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Janet Gray Hayes Collection

About this Collection

Janet Gray Hayes papers document her political life while serving on the San Jose City Council and as the first female Mayor of the City San Jose from 1970-1982. In 1970 she was elected to the San Jose City Council, where she served as the Vice Mayor under Norman Mineta, before running for the office of mayor in 1974. She served two terms, with a landslide victory in her second term. She left politics in 1982, but continued as an environmental volunteer for the “League to Save Lake Tahoe,” for which she was honored in 2000, and was named as one of Indiana’s “Trailblazing Women.” The collection includes administrative records, correspondence, campaign material, speech files, photographs, and ephemera.

The digital collection represents a snapshot of her publicity photographs that include city council meetings, meetings with various state and national officials, including several national mayoral meetings with President Jimmy Carter, as well as images of Gray-Hayes with Rosalynn Carter, She also traveled to Japan and China as mayor. The bulk of photographs document her local activities and her contributions to the local community.
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