While most of the material relates directly to Patricia Hill Burnett, the papers also relate to the more general women's movement during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Patricia Hill Burnett (1920-2014), noted artist, feminist, and political activist, earned a four-year scholarship to the Toledo Museum of Art at the age of 12. She pursued her artistic studies at Goucher College, Wayne State University, the Instituto d'Allende, Mexico, and by private study with various artists. Throughout her life she was active as an artist. As Miss Michigan she was runner-up in the Miss America contest. She married William Anding Lange in 1945, whom she later divorced. They had one child. She later married Harry A. Burnett, with whom she had three more children.
In 1962 Patricia Hill Burnett broke the all-male barrier at the Detroit Scarab Club for artists. In 1969, Burnett organized the Michigan National Organization for Women (NOW), served as its president, 1969-1971, and convened NOW chapters throughout the state.
Her involvement with Michigan NOW led to a position on the NOW National Board, 1971-1975, and to the chair of NOW's International Committee. An inveterate traveler with a world view, Burnett was instrumental in expanding NOW into an international organization. She played a great part in organizing the International Feminist Planning Conference held at Harvard (May 1973) and convened the NOW International Feminist Conference in 1973. She also took an around-the-world trip the same year to survey the status of women in several countries. Through her organizational efforts, twenty-five NOW international affiliations were organized in twenty-one countries. Burnett was a NOW delegate to the United Nations' International Women's Year (IWY) conference in Mexico City in 1975, and to the IWY Houston Conference in 1977. As chair of the World Feminist Commission she hoped to organize the International Feminist Convention in Brussels in 1977. Burnett later attended the UN Decade for Women Copenhagen Conference in 1980. In 1987 Burnett traveled as a delegate of the International Women's Forum to honor President Corazon Aquino as Woman of the Year.
Burnett was instrumental in organizing the Michigan Women's Republican Caucus, which she has called the "first feminist Republican Women's Organization." Her other Republican Party activities have included the Michigan Issues Committee and the State Central Committee. Governor Milliken appointed her to the Michigan Women's Commission in 1973; she served first as vice-chair (1975) and then as chair (1976). After serving for four years on the executive board of directors of the National Association of Commissions for Women (NACW), Burnett was elected president of NACW in 1979.
Burnett was active in civic affairs, serving on the New Detroit Employment and Art Committees and the Detroit Human Rights Commission. She has also served as president of the Detroit House of Corrections, 1973-1976.
Patricia Hill Burnett has lectured on women in art, women in business, and, most widely, on feminism. As a portrait painter she inaugurated and executed a series of portraits of leading feminists. These were later placed in the "Women's Hall of Fame."
Due to her long career as a portrait painter, Burnett was called on to be one of twelve founding members of the Council of Leading American Painters which was responsible for the organization and promotion of the Nattional Portrait Seminar.
She received many honors for her artistic, business, and feminist activities. In 1987 Burnett was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, and in 1995 she published a memoir entitled True Colors: An Artist's Journey from Beauty Queen to Feminist.
Patricia Hill Burnett died in December 2014, at the age of 94.
