Jo Ann Evansgardner | |
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| Born | Jo Ann Evans April 19, 1925 Latrobe, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | February 16, 2010 (aged 84) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Pittsburgh |
| Occupation | Psychologist |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | |
| Relatives | Barbara Fleischauer (niece) |
Jo Ann Evansgardner (April 19, 1925 – February 16, 2010) was an American psychologist and social activist. Born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, she studied psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and met her husband, Gerald Gardner, whom she married the same year she received her bachelor's degree. The couple moved to Dublin, Ireland, but returned to Pittsburgh after five years, where Evansgardner received a doctorate in experimental psychology. She co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology in 1969 and was active alongside her husband in the NAACP and numerous feminist organizations.
In 1968, the couple joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) and served as joint presidents of the First Pittsburgh NOW chapter. In this role, Evansgardner worked to found KNOW, Inc. and was involved in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, which ended the practice of newspapers segregating help-wanted advertisements by gender. She was appointed as eastern regional co‐director for NOW and coordinated the national protests against AT&T.
Evansgardner sued the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company for sex discrimination in 1977, a case that went to the Supreme Court in Gardner v. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. She was also a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus and a failed Republican candidate for the Pittsburgh City Council in 1971. She and her husband moved to Houston, Texas, in 1980, where she founded a local chapter of NOW at the University of Houston. They returned to Pittsburgh, where she died on February 16, 2010.