The Papers of Dixie Dugan White

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: LVLGBT-021

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The material in this collection is made up of eight series relating to the work and personal life of Dixie Dugan White, former president of Pennsylvania NOW.

Series I contains general information pages, posters, handouts, and flyers relating to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). It also includes press releases, public service announcements, mailings, mailing envelopes, and mailing lists, congressional records, resolutions, testimonies, clippings, ERA event packets, and ERA instruction kits, as well as lobbying reports, and congressional correspondence on the ERA.

Series II consists of five sub-series relating to the Pennsylvania National Organization for Women (PA NOW), including local NOW chapters, "PA NOW Times" publishing material, conferences and conventions, Pennsylvania NOW subject files, and administrative records.

Series III includes files containing administration documents such as meeting minutes, mailings, and financials relating to the National Organization for Women (beyond Pennsylvania).

Series IV comprises publications including the "Pennsylvania NOW Times," "National NOW Times," and other feminist periodicals such as "Ms." magazine.

Series V consists of material relating to Dixie White’s work in the LGBTQ+ community.

Series VI consists of subject files which date from the late 1960s to early 2010s. Types of material included in this series are personal papers, handwritten notes, personal correspondence, job application materials, event flyers, various newsletters, labor and union related documents, political campaign material, and other documents relating to her life in the Lehigh Valley. This series also has a sub-series dedicated to Dixie White’s work with the Allentown Neighborhood Housing Services.

Series VII contains digitized photographs.

Series VIII contains realia, including campaign buttons and posters.

Dates

Majority of material found within 1970 - 2013

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research; access by appointment.

Conditions Governing Use

Property of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. Copyright is owned by the creators of these materials. Fair use as a matter of copyright law governs the reproduction of these materials. Contact Trexler Library archives staff for additional information.

Biographical / Historical

Dixie Dugan White (1943 - 2020), born Patricia Ann Dugan, was an activist of diverse causes throughout her life. She served as the president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women (PA NOW), among other local and national roles. White was born in Bethlehem on March 13, 1943, and grew up in its Marvine-Pembroke public housing community. She earned her bachelor's degree from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and a master's degree from Syracuse University.

White served as the Pennsylvania NOW President from 1978-1979, the National Senior Field Organizer, Community Organizer for the Lehigh Valley Human Needs Coalition, Organizer at The Lehigh Valley Project, North East PA Regional Director for the Pennsylvania Public Interest Coalition, Caseworker for Northampton County Children and Youth, and Intensive Case Manager with Northampton County’s Drug and Alcohol Division.

She was also extremely active in the Equal Rights Amendment movement, the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT), Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (LEPOCO), the Micah Project, and her church, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church of Bethlehem, through which she co-founded Integrity Bethlehem -- the LGBT inclusion organization within the Bethlehem Diocese of the Episcopal Church.

In the 1970s, when White was an activist with Lehigh Homophile Organization (Le-Hi-Ho), she attended Allentown City Council meetings to lobby Council to consider a non-discrimination ordinance, and worked to convene a state-wide organizational meeting of LGBT activists from across Pennsylvania. During the 1980s, White and other LGBT community activists worked to successfully establish the first LGBT Community Center in the Lehigh Valley, and she served as the first director of the AIDS Service Center of the Lehigh Valley. In the years following, she continued to work as an activist for equality for women, the LGBT community, human rights, workers' rights, and the environment.