[5] With the help of her friend Laurie Shields, she successfully lobbied 39 states and Congress to pass displaced homemaker laws,[9] which offered a network of job training and counseling centers for career housewives who went through divorce or the death of a husband.

[1][8] Sommers was named one of the "Bay Area's Ten Most Distinguished Persons" by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974.

In 1982, already facing a cancer diagnosis, she was keynote speaker at a conference on employment at Sonoma State University.

[13] The Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco established the Tish Sommers Senior Scholars program to honor her; it supports the work of older graduate and postdoctoral students working to improve the lives of older women.

[26] In 1991, a biography of her was published, titled Tish Sommers, Activist: and the Founding of the Older Women's League.