Mildred Reid Mounger (1916-1996)

Born and raised on her family’s farm in Gray County, Kansas, Mrs. Mounger became a prominent labor activist for domestic workers in California and Kansas. She received her education in the public schools of Montezuma and Garden City, Kansas. After World War II, she resided in California and Okinawa where her husband was stationed in service. Throughout most of her adult life she was employed in a variety of service occupations. She also continued her formal education, receiving her high school diploma from Sacramento High School in California. During the 1960s, Mrs. Mounger became involved in organizing private household workers in Sacramento, California, who, like household workers across the nation at that time, were excluded from protection of minimum wage and hour laws, and who also did not receive fringe benefits such as sick leave, paid vacation leave or unemployment compensation. By 1971, she established the Capital Household Technicians, an affiliate chapter of the National Committee on Household Employment in Sacramento. When she returned to Kansas she took up residence in Topeka where she established the Topeka Household Technicians.

Always a community activist and volunteer, she became an active member of Topeka’s YWCA, NAACP, Democratic Central Committee, the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women, the Capital Welfare Rights Organization, the Coalition of Grass Roots Women, and the East Topeka Community Development Organization.

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