Crookston’s Business and Professional Women’s club (BPWC), started in 1921, was more politically active in the 1960s and 1970s than in its early years. BPWC members made sure to cast their votes for causes important to women, including equal pay for equal work and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
At each BPWC meeting during this period, speakers gave talks to fit a designated monthly program. In April 1962, three local doctors answered questions about the King-Anderson bill— national legislation intended to provide medical services to the elderly through Social Security. The club went on record opposing it and urged members to write to their congressional representatives. Soon afterward, legislators voted down the bill in committee by a narrow margin.
In October 1964, the Crookston BPWC’s Civic Participation Committee reminded members that November was a critical time to vote for state and national club officers. In April 1965, members were encouraged to lend their support to U.S. Senator (and Minnesotan) Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy had introduced a “Be-Kind-To-Spinsters Bill” designed to ensure tax equality for single people thirty-five years and older and for widows and widowers. Like the King-Anderson bill, the measure failed; if it had passed, it would have benefited members of the Crookston BPWC.
Club members regularly added items about pending legislation related to equal pay to their newsletter, called Beep Chatter, and brought them up during meetings. Over time, the issue deepened a rift between the club’s single and married members. Married women maintained that employers discriminated against them when making new hires. Single members like June Shaver, however, pointed out that unmarried working women also faced disadvantages. In the October 2, 1967, edition of Beep Chatter, Shaver noted the “quixotic side effects” of tax relief laws that rewarded marriage. “A working single girl pays a higher tax than if she were married,” she wrote, with the result that “she is fined for remaining single.”
In March 1969, Crookston BPWC leaders asked members to encourage their state senators to vote “yes” on an equal pay bill and to lobby the U.S. Senate Labor Committee in support of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). One of the amendment’s provisions stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account sex.” The approval of eight more states, however, was needed for national ratification. If the Equal Pay Bill failed to pass, supporters feared that the ERA would fail along with it.
On May 28, 1970, the Equal Pay Bill became law. A little more than three years later, on February 9, 1973, Minnesota ratified the ERA. It was the twenty-sixth state to do so.
The BPWC faced a setback on March 6, 1975, when a Western Union telegram sent from the club’s state headquarters notified Crookston members of a resolution intended to rescind the ERA in Minnesota. The BPWC president directed members to urge Minnesota legislators to vote against it. BPWC leadership reminded members that more than the Equal Opportunity Act of 1972 was in place to protect women’s rights as full and equal citizens of the U.S. On June 5, 1975, the resolution failed to pass.
An entry in the edition of Beep Chatter published on December 4, 1975, expressed members’ continuing support for the ERA. Its author offered credit to “Libbers” (feminist activists) for drawing public attention to women’s issues. She also pointed out, however, that CBPW members “enjoy[ed] wearing pink long dresses” and shared a desire for legal equality rather than any specific set of personal choices or social codes. The statement revealed the club’s effort—made throughout the 1960s and 1970s—to distance itself from the second-wave feminist movement while keeping itself aligned with many of its priorities.