Joanne H. Alter

Joanne H. Alter (July 23, 1927 – November 9, 2008) was an American activist, politician, and the first woman to break the gender barrier in Chicago area politics.

Early life and education Joanne Hammerman was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the North Shore suburb of Glencoe, Illinois. Her mother, Celia K. Hammerman, had fled pogroms in Czarist Russia,

Activist career

While raising their family, Alter and her husband became involved in Democratic party politics. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Alter as a delegate to the United Nations Conference on the Status of Women held in Accra, Ghana. Committed to encouraging women to run for public office in the United States as well, Alter worked closely with women politicians such as Bella Abzug and fellow Mount Holyoke graduate Ella Grasso (first female governor elected in her own right), and helped found the Illinois Democratic Women’s Political Caucus with Dawn Clark Netsch. At the time, Cook County (of which she was a lifelong resident) had no elected women officials, so Alter confronted Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, the leader of the local Democratic Party, who invited Alter to run for countywide office herself, and slated her for a position as one of the Commissioners of the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago.

In 1972, Alter became the first woman to win a countywide election, earning a million votes and election as a Metropolitan Sanitary District Commissioner, and her friend Dawn Clark Netsch won election to the state senate. Alter also served two terms on the Democratic National Committee. who owned a refrigeration and air-conditioning company. They had four children: journalist Jonathan Alter, Jennifer Alter Warden, Jamie Lynton (married to businessman Michael Lynton), and Dr. Harrison Alter. another nephew, Charles Rivkin, as United States Ambassador to France and then Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs.

Death and legacy

Alter died of cancer at her home on November 9, 2008, survived by her husband, children and grandchildren. The Chicago Humanities Festival hosts an annual lecture in her honor. The Art Institute of Chicago has a scholarship fund in her honor. A plaque on the Chicago Riverwalk commemorates her environmental activism.