Tish Sommers
A smiling white woman with short curly hair and glasses
Tish Sommers, from a 1982 newspaper
Born
Letitia Gale Innes

September 8, 1914
Cambria, California
DiedOctober 18, 1985
Oakland, California
Other namesLetitia Burke, Letitia Sommers
Occupation(s)Activist, writer

Letitia "Tish" Innes Sommers (September 8, 1914 – October 18, 1985) was an American author, a women's rights activist, and the co-founder and first president of the Older Women's League (OWL).[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Letitia Gale Innes was born in Cambria, California and raised in San Francisco, the daughter of Murray Innes and Katherine Dorsch Innes.[3] Her father was a mining engineer, and her mother was a teacher.[4] She studied dance as a young woman, including three years in Germany in the 1930s. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles.[5]

Career and activism

During World War II, Innes worked in the parks department in Los Angeles.[5] In 1945 she directed a youth theatrical production in Los Angeles with over 150 youth participants,[6] and chaired the program for a "thanksgiving harvest festival" in the city.[7] In the 1950s, Sommers and her second husband worked for social and civil rights causes in the South.[3][8]

In the 1970s, Sommers became focused on feminist issues, especially involving older women.[5] With the help of her friend Laurie Shields, she successfully lobbied 39 states and Congress to pass displaced homemaker laws,[9] which offered a network of job training and counseling centers for career housewives who went through divorce or the death of a husband.[3][8] Sommers coined the phrase "displaced homemaker."[2][10][11]

Sommers chaired the National Organization for Women's task force on older women in the 1970s.[12] She was also a NOW board member and led the Jobs for Older Women Action Project.[2][3][13] She co-founded the Older Women's League with Laurie Shields in 1980, and was its first president.[1][8]

Sommers was named one of the "Bay Area's Ten Most Distinguished Persons" by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974. She testified before a Senate committee on aging and Social Security in 1975.[14] She won the Western Gerontological Society Award in 1979, and the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation's Ministry to Women Award in 1981. In 1982, already facing a cancer diagnosis, she was keynote speaker at a conference on employment at Sonoma State University.[15] In 1983, she testified before a Congressional hearing on Medicare and aging.[16] In 1984, she once again spoke before a Congressional committee on aging and healthcare.[17]

Publications

  • The not-so-helpless female: How to change the world even if you never thought you could; A step-by-step guide to social action (1973)
  • "Freelance Agitator Argues for Hiring Changes: Look Out Job Market!" (1978)[18]
  • "If We Could Write the Script..." (1980)[19]
  • "If I Had a Billion..." (1981)[20]
  • "Caregiving: A Woman's Issue" (1985)[21]
  • "Three Caregivers Tell Their Stories: Seriously Near the Breaking Point" (1985)[22]
  • Women Take Care: The Consequences of Caregiving in Today's Society (1987, with Laurie Shields)[23]

Personal life and legacy

Innes married Sidney Arnold Burke in 1938; they later divorced. She married fellow activist Joseph Sommers in 1949; they adopted a son, and divorced in 1972.[5] "Undoubtedly the divorce was, in part, my own awakening," she later recalled.[24] Sommers died from cancer in 1985 at the age of 71, in Oakland.[3][25] Some of her papers are held in the San Diego State University Libraries.[13] The Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco established the Tish Sommers Senior Scholars program to honor her; it supports the work of older graduate and postdoctoral students working to improve the lives of older women.[26] In 1991, a biography of her was published, titled Tish Sommers, Activist: and the Founding of the Older Women's League.[27]

References

  1. 1 2 Borenstein, Audrey (1983). Chimes of change and hours: views of older women in twentieth-century America. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-0-8386-3170-6.
  2. 1 2 3 Love, Barbara J. (2006). Feminists who changed America, 1963-1975. University of Illinois Press. pp. 434–435. ISBN 978-0-252-03189-2. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Tish Sommers | Older Women's Advocate Dies at 71: Tish Sommers Was Co-Founder of 15,000-Member Group". Los Angeles Times. 1985-10-19. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
  4. ↑ "Formal Normal Student Married". Chico Record. May 3, 1904. Retrieved January 6, 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Levenstein, L. (2014-03-01). ""Don't Agonize, Organize!": The Displaced Homemakers Campaign and the Contested Goals of Postwar Feminism". Journal of American History. 100 (4): 1114–1138. doi:10.1093/jahist/jau007. ISSN 0021-8723.
  6. ↑ "Hollenbeck to Present War Chest Show". Daily News. August 14, 1945. p. 8. Retrieved January 7, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  7. ↑ "Thanks festival set tomorrow". Daily News. p. 16. Retrieved January 7, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  8. 1 2 3 "Tish Sommers, 71, Women's Activist". Chicago Tribune. 1985-10-19. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
  9. ↑ McCormack, Patricia (September 4, 1975). "Tish Sommers lobbies for Displaced Homemaker's act". San Bernardino Sun. pp. C-17. Retrieved January 6, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  10. ↑ DeLuzio, Crista (2009-11-12). Women's Rights: People and Perspectives: People and Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-59884-115-2.
  11. ↑ Shields, Laurie (1981). Displaced homemakers : organizing for a new life. Internet Archive. New York : McGraw-Hill. pp. ix. ISBN 978-0-07-056802-0.
  12. ↑ "Ageism, sexism; They call it double jeopardy". Healdsburg Tribune. April 24, 1975. pp. B-2. Retrieved January 6, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  13. 1 2 "Tish Sommers Papers". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
  14. ↑ United States Congress Senate Special Committee on Aging (1973). Future directions in social security: hearing before the Special Committee on Aging, United States Senate, Ninety-third Congress, first session ... U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 1679–1682.
  15. ↑ "Conference to Explore American Workplace". Healdsburg Tribune. March 3, 1982. p. 7. Retrieved January 6, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  16. ↑ United States Congress House Select Committee on Aging (1984). Medicare and Acupuncture: Hearing Before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, First Session, November 30, 1983, San Francisco, Calif. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 46–51.
  17. ↑ United States Congress House Select Committee on Aging (1984). Health Care for Elders: Alternative Futures : Hearing Before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, Second Session, March 18, 1984, Anaheim, Calif. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 17–22.
  18. ↑ Sommers, Tish (1978). "Freelance Agitator Argues for Hiring Changes: Look Out Job Market!". Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. 2 (4): 8–9. ISSN 0738-7806. JSTOR 44872266.
  19. ↑ Sommers, Tish (1980). "If We Could Write The Script..." Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. 4 (4): 7–35. ISSN 0738-7806. JSTOR 44875007.
  20. ↑ Sommers, Tish (1981). "If I Had a Billion . . ". Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. 6 (2): 11–33. ISSN 0738-7806. JSTOR 44875061.
  21. ↑ Sommers, Tish (1985). "Caregiving: A Woman's Issue". Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. 10 (1): 9–13. ISSN 0738-7806. JSTOR 44875293.
  22. ↑ Sommers, Tish; Zarit, Steven H. (1985). "Three Caregivers Tell Their Stories: Seriously Near the Breaking Point". Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. 10 (1): 30–33. ISSN 0738-7806. JSTOR 44875298.
  23. ↑ Sommers, Tish (1987). Women take care : the consequences of caregiving in today's society. Internet Archive. Gainesville, Fla. : Triad Pub. Co. ISBN 978-0-937404-28-7.
  24. ↑ Sommers, Tish; Sorrel, Lorraine; Sojourner, Susan (1982). "with the wisdom of an owl: an interview with tish sommers". Off Our Backs. 12 (1): 6–7. ISSN 0030-0071. JSTOR 25774188.
  25. ↑ "Tish Sommers Dies; Led Older Women's Union". The New York Times. 1985-10-19. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
  26. ↑ University of California, San Francisco (June 10, 1993). UCSF News.
  27. ↑ Huckle, Patricia (1991). Tish Sommers, activist, and the founding of the Older Women's League. Internet Archive. Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-691-2.
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