via National Women’s History Museum:

The National Women’s History Museum pays homage to the academic field of women’s history with the release of its newest mini-documentary series, “Keepers of History: Women Who Protected One Half of Our Nation’s Story.” The 20-minute video traces the development of the women’s history field and shines a spotlight on the women historians, who against tough barriers preserved the stories, contributions and experiences of American women. The video also pays tribute to the tremendously valuable contributions that women’s history archives played in the development of the discipline.

For much of its existence, the standard field of U.S. history ignored and diminished the importance of women’s lives, work and experiences. The type of history that long was taught focused almost exclusively on white men, usually those in politics and the military; and women historians as well as women’s history were relegated to the footnotes of our national story.

It was only in the mid 1960s that women’s history began to solidify as an academic field. Yet, for as long as there has been a United States of America, there have been female historians. Mercy Otis Warren, for example, not only helped create the American Revolution with her anonymous anti-British plays; she also recorded the war’s history in three handwritten volumes.

Historian Mary Ritter Beard (left) not only participated in the Suffrage Movement for the vote, but she also published on the topic of women’s history as early as 1915. Her seminal work, Women as a Force in History (1946), challenged the foundation of popular viewpoints that held women as inconsequential in the rise of American and global civilization. It also provided a guide to those historians who later would establish the field of American women’s history.

The documentary also features other important women’s history scholars, such as Gerda Lerner, who was paramount to the development of the field. She founded the first graduate program in women’s history in 1972 at New York’s Sarah Lawrence College.

The documentary is an informative and fascinating look at the challenges women historians faced in preserving the history of our foremothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters, and incorporating it into the larger story of U.S. History. To view the video go to  http://www.nwhm.org/about-nwhm/press/featured-press/keepers.

via National Women’s History Project.  Here is President Barack Obama’s proclamation:

Before the Amendment took effect, women had been serving our Nation in the public realm since its earliest days.  Even before they gained the right to vote, America’s women were leaders of movements, academics, and reformers, and had even served in the Congress.  Legions of brave women wrote and lectured for change.  They let their feet speak when their voices alone were not enough, protesting and marching for their fundamental right to vote in the face of heckling, jail, and abuse.  Their efforts led to enormous progress    millions upon millions of women have since used the power of the ballot to help shape our country.

Today, our Nation’s daughters reap the benefits of these courageous pioneers while paving the way for generations of women to come.  But work still remains.  My Administration is committed to advancing equality for all of our people.  This year, the Council of Women and Girls released “Women in America:  Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,” the most comprehensive report in 50 years on the status of women in our country, shedding light on issues women face in employment, crime, health, and family life.  We are working to ensure that women-owned businesses can compete in the marketplace, that women are not discriminated against in healthcare, and that we redouble our efforts to bring an end to sexual assault on college campuses.

On the 91st anniversary of this landmark in civil rights, we continue to uphold the foundational American principles that we are all equal, and that each of us deserves a chance to pursue our dreams.  We honor the heroes who have given of themselves to advance the causes of justice, opportunity, and prosperity.  As we celebrate the legacy of those who made enormous strides in the last century and before, we renew our commitment to hold true to the dreams for which they fought, and we look forward to a bright future for our Nation’s daughters.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 26, 2011, as Women’s Equality Day.  I call upon the people of the United States to celebrate the achievements of women and recommit ourselves to the goal of gender equality in this country.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty fifth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.

