“What greater weapon for peace do we have than our victory over bigotry and race hatred which for many centuries past have torn the world apart?”
—Patsy Mink
Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) was a vigorous and tireless champion of women’s rights, an early and vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, and a leader on issues involving education, the environment, welfare and civil rights.
With her election in 1964, Mink became the first non-Caucasian woman and the first Asian American woman to serve in Congress. She represented the people of Hawaii during two periods, from 1965 to 1977 and again from 1990 until her death in 2002. In between, she served in the Carter Administration as an assistant secretary of state for oceans and international, environmental and scientific affairs (1977-78), was president of Americans for Democratic Action (1978-81), served on the Honolulu City Council (1983-87), maintained a private law practice (1987-90), and founded the Public Reporter (1989-91), an organization that monitored and publicized the activities of the Hawaii state legislature.
In 2007, the Manuscript Division celebrated the completion of a three-and-a-half-year project to process for public access the rich and voluminous papers of the former Hawaii representative, donated to the Library in 2003 by Mink’s husband and daughter. Select digitized items, a finding aid and other resources are now available online at www.loc.gov/rr/mss/mink/mink-home.html.
Left: Patsy Mink campaigning for office with family and supporters, 1966. Manuscript Division, used with permission of Gwendolyn Mink
Right: Congresswoman Patsy Mink, left, Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh, Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, center, and N.Y. Congresswoman Bella Abzug, right meeting outside of Paris, April 21, 1972. Manuscript Division
The Mink collection, which numbers nearly 900,000 items, includes personal and professional correspondence, daily schedules, central legislative files, bills, issue mail, speeches, clippings, press releases, scrapbooks, photographs and other personal papers covering a wide array of topics and concerns. Senior archives specialist Margaret McAleer directed a team of two archivists, 12 archives technicians, and nine interns during the course of the project.
