Mary Eastwood

Mary O. Eastwood (June 1, 1930 – October 10, 2015) was a pioneering American lawyer and civil rights advocate.

In 1955, Eastwood graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School and then moved to Washington, D.C.

Legal career After graduating she worked on a temporary study project for the National Academy of Sciences. The article discussed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as it applied to women, and drew comparisons between discriminatory laws against women and Jim Crow laws. In subsequent years, Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully argued this point in the case Reed v. Reed in front of the Supreme Court. Both conferences were held in Washington, D.C. They thus gathered in Betty Friedan’s hotel room to form a new organization. NOW's picket of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in protest of their sex-segregated Help Wanted ads was organized at Eastwood's apartment, and a photo of her picketing was in the Washington Post the next day.

Some of Eastwood's papers are held in the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.