Lois Kathryn Herr, Author

Growing up in the fifties steered me in a traditional direction for women – first, teaching, and then editing, but my growing awareness of feminism and my involvement with the National Organization for Women led me to activism inside and outside my corporate life.

My 26-year career in telecommunications included line and staff jobs in Bell Laboratories, AT&T, New York Telephone, and ultimately NYNEX. From 1970 to 1973, I found myself immersed not just in my career but also in the battle for women’s rights.  I documented that adventure in Women, Power, and AT&T: Winning Rights in the Workplace. Soon after that I worked a year in Washington, DC, on a special assignment to the Office of Management and Budget.

You can hear more of my personal feminist activity in the second wave by going to the Veteran Feminists of America (VFA) Pioneer Histories Project: https://www.veteranfeministsofamerica.org/vfa-pioneer-histories-project-lois-herr/

After retiring from my corporate life, I bought and managed a farm near where I was born in Pennsylvania, returned to my undergraduate college as a teacher and administrator, and then became heavily involved in politics.

In addition to Women, Power, and AT&T, I’ve written Dear Coach: Letters Home From WW II and Dear Woman of My Dreams as well as materials for the historical society in Mount Gretna, where I live.  All my books are nonfiction stories about real people.  My father was the coach in Dear Coach, and my mother the diary writer in Dear Woman.  The AT&T book is a lengthier study of very real situations and people working to change a major corporation’s workplace.  All of the books are adventure stories, as will be my next – a personal memoir.

I bring to all this a liberal arts degree from Elizabethtown College, an MA in English from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Fordham University.