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 - The Voice of Women 40+ was founded as the Older Women's League by Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields, following the White House Mini-Conference on Older Women in Des Moines, Iowa in October 1980. The conference, called "Growing Numbers, Growing ...

(OWL).

Early life and education

Letitia Gale Innes was born in

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and raised in San Francisco, the daughter of Murray Innes and Katherine Dorsch Innes. Her father was a mining engineer, and her mother was a teacher. She studied dance as a young woman, including three years in Germany in the 1930s. She attended the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Career and activism

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Innes worked in the parks department in Los Angeles. In 1945 she directed a youth theatrical production in Los Angeles with over 150 youth participants, and chaired the program for a "thanksgiving harvest festival" in the city. In the 1950s, Sommers and her second husband worked for social and civil rights causes in the South. In the 1970s, Sommers became focused on feminist issues, especially involving older women. With the help of her friend Laurie Shields, she successfully lobbied 39 states and Congress to pass displaced homemaker laws, which offered a network of job training and counseling centers for career housewives who went through divorce or the death of a husband. Sommers coined the phrase "displaced homemaker." Sommers chaired the National Organization for Women's task force on older women in the 1970s. She was also a NOW board member and led the Jobs for Older Women Action Project. She co-founded the

with Laurie Shields in 1980, and was its first president. Sommers was named one of the "Bay Area's Ten Most Distinguished Persons" by the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' in 1974. She testified before a Senate committee on aging and

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in 1975. 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 Sonoma State University (SSU, Sonoma State, or Sonoma) is a public university in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California, US. It is one of the smallest members of the California State University (CSU) system. Sonoma State offers 92 Bachelor's d ...

. In 1983, she testified before a Congressional hearing on Medicare and aging. In 1984, she once again spoke before a Congressional committee on aging and healthcare.

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) * "If We Could Write the Script..." (1980) * "If I Had a Billion..." (1981) * "Caregiving: A Woman's Issue" (1985) * "Three Caregivers Tell Their Stories: Seriously Near the Breaking Point" (1985) * ''Women Take Care: The Consequences of Caregiving in Today's Society'' (1987, with Laurie Shields)

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. "Undoubtedly the divorce was, in part, my own awakening," she later recalled. Sommers died from cancer in 1985 at the age of 71, in

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. Some of her papers are held in the San Diego State University Libraries. The Institute for Health and Aging at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

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. In 1991, a biography of her was published, titled ''Tish Sommers, Activist: and the Founding of the Older Women's League''.

References

External links

* A 1982 video interview with Tish Sommers from KPBS television, on Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Sommers, Tish American feminist writers American women's rights activists 1914 births 1985 deaths