Mabel Deutrich

Mabel Evelyn Deutrich (April 15, 1915 – June 4, 1998) was an American archivist. In 1975 she was the highest ranking woman in the history of the National Archives.

She had a 29-year career as a government archivist and served as Assistant Archivist for the Office of the National Archive (predecessor of the National Archives and Records Administration) from 1975 to 1979.

Biography Mabel E. Deutrich was born in Burns, Wisconsin She returned to La Crosse State Teachers College and completed a B.S. degree in 1942.

She became a clerk in the Mail and Record Division in the Office of the Chief Engineers during World War II. She served as a historian in the Department of the Army from 1947 to 1950. In 1950, she joined the National Archives in Washington, D.C. She received an M.A. in public administration from American University in 1958, followed by a Ph.D. in public administration in 1960. The subject of her thesis was Fred C. Ainsworth: Army Surgeon and Administrator, work that was the basis of her 1962 book Struggle for Supremacy: The Career of General Fred C. Ainsworth. She headed the Committee on the Status of Women in preparing The Report on the Status of Women in the Archival Profession (1974), which compared the "rank, salary and professional commitment" of men and women in the archival profession. Responsibility for enforcing the Equal Pay Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act were transferred from the Labor Department to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1979. Deutrich carried out a major review of the archival profession in 1979, published in 1980 as "The Society of American Archivists: Survey of the Archival Profession—1979".

Published works

Death Mabel E. Deutrich died of cancer in Santa Cruz, California on June 4, 1998.