Earth Mothers: Women have long history as leaders in region's environmental movement
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Clockwise from top: Rachel Carson, Beverly Braverman, Jan Jarrett, Teresa Heinz, Michelle Madoff, Devra Davis
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Michelle Madoff likes to tell how, in 1969, at the first gathering of the Group Against Smog and Pollution in her Squirrel Hill living room, she went to the kitchen to get cold drinks for everyone and returned to find she'd been elected its first president.
It's a story that may to some degree be apocryphal, but also one that highlights both the maternal nature of the environmental movement in Rachel Carson's hometown and the female leadership that persists even as it has evolved from the grass-roots, apron-string activism of the early years to something more established, professional and diverse.
"Housewives were very important in the early days. They could come to meetings, did all the work and got paid nothing," said Ms. Madoff, 82, who was the charismatic queen bee of the movement in Pittsburgh through the 1970s and then went on to be elected Pittsburgh city councilwoman from 1978 to 1993. She now lives outside Phoenix in Surprise, Ariz.
"My ammunition came from technical people at the universities, mostly men. But women were in the forefront."
In a city where the powerful have forever worn pants, Ms. Madoff and the environmental movement she helped lead pushed their way to a seat at the table with a sheaf of scientific studies in one hand and a plate of cookies, shaped like GASP's mascot, "Dirty Gertie, the poor polluted birdie," in the other.
Ms. Madoff and a full-throated procession of strong and knowledgeable female leaders used those air quality and public health study findings to argue for tighter air pollution regulations and healthier air, often using the powerful opening phrase, "As a mother ... "
According to "Citizen Environmentalists," a book by James Longhurst that examines early trends in environmentalism and citizen activism, the women of GASP were young, energized, mostly college-educated, middle-class and white, who organized in a reasonable, non-threatening way through traditional female networks in garden clubs, schools and civic organizations.
They raised money and the organization's profile by selling cans of "Clean Air" in the old Jenkins Arcade, Downtown, and cookbooks that contained recipes for party cookies side by side with those detailing how to clean up Pittsburgh's industrial pollution.
First Published April 22, 2011 12:00 am
