JoAnn Evansgardner and Gerald Gardner have long been active participants in the Civil Rights Movement, joining the NAACP in 1963 and NOW in 1968. JoAnn, born in 1925, spent much of her childhood in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, but left the city for North Carolina during World War II. After driving vehicles for military officers and trucks for the 2nd Army, she returned to Pittsburgh in 1945 and worked at Mellon Institute on research projects for Union Carbide & Co. Supported by the Institute, JoAnn was able to attend classes at the University of Pittsburgh. She also met and married physicist Gerald Gardner during this time and changed her name from Evans to Evansgardner. After earning her pre-med degree in 1950, Evansgardner lived with Gardner, a native of Ireland, in Dublin for five years before again returning to the University of Pittsburgh to pursue a Ph.D. in physiological psychology. Evansgardner went on to teach at Carnegie Mellon University from 1964 -1966 and give lectures at other institutions, while Gardner worked as a chief scientist at Gulf Oil. Evansgardner and Gardner joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1968 and were active at the local, state, and national levels throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Evansgardner served on the National Board of NOW and as the Eastern Regional Co-Director, while Gardner served as Director and Treasurer of the First Pittsburgh Chapter. They initiated a lawsuit against the Pittsburgh Press newspaper to ban sex discrimination in want ads, worked for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and helped various other complainants with cases regarding sex and race discrimination. In addition to NOW, Evansgardner and Gardner have been involved with many other feminist, anti-racist, and political activist groups, including the feminist press KNOW, Inc., ACLU, NAACP, Women's Political Caucus, Professional Women's Caucus, International Women's Year, National Women's Conference, and various reproductive rights groups.
From the description of Papers of JoAnn Evansgardner and Gerald H.F. Gardner, 1965-1991 (University of Pittsburgh). WorldCat record id: 55132605
