Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable receives the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in the first year it is awarded.
Actress Mary Tyler Moore begin her TV show depicting a single, independent career woman.
Astronomer Vera Rubin writes about her pioneering spectroscopic research on the existence of a large percentage of dark matter in the universe.
Vocalist Carole King releases her record album Tapestry. It remains on the charts for almost six years, selling more than ten million copies in the United States and an estimated twenty-two million copies worldwide. In 1990, she is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She says: “Write from your heart, from your passions. If you think it’s a difficult road, you’re right but don’t give up.”
Attorney and congresswoman Bella Abzug helps to found the National Women’s Political Caucus. She says: “We are coming down from our pedestal and up from the laundry room. We want an equal share in government and we mean to get it.”
Physician Helen Caldicott becomes a spokesperson for the budding nuclear disarmament movement; she later forms Physicians for Social Responsibility, which receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Gloria Steinem are two of the founding editors of the feminist magazine Ms.; it launches as a one-issue sample insert and in July 1972 becomes a monthly magazine. At that time, few realize that the magazine will become an important vehicle to declare women’s rights. Women’s magazines popular at the time concentrate on saving marriages, raising children, and using the right cosmetics; by contrast, Ms. carries articles on “desexing” the English language and discusses the then taboo subject of abortion. Ms. is the first national magazine to explain and advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, to rate presidential candidates on women’s issues, and to put sexual harassment and domestic violence on the cover of a woman’s magazine. Ms. becomes immediately popular with women and generates more than twenty thousand letters from readers within the first few weeks of its publication. It is still published today. Steinem says: “If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?”