Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.

Conditions Governing Access

No special access restriction applies.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Feminism and Women's Advocacy Collection, A&M 4668, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

From Marshall University, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia (CSEGA), 2002

From Meredith E. Kiger, 2022 March 02

Gift from Anna Rachel Terman, 2022 March 18

Biographical / Historical

The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia (CSEGA) is at Marhsall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and focused on promoting research on Appalachia's diversity. It was founded in 1996 and hosted its first conference at Marshall University in 2000. As of 2025, the CSEGA sponsors the Sarah Denman Faces of Appalachia Fellowship Award to support scholarship on gender and ethnicity in Appalachia.

The March for Women's Equality and Women's Lives was a mass gathering and march sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW) on 1989 April 09 in Washington, D.C. in response to Missouri anti-abortion laws pending in the Supreme Court and former President George H.W. Bush's administration aligning itself with the anti-abortion movement in calling for the reversal of Roe v. Wade . The march was attended by roughly 600,000 protestors from around the country, including activists from West Virginia.

The West Virginia University (WVU) Female Equality Movement (FEM) was a student organization formed prior to 1993 by WVU Center for Women's Studies (CWS) employee Mary Beth Garvin that focuesd on issuing affecting women on the WVU campus. It was best known for co-sponsoring the Take Back the Night events to raise awareness of sexual assault, domestic violence, and safety concerns on WVU campus. The organization was renamed the Gender Equality Movement (GEM) sometime prior to 2012. The organization has no official date of closure but its presence was significantly lessened by 2012.

Scope and Contents

The collection contains a compilation of materials related to feminism and donated to the West Virginia and Regional History Center (WVRHC).

The collection is a living collection and may continuously be added to as relevant materials are gifted, donated, or transferred to the WVRHC.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Activism
• Kiger, Meredith E.
• Marshall University. Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia
• National Organization for Women (NOW)
• West Virginia Feminist Activist Collection
• West Virginia University - Student organizations.
• Women political activists
• Women's rights