Aileen C. Hernandez papers
Collection
Identifier: SSC-MS-00730
Scope and Contents
The Aileen C. Hernandez Papers documents the activist's life, particularly from the 1960s onward, and includes correspondence, reports, research notes, surveys, audiovisual materials in multiple formats, and newspaper clippings. There is also material related to the various projects undertaken by Hernandez Associates, comprising correspondence, reports, and research materials.
Dates of Materials
- 1926 - 2014
Creator
- Hernandez, Aileen (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for use with following restrictions on access:
Three folders of financial, medical and sensitive material are closed.
Three folders of financial, medical and sensitive material are closed.
Conditions Governing Access
Until we move into New Neilson in early 2021, collections are stored in multiple locations and may take up to 48 hours to retrieve. Researchers are strongly encouraged to contact Special Collections (specialcollections@smith.edu) at least a week in advance of any planned visits so that boxes may be retrieved for them in a timely manner.
Biographical / Historical
Aileen Blanche Clarke Hernandez was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 23, 1926. She is the daughter of Ethel Hall Clarke, a talented seamstress, and Charles Clarke, Sr., an art supply executive. Both of her parents were Jamaican immigrants who instilled in Aileen and her two brothers a sense of fairness and the ambition to achieve all that they could in life. While the children were growing up, the Clarke family resided in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, at that time predominantly white. While Hernandez would later recall that her parents mentioned some initial "problems" as the only black family when they first moved there, it was not until she went to Howard University in Washington, DC, after graduating from the then all-girls Bay Ridge High School in 1943, that she first experienced institutional racism.
The nation's capital was then still very much a segregated city. Hernandez's response was to join the university's NAACP chapter and walk picket lines at the city's theaters and restaurants. She graduated from Howard, magna cum laude in 1947 with a degree in sociology and political science. While in college, Hernandez engaged in many extracurricular activities in addition to her involvement with the NAACP. She was part of the dance group, the drama club and editor of the student newspaper in her junior and senior years while also writing a regular column on the university for the Washington Tribune. After graduation she went to Norway and, through the International Student Exchange program, did graduate work in comparative government at the University of Oslo. After her return to the United States, Hernandez worked as a research assistant for one of her former professors at Howard before enrolling in graduate school at New York University. While there, she stumbled across an ad for an internship with the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) Training Institute. Hired in 1951, Hernandez would spend the next eleven years with the ILGWU as an organizer, educator, and doing public relations, primarily in the Union's Pacific Coast Region, based in Los Angeles. There, in 1957, she married Alfonso Hernandez, a garment cutter. The marriage ended in 1961, the same year that Aileen Clarke Hernandez received her master's degree, summa cum laude, in government.
Leaving the ILGWU in late 1961, Hernandez joined the Alan Cranston campaign for California State Controller as the political campaign coordinator. A year later, she was appointed Assistant Chief of the California Division of Fair Employment. In 1965 Hernandez was the only woman appointed to the newly created United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a Great Society initiative to combat unfair labor policies on the basis of race and gender. Soon frustrated by the lack of enforcement powers at the EEOC and the rest of the commission's unwillingness to pursue a case against the nation's airlines over their discriminatory practices with regard to flight attendants, Hernandez would be one of the founding members in late 1966 of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She left the EEOC, returned to her home in San Francisco and served as Western Vice President of NOW, at the same time opening her own business, Hernandez Associates, an urban affairs and management consulting firm. Hernandez served as national president of NOW for one year, succeeding co-founder and first president, Betty Friedan.
A gifted speaker and skillful organizer, Hernandez would be active in the fight for racial and gender equality, on both the local and national levels, for the next several decades. In 1973 she co-founded the San Francisco Bay Area Black Women Organized for Action and, later, Black Women Stirring the Waters. She served on multiple boards, including the Ms. Foundation for Women, the National Urban League, and the Coalition for Economic Equity. Well into her eighties, Hernandez remained active, serving as chair of the California Women's Agenda (CAWA), an outgrowth of the 1995 Beijing Conference, which she had attended. In 2005, she was one of a thousand women nominated globally for the Nobel Peace Prize and has earned numerous other awards in honor of her seemingly tireless efforts on behalf of women and people of color.
The nation's capital was then still very much a segregated city. Hernandez's response was to join the university's NAACP chapter and walk picket lines at the city's theaters and restaurants. She graduated from Howard, magna cum laude in 1947 with a degree in sociology and political science. While in college, Hernandez engaged in many extracurricular activities in addition to her involvement with the NAACP. She was part of the dance group, the drama club and editor of the student newspaper in her junior and senior years while also writing a regular column on the university for the Washington Tribune. After graduation she went to Norway and, through the International Student Exchange program, did graduate work in comparative government at the University of Oslo. After her return to the United States, Hernandez worked as a research assistant for one of her former professors at Howard before enrolling in graduate school at New York University. While there, she stumbled across an ad for an internship with the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) Training Institute. Hired in 1951, Hernandez would spend the next eleven years with the ILGWU as an organizer, educator, and doing public relations, primarily in the Union's Pacific Coast Region, based in Los Angeles. There, in 1957, she married Alfonso Hernandez, a garment cutter. The marriage ended in 1961, the same year that Aileen Clarke Hernandez received her master's degree, summa cum laude, in government.
