It’s 1975 and Women In Transition is located on the corner of Chester Ave & 47th Streets in West Philadelphia. A small collective of women, united in their vision of a world where women have full agency over their lives, are running support groups, connecting people to resources, and navigating a legal system designed to disempower. The organization was only four years old, but was one of the first of its kind. And, WIT had just landed its first book deal - the advance was helping to keep the doors open.
In a recent oral history interview with WIT’s first paid staff member and founder Carolyn Kott Washburne and with Miriam Galper Cohen, another early staff member, they shared more about the history of Women In Transition: A Feminist Handbook on Separation and Divorce. In the 1970’s divorce was stigmatizing, isolating, and legally biased again women. Scrivner Publishing had reached out to WIT hoping to follow the success of another feminist classic, Our Bodies, Ourselves. The WIT team got to work compiling all that they had learned in their four years of operation. Washburne, who did a great deal of the writing, remembers taking a step back from the office to focus on editing the text - a thick paper back whose section headings range from “How and Where Your Children Will Live” to “Beware of ‘Collusion’” to “Building the Lesbian Nation.” The handbook was based on earlier guides WIT had produced, like the self-published Women’s Survival Manual.
Cohen and Washburne recalled traveling the country on the book tour. The small WIT staff was split into teams as they visited major cities and women’s conferences spreading the word not only about the book but encouraging others to create their own agencies. A quick Google search shows that A Feminist Handbook on Separation and Divorce is held in libraries across the country.
Click here to watch an episode of Woman, originally aired on September 23, 1975, that features a conversation with Carolyn Kott Washburne and co-worker Jennifer Fleming as they discuss their work at Women In Transition and their newly released book.
Are YOU a part of WIT history? Would you like to be interviewed? Or, want to help us conduct interviews? Fill out the interest form here: https://www.helpwomen.org/oral-history.