Kate Swift

Kate Swift, 87
EAST HADDAM, Conn. -- Kate Swift, a writer and editor who was a pioneer in the feminist analysis of language, died on Saturday, May 7, 2011, at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Conn., after a brief illness. She was 87.
A resident of East Haddam since 1972, Swift was a life-long summer resident of Georgetown.
Beginning in 1970, Swift worked as co-author with Casey Miller, writing numerous articles and two books on the English language and its relationship to the status of women. Their work examined the male-dominated evolution of English usage and the ways it defined women negatively as secondary, irrelevant, or invisible.
Articles by Miller and Swift on sexism in language appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Ms., New York magazine and others, and their work continues to be reprinted in anthologies and textbooks today. Their book 'Words and Women' was first published in 1976 (Anchor Press/Doubleday and Co.) and in an updated edition in 1991 (Harper Collins). In their 'Handbook of Nonsexist Writing' (Lippincott & Crowell, 1980; Harper & Row, 1988; The Women's Press, London, 1981), Miller and Swift suggested alternatives to standard usage detrimental to women. Both books are now published on line by iUniverse.com.
Barbara Kate Swift was born on Dec. 9, 1923, in Yonkers, N.Y., the daughter of Ethel Longworth and Otis Peabody Swift, both journalists. She attended Connecticut College, New London, and was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1944. She then served two years in the United States Army as an information and education specialist and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant.
From 1946 to 1948 she wrote and edited publications for the Port of New Orleans, then worked for five years in press information for the Girl Scouts of the USA national headquarters in New York.
Kate Swift
In 1954 she was employed as a science writer on the public affairs staff of the American Museum of Natural History. For the next 11 years she was press liaison for the museum's Hayden Planetarium during the opening of the space age. She moved to Connecticut in 1965 to join the news bureau of Yale University, where she headed the press office of the Yale School of Medicine until 1970.
Swift and Casey Miller formed a freelance editorial partnership in 1970 as writers and editors of publications for nonprofit institutions in the fields of education, health care, and environmental issues. In a period of increasing awareness of common language practices that ignore or denigrate women, Miller and Swift helped clients to solve problems of gender-related usage with accuracy and grace. Miller died in 1997.
During the 1995 United Nations 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, Swift was a member of the National Organization of Women's delegation to the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum held in Hujairou, China.
In 2003 she helped organize the East Haddam chapter of the Middlesex County Community Foundation's Fund for Women and Girls. A long-time activist in the pro-choice movement, she recruited and coordinated a busload of Connecticut participants in the March for Women's Lives, Washington, D.C., in April 2004.
More recently she worked as a volunteer coordinator for Love Makes a Family, a nonprofit advocacy group seeking legislation to grant marriage equality in Connecticut to committed partners of the same sex and their families. She was also active with Stonewall Speakers, a group whose members discuss LGBT issues informally with students in school and college classes.
Swift is survived by a brother, John L. Swift of Georgetown; a half-sister, Marguerite Swift of Flagstaff, Ariz. and Georgetown; and three generations of nieces and nephews.