Alison Hughes papers

Alison Hughes was born in Glasgow, Scotland during WWII to parents William Hughes and Jacki (formerly Bobbi Crooks) in 1940. After the war, Alison’s father ran a small business and was an industrial painter and artist. Her mother was born in the United States and raised in Scotland when Alison’s grandparents moved back to “the old country” with their young daughter. Her mother returned to the U.S. as an adult, and Alison followed in 1959 where they lived in the Washington, D.C. area.

By 1968, Hughes was working at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and participating in civil rights causes. She attended the historic Civil Rights March on Washington, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, and also the equally massive Poor People’s March on Washington. She carrier her passion for justice and equality to Tucson in 1970 where she participated in boycotts of grocery chains that did not carry the grapes and lettuce produced by farmworkers who had joined the new labor union formed by Cesar Chavez. Hughes was employed at Pima College (now Pima Community College) as the college’s grant writer. During this period, her volunteer efforts included joining the National Organization for Women (NOW), where she served as the Tucson chapter’s third president. Through her work in NOW, and experience in grant writing, Hughes assisted in the development of Tucson's first center for domestic abuse (Tucson Center for Women and Children), the city’s first Rape Crisis Center, and organizations advocating for women employed in the construction industry, and campaigns to elect women to political office.

Hughes’s presence and efforts were instrumental in the formation of the Tucson and Arizona Women’s Commissions, the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame, and the establishment of numerous organizations focusing on aiding women such as the Black Women’s Task Force, the Affiliation of Native American Women, Women in Trades, and multiple conferences and workshops addressing challenges faced by women business owners, disabled women, lesbian women, elderly women, the availability of obstetric services, and countless others.

Hughes founded the first women’s newspaper in Tucson (The Clarion), attended the first national and international women’s conferences during the U.N. Decade for Women (1975-1985), and tirelessly worked in support of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In 1982, Hughes served as director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Rural Health (formerly the Rural Health Office). Retiring from directorship in 1995, Alison remained affiliated with the University of Arizona and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health until full retirement in 2011. She was a founding member of the Arizona Rural Health Association. At the national level, she served as president of the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health in 2007, the Universal Services Administration Company (USAC) advisory board from 2002-2005, and the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health from 1999-2002.

Following her retirement, Alison became active in the University of Arizona Retirees Association (UARA), serving as president of the association for some time.