Making Waves

Grassroots Feminism in Duluth and Superior

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a wave of feminist activism and organizing broke on the shores of the Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. Its impact has shaped and transformed the lives of women and men in this community, the nation, and the world. Beginning with one of the first rape crisis programs and battered women’s shelters in the country, pioneering organizations sprang up all over the Duluth. The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, home of the “Duluth Model"; Mending the Sacred Hoop, the first domestic assault training provider for tribal nations; the Northcountry Women’s Coffeehouse, one of the longest-running in the country; and the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault are just a few of the innovative feminist organizations that developed in the Twin Ports. ??Making Waves is both a collection of the individual histories of ten of these grassroots feminist organizations and an overall history of feminist organizing in the Twin Ports. Through the voices of the women who formed them, it tells the stories of how these organizations began, their struggles and their triumphs, their lessons and their legacies. Bartlett shows that a combination of factors --- the small-town atmosphere that enabled the cross-pollination of ideas and organizations, the presence of key movers and shakers, the influence of the Anishinaabe, and the proximity to Lake Superior and the northern wilderness, as well as a heritage of progressive organizing --- all contributed to the rise and flourishing of these prominent feminist organizations in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.