BOARD MINUTES,, 1920-1983 and 1986-1988.

Summary: Minutes of meetings of the State Board of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey and related documents. The State Board consisted of officers of the state league and representatives of the county and local leagues. This body, which met monthly, was known as the Executive Board from 1920 to 1929, as the Board of Directors from 1929 to 1947, and as the State Board from 1948 to the present.

Document types include meeting minutes, reports from officers, committees and local leagues, correspondence, memoranda, budgets, agendas, lists, organizational charts, and notices. From 1970, the minutes of each Board meeting are preceded by the Pre-Board Briefing, materials which were sent out to each Board member to prepare her for the meeting. In some meetings after 1973, the minutes of the Executive Committee (the President and other League officers) are included as part of the Pre-Board Briefing.

Subjects discussed include bills for which the state league was lobbying, recommendation of planks for party consideration, the State Program, cooperation with other women's organizations, directives from the National League, fundraising, upcoming events, preparation of publications, plans for the annual state convention, the oversight of local leagues, and policy issues such as non-partisanship.

Of particular interest is the discussion of the campaign for the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act (1921), the Sterilization Bill (1926), membership of the World Court (1931), changes in the League's structure (1945-1948), discussion of the Equal Rights Amendment (various years), the repeal of protective legislation (1970), and the attempt to arrive at a position on the abortion issue (1982). Beginning in the early 1960s, the State Board attempted to address the problem of the decline in membership and funding in the urban leagues. In 1980, the State Board forcibly disbanded the Woodbridge and Salem leagues.