Excerpts from the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Interview with Linda Chavez-Thompson

kathleen banks nutter is the author of ‘The Necessity of Organization’: Mary Kenney O'Sullivan and Trade Unionism for Women, 1892-1912 (Garland, 2000). She is currently teaching at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Nutter's connections with Smith span decades: first as a student, where she worked in the Sophia Smith Collection/College Archives as a work study student and CDO intern (1988-1990); then as Carolyn Heilbrun's research assistant for her Steinem biography (1990-1991); and finally as a reference archivist (1996-2003); and a lecturer in the Smith College History Dept. (2000-2003).

linda chavez-thompson was born August 3, 1944, in Lubbock, Texas, one of eight children born to Felipe and Genoveva Chavez. She joined her parents in the cotton fields at the age of ten; she quit school at sixteen and went to work. In 1967, at the age of twenty-three, she went to work for the Laborers' International Union and served as secretary for the Lubbock local; as the only Spanish-speaking union officer, she represented all of the Hispanic workers within the local. Four years later, she went to work for AFSCME in San Francisco and rose through the ranks to be its international vice president (1988-96). In 1995, she was elected executive vice president (third-ranking officer) of the AFL-CIO, the first woman and first person of color to hold such a high office within the union. She was relected to this office in 1997 and 2001. She also serves as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and is an executive member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.