Working Women’s History Project Founder

April 29, 1922 – June 18, 2015

Yolanda (“Bobby”) Hall founded the Working Women’s History Project in 1995 and served as its first president.  She was an activist all her life.  During World War II, she was the first woman to work in the tool room at Bendix Aviation Corporation, where she fought against sex discrimination and harassment and helped to organize a union. She was the president of UAW Local 330 and the first female member of the Illinois Industrial Union Council, where she fought for equal pay and child care and battled unfair management and racial discrimination. She also fought the McCarthy red scare in the courts.

Bobby later returned to school to become a nutrition expert and became assistant professor of preventive medicine at Rush University Medical Center. She was co-founder of Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, fighting for equal health care access.  She retired from Rush in 1989, but continued her activism long into retirement.

Bobby remained the president of WWHP until 2003.  She made sure that almost every year the organization featured a new performance piece about historical or living women.  She reached out to young people by partnering with the Chicago Metro History Fair and sought to bring together diverse women by establishing a brown-bag lunch group that included women from labor, academia, and the community.  Among her other accomplishments, she supported the collection of oral histories, began a book reading group, and co-edited a paper newsletter called “Working Women’s Stories” that featured articles of interest and reported activities of WWHP and its partners.

The legacy of Bobby Hall’s life-long activism continues to inspire the work of WWHP today.