Ollie Tucker Osborne Papers

Collection 93

Osborne, Ollie Tucker (1911–1994). Papers, 1927–1985

24 ½ feet; oversize

Ollie Tucker Osborne's papers detail the activities of one of Louisiana's leading advocates of women's rights during the 1970s. Osborne was extremely active in the League of Women Voters and the Evangeline ERA coalition. She attended conferences and workshops throughout the South. She was appointed to the 1977 state women's convention in Baton Rouge and was elected a state delegate to the national convention in Houston. She helped organize and coordinate a number of workshops and conferences in Louisiana on women's rights. Much of this often-frenetic activity can be seen through her papers.

Osborne was born in Northern Louisiana and educated at Whitmore College and Louisiana State University. Just before graduation, she married Louis Birk, a salesman for McGraw-Hill & Company, and moved to New York. After several false starts, Osborne launched a career in public relations and advertising which she pursued for twenty years. This included some pioneering work in television advertising. Following the sudden death of Birk in 1952, Osborne returned to Louisiana where she met and married Robert Osborne, an English professor at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). During the next two decades, she was busy as president of Birk & Company, a publisher of reading rack pamphlets.

Osborne's introduction to politics at the state level was as an official League of Women Voters observer of the 1973 Constitutional Convention. Early in the year, she determined that some on-going communication link was necessary to allay voter fear and apathy about the new constitution. Osborne was also deeply involved in the campaign to ratify the new constitution.

This experience introduced Osborne to the Equal Rights Amendment, which she decided to support. She became coordinator of the local ERA coalition and deeply involved with the state effort. In addition, she worked for or supported women's conferences and organizations, which shared or explicated her goals such as National Organization of Women; Women's Political Caucus; Louisiana Women's Conference; Conference on Louisiana Women and others.

The papers reflect Osborne's activities in the women's movement and her career in advertising. There are several scrapbooks concerning her years in New York. The largest series contains League of Women Voters records of the local and state levels. The collection includes memos, correspondence, publicity materials (a great interest of Osborne's) and, often, photographs. Her photographs of delegates to the 1973 Constitutional Convention are probably one of the better visual sources on its participants.

Ollie Tucker Osborne donated the papers as part of the Women in Louisiana Collection.

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Osborne, Ollie Tucker (1911-1994). Papers, 1927-1985 (PDF)