Labor / Civil rights & activism / Politics
Mildred Jeffrey
1910–2004 · UAW women's director, political and women's rights activist
Labor and women's rights organizer who came to Detroit in 1944 to head the UAW's new Women's Bureau and became a force in Democratic and feminist politics.
- Born
Alton, Iowa- Died
aged 93- Birth name
- Mildred McWilliams
- Also known as
- Millie Jeffrey
- Detroit years
- 1944–2004
- Field
- Labor, Civil rights & activism, Politics
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Mildred McWilliams grew up in Iowa and Minnesota, studied at the University of Minnesota and Bryn Mawr, and organized garment and textile workers in the East before the UAW offered her a new post in 1944: head of its Women's Bureau in Detroit. With hundreds of thousands of women working in the city's war plants, she fought for equal pay, seniority rights and fair treatment as the men came home. Over the following decades she worked for the UAW in community relations and radio, organized for civil rights and became a key figure in Michigan's Democratic Party, known for mentoring young women candidates and staffers. She was a founding figure and later chair of the National Women's Political Caucus and campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment. The one elected office she held herself was a seat on the Board of Governors of Wayne State University. Honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, she remained active in Detroit politics until her death in 2004.
Highlights
- First director of the UAW Women's Bureau, Detroit, from 1944
- Longtime member of Wayne State University's Board of Governors
- Chaired the National Women's Political Caucus
- Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000