The Nevada Women's Conference, which was held from June 17 to 19, 1977, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, was initiated by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year at the request of the United States Congress and as a part of the United Nation's Decade for Women (1975-1985).

Some of the goals established for the conference by the Nevada State Coordinating Committee included: examining the role of women in Nevada's economical, social, cultural and political development; identifying barriers that prevent Nevada women from participating fully and equally in all aspects of state and national life; seeking consensus on means by which such barriers can be removed; and bringing women of Nevada closer together.

The women's suffrage movement in Nevada was a slow process and lasted from 1869 until women received the right to vote in Nevada in 1914. Nevada women came together as a group somewhere between 1895 and 1897 when a woman's suffrage convention was held to establish the Nevada Equal Suffrage Association.

The women's conference of 1977 was the first time women convened on non-political issues. Over thirteen hundred people attended the conference from all over Nevada. Close to three hundred people attended from northern Nevada. Not all participants were women, but women still held the majority. There were minorities, housewives, career women, high school girls, men and politicians participating in the conference.

Frankie Sue Del Papa was vice-coordinator for the Nevada Women's Conference. Born in 1949, she graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science. Del Papa attended law school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and graduated in 1974.

While in her third year of law school, she began a campaign, with the help of Senator Bible and other prominent people, to prevent the destruction of an old home, dating back to pre-revolutionary times. The Capitol Hill home was (and is) the headquarters for the National Women's Movement. Del Papa has been active in the National Women's Party ever since.