Frances Arick Kolb

Frances Arick Kolb (1937 – January 12, 1991) was an American education consultant and activist. She worked as the assistant director of The Network and a consultant with the New Jersey Department of Education and the New England Educational Equity Center. She was a founder of the South Hills chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Eastern regional director and a member of the national board.

Early life Kolb was born in 1937 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her mother was Beth Arick and her brother was Martin R. Arick. She was a student at Brandeis University between 1954 and 1956, although she ultimately graduated with a bachelors' of arts degree in history and secondary education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1958. She received a master's degree in American civilization in 1959 from the University of Pennsylvania before returning to Washington University to receive her Ph.D. in history in 1972. She was a training specialist with Project Inter-Action between 1980 and 1981, before joining The Network, Inc. in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1982 as their new assistant director. She was also a member of the New Jersey chapter of NOW. She held this role until 1977, also serving as the archivist for the organization. She was a member of the rules committee for the 1975 and 1976 national conferences, a member of the budget committee of the national board, the finance coordinator for the NOW Freedom Train in 1976, chair of the arrangements committee for the 1977 International Women's Year Conference, and the first chair of the economic sanctions committee of the ERA Strike Force between 1977 and 1979, which put pressure on states that had yet to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). She served as a Bunting fellow at Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in 1979, writing a history of the first decade of NOW.

Kolb was also a member of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Women's Political Caucus (WPC), the National Council of Jewish Women in New Jersey, the Pittsburgh Association for the Advancement of Women, the Women's Liberation Group in East Lansing, Michigan, and chair of a committee on family planning in East Lansing.

Personal life Kolb married her first husband Zivon Cohen and, following their divorce, married Alfred Kolb, a professor at Quinsigamond Community College, with whom she had one daughter, Sharon. She died of breast cancer on January 12, 1991, at Marlborough Hospital in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Her papers are held by Schlesinger Library.