Dolores Alexander (August 10, 1931 – May 13, 2008) was a

lesbian feminist Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logic ...

, writer, and reporter. Alexander was the only executive director of the

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

(NOW) to have resigned because of the

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...

beliefs in the early inception of NOW. She co-opened the feminist restaurant "Mother Courage" with Jill Ward. Until her death, in 2008, she continued to believe in the need for the women's rights movement in contemporary times, stating that "It's bigotry, and I don't know if you can eliminate it".

Early life and career

Dolores Alexander was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Catholic school. In 1961 she graduated from City College of New York with a Bachelor of Arts in Language and Literature. During her senior year she worked at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' as an intern reporter for 10 months, gaining experience in journalism and her first taste of sexism within the news field: while applying for positions at the ''Times'', she was not hired as a "copy girl" by a male employee because it would "cause a revolution in the newsroom". Upon graduation, she worked as a reporter,

copy editor Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual of ...

and bureau chief at the ''

Newark Evening News The ''Newark Evening News'' was an American newspaper published in Newark, New Jersey. As New Jersey's largest city, Newark played a major role in New Jersey's journalistic history. At its apex, ''The News'' was widely regarded as the newspaper ...

'' from 1961 to 1964. She then went on to serve as a reporter, copy editor and assistant women's editor at '' Newsday'', also serving as a feature writer for the publication's weekend magazine until 1969.

Feminism

Until that time I had always felt like a weirdo, the only person who felt out of step with the world around her. I knew we needed a women's movement. This is what I had been waiting for. – Dolores Alexander, 2007.

In 1966, while working at ''Newsday'', Alexander came across a

press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

announcing the creation of a new

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

organization: the

(NOW). She interviewed

Betty Friedan Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...

and with her media experience, she became chair of the Monitor Subcommittee of the National Task Force on Image of Women in Mass Media. In 1969 she became the first executive director of NOW. She established the headquarters in New York City, and served as an editor of NOW's national newsletter, ''NOW Acts''. She offered to pay the $5 dues for women who could not afford to become members, and fronted a campaign to boost membership nationwide. In May 1970, she resigned as director to protest NOW's allegedly

practices and policies. Even in her later years, she continued to be disgruntled by the negativity that the words "lesbian" and "feminist" had within the early organization, believing the terms were being used like weapons' to undercut NOW members". Alexander continued to lecture about women's rights and worked with the New Feminist Talent Collective, which was formed by Jacqueline Ceballos to provide the services of speakers about the women's movement. She co-founded and organized

Women Against Pornography Women Against Pornography (WAP) was a radical feminist activist group based out of New York City that was influential in the anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and the 1980s. WAP was the most well known feminist anti-pornography group out ...

and worked with the

New York Radical Feminists New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) was a radical feminist group founded by Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt in 1969, after they had left Redstockings and The Feminists, respectively. Firestone's and Koedt's desire to start this new group was ...

. Alexander served as board member for the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws, an advisory board member for the New York NOW chapter and was a member of the New York Newspaper Women's Club. Alexander was a notable figure in numerous events in the women's movement. She helped end the practice of gender-segregated

want ads "Want Ads" is a song that was a million-selling #1 pop and R&B hit recorded by female group, Honey Cone for their second album '' Sweet Replies'' and also appears on their third album ''Soulful Tapestry''. The song on the Detroit-based Hot Wax ...

in ''The New York Times'', was witness to the lesbian purge of the National Organization for Women, participated in 1977's

National Women's Conference The National Women's Conference of 1977 was a four-day event during November 18–21, 1977, as organized by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. The conference drew around, 2,000 delegates along with 15,000-20, ...

in Houston, and the UN's

Fourth World Conference on Women The Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace was the name given for a conference convened by the United Nations during 4–15 September 1995 in Beijing, China. At this conference, governments from around the ...

in Beijing in 1995.

