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| Title | Jacqueline (Jackie) Griswold papers |
| Finding Aid Identifier | MS 119 |
| Finding Aid Title | Finding aid for Ms 119, Jacqueline Griswold papers |
| Subject | finding aid; Jacqueline Griswold; Seattle Women's Commission; National Organization for Women; women's rights; equal rights; Equal Rights Amendment; International Women's Year; Washington State Women's Council; rape; sexual assault |
| Abstract | Jacqueline (Jackie) Griswold served six years (1973-1979) with the Seattle Women's Commission, during which time she served as president, vice-president and headed several projects, including the drive to revise the state of Washington's rape laws and seek child-care services from the city of Seattle. She was active in the Seattle-King County NOW (National Organization for Women) and worked hard for the state's passage of the ERA ratification in the early 1970s. She also served on the coordinating committee for Washington's Conference for Women in Ellensburg in 1977. The collection reflects her passion for equity and justice. |
| Biography | Jacqueline (Jackie) Perkins (1931-1992) was born in Philadelphia. She graduated from Temple University in 1953 with a degree in Education and a minor in Psychology, attending on a National Merit Scholarship. She began to teach fifth grade in the Philadelphia public schools, while attending Temple's law school at night for two years. While living in Philadelphia, she married John Griswold and began a family.
Jackie Griswold moved to Seattle in 1964 and was hired by the Seattle School District two years later. She taught elementary classes until 1971 when she took a leave of absence and became active in the Seattle League of Women Voters (LWV). In her letter of application for membership on the Seattle Women's Commission to Seattle mayor Wesley Uhlman in 1973, Griswold cites her experience of working with children from the ghettos of Philadelphia and Seattle's Central Area and her contact with low-income and minority parents as major contributors to her awareness and concern with their problems and needs.
As a LWV member, Griswold actively served on the League's Committee on the Status of Women. She joined the Seattle-King County chapter of NOW in 1972 and immediately took on the role of King County coordinator for that group's activities in attempting to secure passage of the Federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In that position, she had the responsibility for initiating NOW activities on behalf of the ERA and securing the cooperation of a number of other concerned groups for the purpose of unified efforts. She also served as part of a state-wide strategy group and acted as a media contact.
As co-director of a NOW project on Sexual Violence and Our Educational Systems, funded by a grant from the Washington Commission for the Humanities from June 1974 to January 1975, Jackie Griswold worked to develop and implement public policy workshops in ten Washington cities and prepared and delivered a major speech at each workshop on the nature and ramifications of public policy as related to sexual violence.
Other Seattle-King County NOW involvement included her membership on the Coordinating Council (the body responsible for budget decisions, strategy and policy); the National Task Force on Rape; Task Force on Women and Aging; and, the Employment Task Force. She was elected co-president of the organization in 1978.
Griswold played a significant role in helping to create an Office of Women's Rights within the City of Seattle, and was an observer, on behalf of the LWV of Seattle and Seattle-King County NOW, at meetings of the Seattle Women's Commission. She subsequently was appointed to that commission in 1973, the same year she was the adult-education director and volunteer coordinator for the Seattle-King County YWCA.
As a member of the Seattle Women's Commission she was dedicated to promoting equal opportunities for women of the city, particularly in the areas of education, employment, and participation in city government. She served as Vice President in 1973, Chair of the Special Issues Committee from 1973-1976, Legislative Officer in 1974, Chair of Joint Committee on Child Care (1975-1976), member of the Budget Committee, and President from 1976-1977.
Jackie Griswold is known for her work to revise the state's rape laws, her concern for battered women, and for advocating child care services. In Griswold's obituary, her friend and colleague Jean Marie Brough recalled Jackie as "analytical, precise and a tenacious feminist who helped revise the state's rape and sexual-assault laws in the mid-1970s." Dorothy Young Sale, another longtime associate, said, "She was a person concerned with questions of justice and equity… She was very detailed, very serious and absolutely reliable in the information she was using." Sale and Brough both recalled Griswold as a tireless, methodical lobbyist for the rape law revision, constantly seeking to change the laws. The rape law revisions approved in 1975 established three degrees of rape and forbade the automatic use of evidence about the victim's past sexual activity history unless it specifically involved the defendant.
Griswold initiated a project to establish a shelter for battered wives in Seattle, and worked to gain community, agency and governmental support. She also conducted a study of the child care situation in Seattle and of the policies and procedures of the state and federal governments as they impacted the local situation. In the process she researched the state's Department of Social and Health Services child care funding and disbursements, uncovering and bringing to public attention a significant underutilization of funds. Griswold worked on improving Seattle's Affirmative Action Plan and maintained a careful overview on how affirmative action was (or was not) functioning at the city level.
She left Seattle in 1980 for Florida until 1984 when she returned. No longer actively engaged in civic work and human rights issues, she sold real estate, worked for the Census Bureau, and was a management systems analyst for Seattle City Light at the time of her death in 1992. |
| Scope and Content | The emphasis of the collection relates to Jackie Griswold's involvement with the Seattle Women's Commission (1972-1978) and Seattle-King County NOW (1972-1979) and the various roles she assumed on behalf of those organizations. The remainder of the collection contains files, clippings, publications, and information about topics of special interest to Griswold or of regional or national organizations that supported similar social equity positions and objectives.
Of particular note are the files from her experiences on the Seattle Women's Commission involving child care (1973-1977), rape and rape statute revision (1973-1975), and battered and abused women (1973-1978). The latter files include her work in trying to establish a safe shelter for battered women in Seattle.
The rape-related files contain background material Griswold secured prior to drafting a revision of the state rape laws to present as legislation. The subsequent changes, several re-drafts, and the work to finally secure passage of the law through the legislative process are well documented. Clippings regarding the proposed rape law revisions are included within the Seattle Women's Commission rape and rape statue revision files as well as in two specific rape clippings files. Many of Jackie Griswold's contemporaries consider her efforts on behalf of changing the state's rape law to be one of her most significant accomplishments.
Another significant portion of the collection relates to Griswold's participation and in-depth files on the Coordinating Committee for planning the Conference for Women in Ellensburg as part of the International Women's Year (IWY) in 1977. Also of interest is her file on the work of the Washington State Women's Council and its eventual demise under Governor Ray. |
| Keywords | finding aid; Jacqueline Griswold; Seattle Women's Commission; National Organization for Women; women's rights; equal rights; Equal Rights Amendment; International Women's Year; Washington State Women's Council; rape; sexual assault |
| Inclusive Dates | 1957-1980 |
| Restrictions | None |
| Volume | 6.25 linear feet |
| Accession number | 2008.47; 2009.208 |
| Num of Boxes | 5 boxes |
| Electronic Publisher | Washington State Historical Society |
| Contributors | Washington State Historical Society; Ed Nolan |
| Object Type | Finding aid |
| Format | .PDF |
| Rights | Funded through a National Endowment for the Humanities "We the People" grant for Washington Women's History to the Washington Women's History Consortium, a part of the Washington State Historical Society. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Property of the Washington State Historical Society - All Rights Reserved |
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