In the summer of 1981, the National Organization for Women sent feminist “missionaries” to Utah to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment. This presentation tells this never-before-published story based on NOW’s institutional records from the Harvard Schlesinger Library. NOW was upset at the LDS Church’s participation against the ERA and recruited and trained women and men to go door to door in the major cities of Utah on a program modeled after the LDS missionary program. Their purpose: to demonstrate and increase Utah support for the ERA and to reveal the LDS Church’s opposition in the national press.

Bill Connors, Laurie Vertner