Leaving the ILGWU in late 1961, Hernandez joined the Alan Cranston campaign for California State Controller as the political campaign coordinator. A year later, she was appointed Assistant Chief of the California Division of Fair Employment. In 1965 Hernandez was the only woman appointed to the newly created United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a Great Society initiative to combat unfair labor policies on the basis of race and gender. Soon frustrated by the lack of enforcement powers at the EEOC and the rest of the commission's unwillingness to pursue a case against the nation's airlines over their discriminatory practices with regard to flight attendants, Hernandez would be one of the founding members in late 1966 of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She left the EEOC, returned to her home in San Francisco and served as Western Vice President of NOW, at the same time opening her own business, Hernandez Associates, an urban affairs and management consulting firm. Hernandez served as national president of NOW for one year, succeeding co-founder and first president, Betty Friedan.
A gifted speaker and skillful organizer, Hernandez would be active in the fight for racial and gender equality, on both the local and national levels, for the next several decades. In 1973 she co-founded the San Francisco Bay Area Black Women Organized for Action and, later, Black Women Stirring the Waters. She served on multiple boards, including the Ms. Foundation for Women, the National Urban League, and the Coalition for Economic Equity. Well into her eighties, Hernandez remained active, serving as chair of the California Women's Agenda (CAWA), an outgrowth of the 1995 Beijing Conference, which she had attended. In 2005, she was one of a thousand women nominated globally for the Nobel Peace Prize and has earned numerous other awards in honor of her seemingly tireless efforts on behalf of women and people of color.
Extent
153 boxes (151 linear feet)
1.22 Gigabytes
Language of Materials
English
Spanish; Castilian
Overview
Comprised of correspondence, reports, research notes, surveys, audiovisual materials, and newspaper clippings from the papers of Aileen C. Hernandez, activist and civic leader. These papers document the life of Aileen C. Hernandez, activist and civic leader.
Arrangement
This collection has been added to over time in multiple "accessions." An accession is a group of materials received from the same source at approximately the same time. Note that in most cases, container numbers start over at 1 with each new accession.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
This collection contains materials received from the donor in digital form that are not currently available online. Please consult with Special Collections staff to request access to this digital content.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The papers of Aileen C. Hernandez were donated to the Sophia Smith Collection in 2014.
Processing Information
Accessioned by Kathleen Banks Nutter, 2015.
The contents of computer media in this collection has been copied to networked storage for preservation and access; the original directory and file structure was retained and file lists were created.
The contents of computer media in this collection has been copied to networked storage for preservation and access; the original directory and file structure was retained and file lists were created.
- Address books
- Affirmative action programs -- United States
- African American feminists
- African American women
- African American women -- Employment
- African American women -- Political activity
- African American women -- Social conditions
- African American women -- Social conditions
- African Americans -- Civil rights
- Annual reports
- Anti-racism
- Audiotapes
- Awards
- Bibliographies
- Bills (Legislative records)
- Biographical sketches
- Black Women Organized for Action
- Books
- Brochures
- Business records
- Businesswomen -- United States -- 20th century
- Businesswomen -- United States -- 20th century
- CD-ROMs
- Calendars
- California Women's Agenda
- California Women's Agenda
- Case files
- China -- Description and travel
- Civil rights -- United States -- 20th century
- Civil rights -- United States -- Cases -- 20th century
- Clients
- Clothing workers -- Labor unions -- United States
- Coalition for Economic Equity
- Community development -- 20th century
- Computer media
- Contracts
- DVD-Video discs
- Economic development -- United States -- 20th century
- Electronic records
- Faxes
- Feminism
- Financial records
- Fliers
- Forms (documents)
- Fund raising
- Government documents
- Greeting cards
- Hearings
- Hernandez, Aileen
- Histories
- International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
- Invitations
- Invoices
- Job applications
- Labor movement
- Labor movement -- 20th century
- Leaflets
- Legal documents
- Mailing lists
- Medical records
- Membership lists
- National Organization for Women
- National Urban League
- Newspapers
- Notes
- Occupational training for women
- Organization files
- Pamphlets
- Phonograph records
- Photographs.
- Plans (drawings)
- Political activists -- United States
- Posters
- Programs
- Proposals
- Publications
- Questionnaires
- Race discrimination -- Law and legislation -- United States
- Race relations -- United States -- 20th century
- Receipts
- Research
- San Francisco (Calif.) -- Social conditions
- Second-wave feminism
- Sex Discrimination in employment
- Sex Discrimination in employment
- Slides
- Social reformers -- United States -- 20th century
- Sound recordings
- Speeches.
- Surveys
- Transcripts
- United States. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Videotapes
- Women of color -- Employment
- Women's rights -- United States -- 20th century
- Women, Black
- clippings
- correspondence
- lecture notes
- memorabilia
- notebooks
- photograph albums
- press releases
- reports
- scrapbooks
Creator
- Hernandez, Aileen (Person)
- Title
- Aileen C. Hernandez papers
- Subtitle
- Finding Aid
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by .
- Date
- 2015
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 07/26/2017: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
- 2017-07-26T17:48:24-04:00: This record was migrated from InMagic DB Textworks to ArchivesSpace.
- 2020-06-30: Description added for born-digital content.
Repository Details
Part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository
