Robin Morgan

Robin Morgan (1941-2026) was an American poet, writer, journalist and feminist activist. Her career, which spans much of the second half of the twentieth century, placed her among the central figures of radical feminism in the United States and, later, of the international feminist movement. She wrote in English, and her importance lies as much in her poems and essays as in her work organizing and spreading feminist ideas.

Before turning to writing, Morgan had been a child actor. Her mother let people believe she was a year younger than she was, and as a girl she worked in radio and television, including the CBS series Mama. She left acting at fourteen, by which point she already wanted to be a writer. She later worked at the Curtis Brown literary agency, where she met W. H. Auden, and at Grove Press, from which she pushed an attempt to unionize the publishing industry. Her first book of poems, Monster, appeared in 1972.

In the early 1960s she moved toward the anti-war left and the civil rights movement. Alongside other women she helped found groups such as New York Radical Women and W.I.T.C.H., and she was the main organizer of the 1968 protest against the Miss America pageant. In 1970 she compiled and edited the anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful, widely regarded as one of the early catalysts of contemporary feminism in the United States. She also edited Ms. magazine and, with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda, co-founded the Women's Media Center in 2005.

Her legacy lies in the networks and institutions she helped build: shelters for battered women, rape crisis centers, foundations and media run by women. Morgan consistently argued that women's voices needed their own space in the press and in culture, and her influence can be measured both in her books and in the organizations that continue to operate.