Dayton Women's Liberation Records

The women's movement arrived in Dayton in September, 1969. Cheryl Radican, a young political activist who was on the staff of Dayton's underground newspaper, The Minority Report, attended a national underground newspaper conference in Ann Arbor. During the conference, women who had been in consciousness raising (CR) groups in other parts of the country called on the other women at the conference to form a separate caucus to discuss their roles in the anti-war and new left movements. At this caucus meeting, there was also talk of a new movement, women's liberation.

Radican returned home and formed Dayton's first consciousness raising group. This first group grew rapidly by word of mouth along such local networks as the anti-war movement, the Unitarian Church, The Minority Report newspaper, and Dayton's Citizens for Democratic Action. The group soon split into four, and by January, 1970, a new CR group was forming every month.

Feeling a need to organize and direct the energy coming out of these early CR groups, several women got together and formed Dayton Women's Liberation (DWL) early in the Spring of 1970. They saw DWL as an umbrella group to (1) maintain communication between CR groups; (2) provide a clearing house for actions, activities, and problems; and (3) chart new directions and discuss feminism and politics. The group was, by design, loosely organized and non-hierarchical. Any women could come to the monthly co-ordinating meetings, decision was by consensus, and lots were drawn at the beginning of each meeting to choose the evening's chair.

Among the many projects and activities to come out of these co-ordinating meetings were a speaker's collective to handle requests from the community to speak on women's liberation, a newsletter collective to put out a monthly newsletter, feminist collective, and an abortion referral service. DWL also held several 3-day Spring and Fall retreats for women, ran workshops at local universities, and organized political demonstrations.

Early in 1973, Dayton Women's Liberation organized a collective to obtain funding and open a women's center in Dayton. They were successful in this effort and the Dayton Women's Center opened in January, 1974. After the Center opened, DWL continued with a scale-down version of its old activities, published its newsletter until early 1975, then disbanded.