Collection is open for research.
A digitized version of the audio is available for in-person use at the library.
Maurine Brown Neuberger was born in Cloverdale, Oregon, in 1907. She earned a teaching certificate at the Oregon College of Education (now part of Western Oregon University) in 1924. In 1929, she graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor of arts in English and physical education. She also did graduate work at UCLA. She worked as an English teacher at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon. In 1945, she and Democratic Congressman Richard Neuberger were married. After Richard Neuberger was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1948, Maurine Neuberger also entered politics. In 1951, she was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, where she represented Multnomah County until 1955. Richard Neuberger died in 1960, and Maurine ran for and won his Senate seat that same year. While in the Senate, she served on President John F. Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women. In 1964, Neuberger and Philip Solomon were married. That same year, she declined to run for a second term, instead relocating to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she taught at Radcliffe and at Boston University. In 1967, she and Solomon divorced, and she returned to Portland. She taught at Reed College and continued to have an active role in the Oregon Democratic Party. She died in 2000.
Incomplete transcript (27 pages) and handwritten index (1 page) are available for in-person use at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Oral history interview with Maurine Neuberger, by Cynthia Harrison, SR 9037, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Maurine and Richard L. Neuberger papers, Mss 791, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Additional oral history interviews with Maurine Neuberger, designated SR 9523 and SR 1141, are held by the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Maurine Neuberger was conducted by Cynthia Harrison in Portland, Oregon, on December 15, 1978. A portion of the audio recording was accidentally erased circa 1980 during transcription. The missing portion of the audio was transcribed before it was erased, and the contents are reflected in an incomplete transcript of the interview.
In the interview, Neuberger discusses her legislative record on women's rights, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, tax deductions for child care expenses, and the Equal Rights Amendment. She also discusses serving on the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and the report it produced, particularly regarding the issue of reproductive rights. She talks about working with presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson; voting to include the word "sex" in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; and serving on the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She closes the interview by discussing the Senate Commerce Committee, which she did not serve on.
Copyright for this interview is held by the estate of Maurine Neuberger. In Copyright: