What Oral Histories Reveal About Women’s Pursuit of Economic Independence
What does independence really mean for women? Through oral histories spanning generations, ‘We Do Declare’ explores how access to money, credit, and opportunity shaped women’s lives and the economic freedom that makes true independence possible.
To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we present We Do Declare: Women’s Voices on Independence, our oral history project exploring what independence has meant in the context of women’s lives since the 1970s. In interviews around the country, we listened as American women declared that independence is not only essential but also deeply tied to financial power. Their stories and the memories they shared help us understand the fundamental relationship between money and independence in profound ways.
Prior to 1974, married women could not get a credit card in their own name—even with a male co-signer. The passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) in that year made it illegal for banks to discriminate in lending for mortgages and credit cards based on sex or marital status. In 1976, Congress strengthened the law by adding protections against discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance. It was a foundational legislative victory for women’s access to credit. But the law did not eliminate discrimination or the many other barriers limiting women’s economic independence.
For many women, access to credit was only one part of a much larger challenge. Persistent wage gaps, sexism and discrimination in the workplace, and a lack of job protections shaped women’s financial lives. Other women were discouraged from working by the high cost of childcare or the absence of training programs to support reentry after time away from paid labor. At the same time, the lack of accurate data on women’s work and economic participation meant that policy decisions were often made without a full understanding of women’s experiences. As women’s access to credit and financial independence gradually increased, they faced an additional challenge: limited access to financial education undercut their control of their own financial lives.
In response to these ongoing barriers, the women we interviewed used legislation, public policy, grassroots activism, popular culture, labor organizing, scholarship, philanthropy, and the private sector to increase women’s financial independence. Their recollections reveal how they reshaped the legal landscape, found new data that changed public understanding, created new networks of economic support, and bolstered women's financial power. The individual testimonies are inspiring; taken together, they tell a remarkable story of how women’s determination generated an entire ecosystem to sustain women’s financial power and economic independence in the United States.
“Independence is deeply tied to money” — Nathalie Molina Niño
In the following excerpts from the oral histories, diverse women reflect on what independence has meant in their own lives. They describe why financial power is central to independence, and they insist that independence is shaped as much by our relationship with others as it is by our own decisions and choices. They seek a world in which that connection is more widely recognized. Visit We Do Declare to hear these women and others explain why they came to understand financial independence the way they do and describe when and how they worked to make it available to more women.
“Independence to me is a very precious idea and it equates to freedom at a personal level. Freedom to make one's own life decisions, freedom to manage one's own affairs the way you want to, and to choose to live your life the way you would like, under the aegis of the laws of your community and the constitution of your country.”— Barbara Franklin, 29th U.S. Secretary of Commerce and President and CEO of Barbara Franklin Enterprises.
“Independence is such a big word and probably one of the most important words that I think of as a person, and certainly as a woman. To me it means having the opportunity, access, and freedom to pursue your life's choices, to have the opportunity to flourish, to thrive, to live out your values in a way that is safe ... Independence is about being able to pursue what you want to pursue in life.” — Jacki Zehner, founder of SheMoney and former partner at Goldman Sachs.
“It's a sense that I am my own person and that irrespective of my race or gender or ethnicity, I am able to seek and to achieve the promise of this country, which is that if you work hard, you do your best and play by the rules, you have the opportunity to be whoever it is you believe you are and want to be and should be.... Without that financial independence, none of it is possible.” — Hannah-Beth Jackson, former California State Senator.
“Money is the most important thing women need in order to make their independence and the right to make their own decisions.” — June Inuzuka, filmmaker and former attorney for the Women’s Equity Action League.
“Independence is deeply tied to money...Inevitably, when I look at both my experience and women's experience writ large, the something that tends to constrict our ability to think freely, move freely, be free, tends to be money.”— Nathalie Molina Niño, President and Co-Founder of Known.
“What does it look like to reimagine a possibility where we, too, have agency in decision making and independence to craft our own narratives, to reclaim our narratives, to craft our own visions and dreams of what life could look like for us, and to model that and share that with our own community of what's possible?” — Jaime Gloshay, Managing Director of Impact Investments at Common Future and Co-Founder of Native Women Lead.
“Independence is really that freedom to self-determine my own future and how I want to use my gifts and skills to make communities better... And also, having the community that enables those hopes and dreams to be real. ... I make those choices known, and there is a community around me to help me achieve those hopes and dreams. — Bo Thao-Urabe, Founder and President of Seed Grow Bloom LLC.
“[A]t the end of the day, we're all so connected to the people we love, our communities, our families, and so much of our independence and agency is made possible by our ties to community and family.” — Ai-jen Poo, President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Executive Director of Caring Across Generations.
“Independence means the ability for each person to express themselves and realize their potential. But that's really hard to do unless there are collective rights. If there's not power as a part of a larger group, then individual independence can always be taken away.” — Karen Nussbaum, Founder of 9to5, National Association of Working Women and former Director of the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Understanding that independence is deeply tied to financial stability and intricately shaped by relationships to others, these women brought creativity and determination to making change. We Do Declare honors their work by recording their stories, their experiences, and their ideas about how to support independence not only for themselves, but for women in their communities, across the United States, and even the world.
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