expanded NOW's membership base nationally, and edited NOW Acts, NOW's national newsletter. Resigning in May 1970 in protest against NOW's homophobic policies and practices, Alexander continued to lecture on women's rights, and worked with the New Feminist Talent Collective, a speaker agency formed by Jacqui Michot Ceballos in response to the demand for speakers on the women's movement. In addition, she opened and ran Mother Courage, a feminist restaurant in Greenwich Village, with partner Jill Ward during the 1970s. She was one of the founders and organizers of Women Against Pornography and worked with New York Radical Feminists. Alexander was also a board member of the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL); member of the advisory board of New York chapter of NOW; and member of New York Newspaper Women's Club. She continued to be active in women's causes, including the North Fork Women for Women Fund, a nonprofit group that raised money for women facing health-care emergencies, and the Herstory Writer's Workshop, a community writing project for women interested in writing memoirs. She had been present at many significant events of the women's movement: integrating the Want Ads in the New York Times, the lesbian purge of NOW, the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977, and the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Alexander remained active in the lesbian community on the North Fork of Long Island until her death.