Tucker Pamella Farley is an activist and academic who helped create a space for women's studies in the university. She has been active in a variety of social justice causes. Farley earned her bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1961, and as a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University in the late 1960s, she became involved in Leftist activist efforts aimed at radicalizing the university. She organized for academic labor unions, and she participated in the Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association and the New University Conference, among other groups. She was also involved in the women's liberation movement and the emergent field of women's studies. Farley completed her Ph.D. in 1973.
Hired by Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1970 to teach women's studies and American literature, she was instrumental in the development of the school's Women's Studies Program and Women's Center. She was a founder of the New York Women's Labor Project, where she created and taught women's studies course for trade union women. A self- described "founding mother" of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), Farley spearheaded the creation of NWSA's Lesbian Caucus. At the same time, she engaged in small-scale activist and intellectual networking through participation in a variety of study groups on radical and feminist issues. This included Marxist-Feminist Group 1 (MF 1), which has been active since 1973. Organized in the northeastern United States, MF 1 combined elements of the consciousness raising group with academic inquiry into issues of radicalism and feminism. Members have included academics, policy makers, and political activist. The group continues to meet two to three times a year. Tucker Farley maintained an active publishing and teaching career through the 2000s. She earned emerita status in 2005.
From the guide to the Tucker Pamella Farley Papers MS 676., 1969-2010, (Sophia Smith Collection)
