Women's Action Alliance brochure, circa 1973

Photograph: cardboard play People WAA brochure Front Back More online documents Finding aid The Women's Action Alliance was founded by Gloria Steinem, Brenda Feigen Fasteau, Catherine Samuels, and others to provide resources to women working to change their lives by overcoming sexism and sex discrimination. It provided information and assistance to individual women, women's centers, and women's groups through projects,

publications, and programs designed to "allow women to maximize their chances for change by working together across traditional boundaries of class, race, age, and ethnic group." Within a few months of its formation, the WAA was receiving some two hundred letters weekly from women nationwide seeking advice and information. Partly in response to such queries, the WAA launched numerous programs to address areas of inequality. The projects ranged from an effort to introduce women to non-traditional occupations, to others that encouraged computer use among junior high school girls, taught non-sexist child rearing techniques, and sought to reduce alcohol and drug use among women. Due to lack of funding, the Women's Action Alliance was dissolved in 1997.

The 117 feet of Women's Action Alliance Records document the administration of the organization, its many and varied Projects (including the Non-Sexist Childhood Development Project), and its role as a women's information clearinghouse. Included are office files, project files, publications, photographs, and audiovisual materials.