Mother Courage

In May 1972, Alexander and Jill Ward opened Mother Courage, the first feminist restaurant in the United States in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, New York.Mother Courage Press Kit, 1975. Box 15
Dolores Alexander Papers
Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. Retrieved March 6, 2020. Located on 342 West 11th Street, the restaurant was named after the heroic female protagonist,

Mother Courage Mother Courage (German ''Mutter Courage'') is a character from a Grimmelshausen novel ''Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landstörtzerin Courasche'' (''The Runagate Courage'') dating from around 1670. The character had played a cameo r ...

, from Bertolt Brecht's eponymous drama. Since the two women had no prior restaurant experience, they borrowed money from several feminist friends and colleagues to renovate an old

luncheonette A lunch counter (also known as a luncheonette) is, in the US, a small restaurant, similar to a diner, where the patron sits on a stool on one side of the counter and the server or person preparing the food serves from the opposite side of the c ...

called Benny's Soda Luncheonette and Delicatessen. With the help of many friends and Ward's father, Alexander and Ward completely remodeled the location and turned it into an entirely new restaurant. Every night for the first couple of weeks of Mother Courage's opening, Ward and Alexander explained their restaurant was at near capacity for dinner. They explained in their press release that, "...Mother Courage had become the hangout and gathering place of feminists around the city. Women felt comfortable coming in for dinner alone, certain they would run into at least one other person they knew and could dine with." This comfort was due to the fact that while the restaurant was technically co-ed, women took priority. After Mother Courage was granted their beer and wine license in 1973, Joyce Vinson (one of the later managers of the restaurant), explained that as a feminist, she would only give the first sip of wine to women even if accompanied by male guests. Checks were also placed within equal distance of diners in order to not make any assumptions about who was going to pay for the meal. Diners, however, weren't the only people to experience this feminist set of ethics. Mother Courage made sure to pay each worker the same salary and had each position rotate amongst staff so that, "every woman adan appreciation of the problems of every other woman." On May 19, 1975, Mother Courage celebrated its third birthday by hosting a champagne buffet with a cake in the shape of the

venus symbol A planet symbol (or ''planetary symbol'') is a graphical symbol used in astrology and astronomy to represent a classical planet (including the Sun and the Moon) or one of the modern planets. The symbols were also used in alchemy to represent the me ...

. Over 100 guests were invited (many of whom are famous feminists), including

Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steinem was a c ...

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors ...

, and more. Even though Mother Courage was only open until 1977, it inspired many other feminist restaurants to open up around the country. Author

Lucy Komisar Lucy Komisar is a New York City-based investigative journalist and drama critic. Komisar was editor of the ''Mississippi Free Press'' in Jackson, Mississippi from 1962 to 1963. The weekly covered the civil rights movement and related political and ...

once described Mother Courage as "more than a restaurant, this is part of a social movement."

Later life and legacy

Alexander's papers are held in the

Sophia Smith Collection The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history. General One of the largest recognized repositories of manuscripts, a ...

at Smith College and the

Schlesinger Library The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. As her health declined, she stepped back from the movement spotlight, preferring to watch a new generation of activists "lead the change". On May 13, 2008, Alexander died in

Palm Harbor, Florida Palm Harbor is a census-designated place and unincorporated community in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2016 American Community Survey, the CDP had a population of 60,236. Culture Palm Harbor is located north of downtown St. ...

References

External links

Dolores Alexander oral history
from the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project
Papers of NOW officers, 1960–1973: A Finding Aid.Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Dolores Alexander papers
at the

, Smith College Special Collections {{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, Dolores Writers from Newark, New Jersey American lesbian writers American feminists American women journalists City College of New York alumni American women restaurateurs Anti-pornography feminists 1931 births 2008 deaths National Organization for Women people Lesbian feminists LGBT people from New Jersey Radical feminists Journalists from New York City New York Radical Feminists members 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American LGBT people 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American LGBT people