We often read that there are “just 15%” of the top public company board seats occupied by women, but that is still 831 women at Fortune 500 and 1,100 women at Fortune 1000 firms.

We tend to forget that the first woman added to a public company board did so “just 36” years ago: in 1971, Patricia Roberts Harris was named to the IBM corporate board. She was a “two-fer:” a woman and a woman of color. She was awesome: she was a lawyer, Ambassador to Luxumbourg, U.S. secretary of three cabinet level departments (HUD, HEW, HHS) and a law school dean at Howard Unversity.

From 1971 to 2007, we have added 22 women “on average” each year to Fortune 500 boards across the nation and 8 women each year to the Fortune 501-1000 firms. Of course there actually were more women, because each year some women retired or resigned. There may have been 50 women added each year to the total U.S. Fortune 1000 firms, but perhaps 20 women left, so we were left with 30 women “on average, overall” being added each year to U.S. Fortune 1000 firms.

What was happening in 1971? Thirty-six years ago, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers. Richard Nixon put a freeze on wages, prices and rent. China entered the UN General Assembly and Taiwan left. Intel announced the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. Barak Obama was 10 years old, Hillary Clinton was 24 years old and John McCain was 35 years old and in his 4th of 5.5 years as a POW in Vietnam.

What were you doing in 1971?