“We Need to Stand Together”

This chapter focuses on two women leaders, Theresa Mahler and Mary Young, and describes how they helped the coalition navigate female networks, create alliances with men inside and outside the legislature, and finally secure a permanent public child care program, even if only for California's low-income working mothers. As legislative chair for the Northern California Association for Nursery Education (NCANE), Mahler served as the key spokeswoman for nursery school educators and child care supervisors throughout the postwar struggles to secure permanent, publicly funded child care. A soft-spoken, unassuming woman who became president and later legislative chairman of the California Parents' Association for Child Care (CPACC), Young spoke on behalf of California's low-income working families, particularly single mothers.