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CWLU members like Della Leavitt (LEFT, circa 1975) helped turn Chicago into a hub of the womens movement.

Leading Ladies
FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, A GROUP OF PASSIONATE WINDY CITY RESIDENTS ESTABLISHED THE CHICAGO WOMENS LIBERATION UNION TO CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO.
BY SOFIA CARLSON

ts hard to believe, but as late as the 1960s women were unable to apply for a credit card or a mortgage and were only rarely elected to public office. In 1969, more than 50 Chicago women banded together to change all that, joining forces in Palatine to establish the Chicago Womens Liberation Union and demand that their voices be heard. Then a community organizer in Uptown, CWLU founding member Vivian Rothstein was inspired by her experience as part of a peace delegation to North Vietnam (They would run literacy programs and daycare centers in villages and promote womens leadership, she recalls) and wanted to equip women with the skills needed to thrive on their own and create a new social order back in the States. We never thought all you need to do is raise consciousness, or all you have to do is get women into top positions, says Rothstein about the CWLU. We felt like you had to do it all at once. Initially staffed by volunteers, the radical feminist organization offered classes and services to more than 500 women through initiatives such as the Rape Project, a crisis hotline for victims (We were very pluralistic and supported the phrase Let a thousand flowers bloom, she says); the Liberation School for Women; abortion counseling; and the Womens Graphics Collective, which promoted womens liberation. We really wanted an organization where women could be leaders, says Rothstein, an active participant in the CWLU until 1974, three years before it disbanded. She attests to the groups lasting impact on the womens movement, adding with pride, [Women] could change their lives, change their city, and change life for [other] women. MA

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PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CWLU HERSTORY PROJECT