Milwaukee Press Club

The Milwaukee Press Club is the oldest continuously operating press club in the United States. For a majority of its history, membership was restricted to men. Beginning in 1966, women journalists began their five-year fight for inclusion.

The women’s picket signs read “Our Sex Edited Out,” “Way Past Deadline” and “Oldest and Most Archaic” as they marched in front of the Milwaukee Press Club building at 125 E. Wells Street on September 19, 1966.

The Milwaukee women journalists issued a press release to express their frustrations: “When the spittoons were thrown out of news offices long ago, you forgot to get rid of another archaic practice. Our picketing today is to remind you that you are not addressing yourself to this problem and that it is time to act.”

In the summer of 1971, after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit, women were allowed to become members.

My story about the women’s battle will be published in an upcoming issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History. (Lance Speere is the co-author.) Most of the material came from the archives at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The article features women’s page editor Aileen Ryan, mentioned in an earlier post.