Robin Morgan, poet and second-wave feminist who is credited with coining ‘herstory,’ dies at 85

Robin Morgan, a wholesome child star of the 1940s and ‘50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died.

Robin Morgan, a wholesome child star of the 1940s and ‘50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died. She was 85.

Morgan, who was still working on new books and poems, died Saturday in New York after suffering a series of health problems in recent weeks, said her son, Blake Morgan. Her death came just days after that of her close friend and fellow activist Gloria Steinem.

During the 1960s and ’70s, Morgan embodied and inspired historic changes in how women lived and thought. As she was happy to point out, the onetime “Ideal American Girl” and adored “Little Robin Morgan” was a rule breaker and justice seeker with a notable list of achievements, along with a prison record and an FBI file.

Morgan at a Women's Liberation conference in New York, in 1970. “Sisterhood is Powerful,” an essay anthology she edited the same year, is considered one of the essential texts of the modern women’s movement.Ed Ford / AP fileMorgan was at the center of some of the defining moments of what came to be called second-wave feminism, expanding upon the achievements of the suffragists a half-century earlier. In 1968, she was among the organizers of the first protest against the Miss America pageant, joining fellow activists in tossing their bras (soon mythologized as burning) into a “Freedom Trash Can.” The 1970 essay anthology she edited, “Sisterhood is Powerful,” is considered one of the essential texts of the modern women’s movement.

Yet she considered herself primarily a poet and artist, and that work fed into her activism, her son said.