Above: “Betty Hamburger, wearing ‘pro God, Pro Family, Pro ERA’ helmet, speaks for ‘dignity and respect’ for older women.” -From The Spirit of Houston, page 161. “Betty Hamburger of Marlyand, a 73-year-old member of the Gray Panthers, an activist organization for the aid of older people, also spoke for the resolution [adoption of the plank on older women, read by Carmen Delgado Votaw.] ‘What we want most is life with dignity and respect and an income on which we can live without having to hold our hands out and beg.We want to be part of the mainstream of life and not be put in golden playpens.’ (See complete account of this resolution and the eventual passage of “a stronger, more explicit substitute resolution” which had the backing of the Grey Panthers, coming soon to the Herstory or Blog page of this website.) Her grandson asked to give my photographs of her to her family as a holiday gift in 2012.
"Without your commitment to photographing the work of the Women’s Movement the historic record would be spotty indeed. We’re grateful to you for your significant contribution to our shared history as women, and for sharing the results of your work.” (Mary Ruthsdotter, National Women's History Resource Project, 1990.)
This website and the previous websites I created ( www.dianamarahenry.com and WomenontheMove for the 35th anniversary) are now an essential way to share this work of history. It wouldn’t be seen; historians and filmmakers and authors wouldn’t find my work without it being picked up by search engines from my websites. Is it because the bus drivers, marshalls, conference staff, interpreters for the deaf, policewomen who were there and whom I took care to photograph, and I, were just “the help,” that no academic in the field of women’s history shared my interest in republishing the official document, The Spirit of Houston ? More the pity, thousands of young people are now being trained to think that the history was forgotten and neglected, despite the tens of thousands of participants who came into the state meetings and the conference with their own legacy and brought it forward into their lives and work in the decades since. They have not been silent; neither have younger scholars who have contributed to the history, whose work is highlighted on this site. Diana Mara Henry’s exhibits of the photographs, accompanied by videos, public lectures and programs at the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, and almost annual showings of these photographs and keynotes addresses she has given at universities for International Women’s Day.
“…you are keeping the ERA in the limelight..no, keeping the torch lit ..flaming brightly for all to see and grab hold of. Hopefully, one day we will see it become a reality having inspired many other women out there to join forces..” -Peggy Kokernot Kaplan, 2/25/22
The people I photographed carry the history forward with me. My photographs are unique and powerful and "iconic" as it has been said, and the people I photographed are essential to their uniqueness, and the exhibits and events I created have kept that uniqueness alive. We live, and we are telling our own story here.
“Please view this link http://www.womenonthemoveonline.com to see one of the greatest moments in time! Of course, you will recognize yourself, Susan B. Anthony, Congresswoman Bella Abzug and several others you may recall, including myself, and two other female athletes who walked side by side with the torch in to the convention center!!! The official photographer of the event, Diana Mara Henry has spent years trying to find out where everyone is now! As you can see from the link above the celebration would be so incredibly impacted if you would honor everyone with your presence!
I am praying you will be able to find time to attend or contact Diana Mara, she has spent much of her life trying to reunite the women from all those years ago! And so many other women who you have inspired throughout the years. I am sure you get requests on a daily basis, but I am so hopeful this email takes you back in time and you are able to make contact in someway! Best Regards, Sylvia Ortiz”
People in my photographs and writings have expressed that their whole life has been inspired and elevated by my not only having photographed them at these events. I have insisted, publication by publication, that the identifying captions carry their names, not just the names of the ‘celebrities.’
We who were there and I who photographed them are a cohort, because of my efforts to stay in touch. This website is meant to elevate us all.
Statement by Diana Mara Henry 2-14-22 to Vermont Arts Council explaining why this site isn’t just about her work.
Thank you to the Vermont Arts Council and the Vermont Community Foundation for the 2022 Arts Development Grant award in support of this website!
“The First National Women’s Conference.” That’s what Bella called it, just as she called the meeting that preceded it “The First NY State Women’s Meeting.”
That’s what is the subtitle of The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women’s Conference, An Official report to the President, the Congress, and the People of the United States. In that way she expressed her intention that it be a recurring event in civic and political life of the U.S. We honor her intention on this website.
Ever wonder what hearing about the first National Women’s Conference can mean to young people today?
Here are some of their reactions, from when Diana Mara Henry spoke to Professor Laura Lovett’s class in US Women’s History at UMass Amherst
Email to plan an illustrated lecture to your group or class….
Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot and Michelle Cearcy: the three final torch bearers speak
At the time of the 35th anniversary of the First National Women’s conference, these three friends spoke at the event held in connection with an exhibit of the official photographs by Diana Mara Henry for the President’s Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year, and you can hear them at the video page of this website and on You Tube. They also sent statements which you can see at the Herstory page of this website, as well as here.
About website presenter…
Since she was assigned to photograph the First National Women’s Conference as its official photographer, Diana Mara Henry has continued to honor, preserve and illustrate its legacy through her photographs, presentations, websites and books. She has been joined by a wonderful cohort, and thanks them for their Spirit of Houston!
Thank you to the Vermont Arts Council and the Vermont Community Foundation for the 2022 Arts Development Grant award in support of this website! In appreciation of the Ms. Foundation for Women for seed funding to honor the legacy and continue to forward the work of the First National Women’s Conference, to Jeannette Watson Sanger and other donors via the New York Foundation for the Arts, fiscal sponsor for the Women on the Move project Donations also gratefully accepted via Paypal.
"Diana Mara Henry not only had the foresight, energy and caring to record a history that media at the time often thought unimportant, she also had an open heart and democratic spirit that caused her to record the people who were really there and working, not only those who might have been thought newsworthy at the time. Not only was she present with a camera, but with eyes that could see the many who might have been forgotten without her record. I'm very grateful to her. I think the future will be more and more grateful. Gloria Steinem"
Statement for the Friends of UMass Amherst Libraries fall reception: "Through the Photographer's Eyes Diana Mara Henry: Twentieth Century Photographer Collection" 9/25/16
Views of the 1st New York State Women’s Meeting
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The First New York Women's Meeting
Just as Bella, as its Presiding Officer, titled the Houston Conference the FIRST National Women’s Conference, she tiltled the preliminary state Meeting the FIRST New York State Women’s Meeting….
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Daliesque view of the Empire State Plaza
Yes, Diana did photograph more than people.
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Diana Mara Henry at work
Always happy to meet the working people at the events she photographed, here arriving at the Empire State Plaza where the final plenary took place and can be seen in the background, someone kind photographed her with the guards.
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NY State Women's Meeting flyer
“Drop Your dishes…put your work aside….cover up your typewriter…stop doing the same old thing. Make yourself part of the action. Join us for an exciting time.”
About the book…. The Spirit of Houston
The 308-page official report of the First National Women's Conference is an historic, encyclopedic account of the only federally-financed national conference by, for and about women, that occurred in Houston, TX , November 18-21 1977. It was preceded by meetings in all fifty states and territories that voted on a plan of action and delegates to debate and enact it. Diana Mara Henry, who had been Bella Abzug's official photographer for her reelection campaign to the US House of Representatives, the mayoralty of NYC and US Senate from the State of NY, was selected to be the only official photographer to document the conference, after having organized the photography exhibits at the NY State Women's Meeting and documented that event attended by 20,000 women in Albany in July, 1977. Her assignment to photograph the conference at Houston came from the State Department on behalf of the President's Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. As an independent contractor, she retained copyright in her work and her more than 1,000 images were registered with the US Copyright Office in 1978, as well as being listed in The Spirit of Houston on its copyright page and, in its second printing, with the listing of her 85 photographs at the end of the Table of Contents. Therefore, since 1978, there has been no government reprint of the document and no commercial reprint has been done, nor has the book been made available online with her photographs.
"Diana Mara Henry not only had the foresight, energy and caring to record a history that media at the time often thought unimportant, she also had an open heart and democratic spirit that caused her to record the people who were really there and working, not only those who might have been thought newsworthy at the time. Not only was she present with a camera, but with eyes that could see the many who might have been forgotten without her record. I'm very grateful to her. I think the future will be more and more grateful. Gloria Steinem"
Click here to “Look inside” and get a copy of the Spirit of Houston and two other books of photographs by Diana Mara Henry!
Video about Houston
This film documents the National Women's Conference held at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston from November 18-21, 1977. Broadcast nationwide on the last day of the conference, the film describes the conference agenda, leaders, caucuses, and passed resolutions, as well as the protest against the conference at the Astro Arena. The film documents the issues on which the conference voted, including the Equal Rights Amendment, child care, abortion rights, insurance, health, homemakers, sexual preference, and minority women's rights. Clips of speakers round out the documentary special, including Bella Abzug, Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Cecilia Preciado Burciaga, Gloria Steinem, Jean O'Leary, Maxine Waters, and Coretta Scott King. At the counter-conference, Lottie Beth Hobbs, Nellie Gray, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, Phyllis Schlafly, and Bob Dornan speak