Laura’s Social Movement Archives/ISI

The Laura X - Laura Rand Orthwein, Jr. World Institute is the teaching arm of Laura’s Social Movements Archives, which feature documents and other materials collected by Laura X aka Laura Rand Orthwein, Jr., over the last sixty years. The collection pertains to the Women’s Movement and a wide array of precursors and overlapping social movements from the second half of the 20th century, including materials from Laura X’s successful state-by-state campaign to abolish the legal privilege for marital and date rape. She began collecting materials in 1964 and has been committed to this effort ever since.

She took the name "Laura X " in 1969, to symbolize her rejection of men’s legal ownership of women and the anonymity of women’s history, which was stolen from women and girls. She is a veteran of the anti-nuke, peace, civil rights, Free Speech, educational reform, anti-war, women’s, anti-antiSemitism and anti-homophobia movements. She advocates for farm workers, Native Americans, ecology, disability rights, environmental health, and healthy home movements. Women and women’s health and legal issues are the primary focus of her work.