Sally Lilienthal
American activist (1919-2006)
Sally Ann Lilienthal (March 19, 1919 – October 24, 2006), née Lowengart, was an American nuclear disarmament activist who founded the Ploughshares Fund in 1981 during the Cold War in the belief that the threat of nuclear war overshadowed everything else. The Ploughshares Fund continues to provide grants to individuals and organizations advocating against nuclear weapons. Lilienthal also served as national vice chairwoman of Amnesty International in 1977. Lilienthal was also an artist and art advocate who served on the board of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for most of the 1970s.
Early life and education
Sally Ann Lowengart was born in Portland, Oregon on March 19, 1919, to Jewish parents. She moved with her family to San Francisco at age twelve. Her father was a merchant. Lilienthal was enrolled at the private Katherine Delmar Burke School in San Francisco, but was soon expelled for passing a note containing a vulgar word in class. Lilienthal graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she majored in writing, in 1940, and returned to San Francisco the same year. By this time, Lilienthal had developed idealistic political views.
“Sally Lilienthal” enters the record as american activist (1919-2006). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sally, Lilienthal and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Sally Lilienthal” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sally, Lilienthal and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7405202. VIAF identifies the subject as 30146522397032391631. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919, 2006, 1981 and 1977.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sally Lilienthal”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sally Lilienthal primary sources, Sally Lilienthal archive and Sally research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sally Lilienthal”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sally Lilienthal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.