Midlife: Options for Women originated from discussions between social workers Joan Weiss and Marybelle Cochran. In 1984, after leading an assertiveness training course for women returning to the work place, Weiss and Cochran saw a need for a resource and support center where middle-aged women could pool their experiences and expertise. As they began talking about developing such a center and identifying areas of concern for women in their middle years, the discussions grew to include other women: psychologist Jean Mason, social workers Mimi Dohan and Elizabeth Cady, and Darlene Hopkins, a counselor with Displaced Homemakers. The group's first meeting was held on November 7, 1985, and the center, in Brookline, Massachusetts, opened on January 23, 1986, with a brown bag lunch program on exercising for fitness and health. Later brown bag lunches focused on finances, legal issues, housing, job searching, spirituality, and many other topics.
Midlife incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1988, and in 1989 held the first-ever forum for midlife women, titled Self-esteem in Midlife. The organization held annual forums from 1989 to 1993, with a final forum in 1996; the forums featured keynote speakers, panel discussions, and morning and afternoon sessions on specific topics. Keynote speakers included feminist and mystery novelist Carolyn Heilbrun (under the name Amanda Cross), Judy Norsigian, a founding member of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, and writer Linda Weltner. In addition to the forums and brown bag lunches, Midlife's activities included affiliated interest groups on job search strategies, menopause, and other topics, a shared housing and resource exchange, daytime and evening discussion and support groups, a Sunday brunch group, and a stock club. From 1986 to 1998, Midlife also published a newsletter, which had over 2000 subscribers. In 1998, due both to the increasing number of groups offering services to women in their middle years and to a dwindling number of volunteers, the group disbanded.
From the guide to the Papers, 1981-1999, n.d., (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
