Collection is open to the public. Collection must be used in Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room. Collection or parts of collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Special Collections and University Archives in advance of your visit to allow for transportation time. Collection includes sound recordings, moving images, and digital files to which access is restricted. Access to these materials is governed by repository policy and may require the production of listening or viewing copies. Researchers requiring access must notify Special Collections and University Archives in advance and pay fees for reproduction services as necessary.
Eleanor R. Davis was born in Seattle, WA in 1922. She majored in Sociology at the University of Washington. She and her husband, Charles, settled in Portland in 1951.
In the early 1960s Davis became active in the American Association of University Women and the women's group at the First Unitarian Church. She was elected to the national board of the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation in 1964 where she served for six years. In 1971 Davis helped form the Oregon Council for Women's Equality, and became a chief advocate for the advancement of women in Oregon. From 1974-1984 she was employed as a paid field investigator in the Civil Rights Division of the Oregon Bureau of Labor.
Davis was among those successfully campaigning for Oregon to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). After the ERA was ratified, Davis went on to serve on the Task Force on Sex Discrimination in Education, the State Advisory Council on Sex Discrimination in Employment, the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women, and a variety of other civil rights-related commissions and task forces.
The Eleanor R. Davis papers comprise professional and personal documents, including printed materials, reports, correspondence, scrapbooks, notes, clippings, photographs, ephemera, and video and audio recordings. This collection includes a significant amount of material relating to Davis' work on the advancement of women in Oregon. This includes her involvement in groups such as the Task Force on Sex Discrimination in Education, the State Advisory Council on Sex Discrimination in Employment, the Oregon Council for Women's Equality, the American Association of University Women, the Unitarian Church, and a variety of other civil rights-related commissions and task forces.