BARACK OBAMA
Women’s Rights and Women’s Equality Day Resources

National Women’s History Project
3440 Airway Dr Ste F
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
http://www.nwhp.org
(707) 636-2888
nwhp@nwhp.org

Now that I’ve unpacked and recovered from a full weekend, I’m now ready to fill you in on the rest of my conference highlights:

Friday:

I went to the DuBois Library to check out the University’s Digital History Lab.  I was very impressed by the lay out and state-of-the art equipment in the lab itself but the staff didn’t seem prepared for the open house and just showed us the website.  I could have done that on my own!  Nevertheless, the website is a great introduction to the field.  I then checked out the book exhibit, where I collected a bunch of discount flyers and plan to order way more books than I need or can possibly read!  Then it was off to lunch with my fellow panelists for the first of my Saturday afternoon session (more on that later). In the afternoon, I attended an excellent session, #55 on “Racialized Childhood and Youth: Gendered Visions of the Coming Generation in Transnational Perspective.” A The most useful paper for my work was Zora Simic’s “What Sort of ‘Problem’ is Teenage Pregnancy.”  One of the most interesting points I got out of her talk was the ways in which the “epidemic” of teenage pregnancy described in the 1970s conflicted with the female timetable and aspirations for girls set by liberal Second Wave feminists.  I mentioned a post on Ms. Magazine blog complaining about Forever 21’s maternity line.  The post complained that “With 65 percent of their clientele under the age of 24, the real issue here is the normalization of teen pregnancy.”  Many of the commentators rightly clobbered Ms for that one — some observed that 20-somethings are not teens, some said they would have loved to have fashionable and affordable clothes when they were pregnant at age 19/20, and argued that the whole article did nothing more than shame pregnant teens.  Finally, one teenager observed:  ” As a 16 year old girl, I don’t walk into a store see maternity clothes and think ‘I guess it’s time to get pregnant” or “I suppose it’s alright to get pregnant because they’re selling clothes for pregnant women in a store targeted at my age group.’ Just saying.”

fter that, I attended part of session #72, “Researching and Interpreting Feminist Activism of the 1960s and 1970s: an Intergenerational Roundtable.”  The session was packed and a bit uncomfortable because it was in an un-airconditioned room in 80 degree heat.  I only had my iPod with me, so only got out a couple of tweets:

Problems of writing recent history and getting corrected by those who were there #Berks2011

Sheila Rowbotham women’s hist not just great rev moments need to look at stuff in between #Berks2011

It was a good thing I was monitoring the Twitter backchannel, because I almost missed the poster session.  This is the first time the Berkshire Conference has offered this option.  There were lots of great posters, but I also kept running into people I knew, or who wanted to introduce themselves to me, so I didn’t really get to look at any of them in depth.  Tenured Radical has a brief clip of one of the presenters. Next time I hope the conference organizers have more than one day or at least a longer time period than two hours that doesn’t overlap with other sessions.

The highpoint of the day was the blogger meet-up in the graduate student lounge (aka bar)– here’s Tenured Radical at left presiding.  After that, I went to the Green Street Cafe in Northampton for another great restaurant week meal.

Saturday was very busy — I did check out session #82, “Performing the Body,” where Lori Rotskoff’s paper “From ‘Daughters of Maybelline’ to ‘Sisters of Freedom’: Second Wave Feminism, Girls’ Activism and the Politics of Appearance in the United States” made me nostalgic for “Free to Be You and Me” and other feminist children’s programming of the 1970s.

I then took the morning and lunchtime to fine-tune my presentation for session 150, “The Transgressive Body: Young Women as Objects and Agents of Desire”; and my comments for session 154 “In and Out of the Doctor’s Office: Medicine, Health Policy, and Gendered Expectations.”  After that, I was pretty well spent, so met up with some friends to knit and drink in the graduate student lounge followed by another restaurant week dinner at Sierra Grille.

Overall this was an excellent conference — the campus hotel was comfortable, quiet, and affordable.  The conference staff were helpful and friendly and the quality of the sessions I attended were very high.    If you attended the conference, submit your comments at the section of the conference blog called “Think/Learn/Teach/Do,”  If you didn’t attend, I encourage you to attend the next one in Toronto, Ontario in 2014 — this will be the first time the Berkshire conference will be held in Canada.

For other reports, see the ones by the aforementioned Tenured Radical, “Classy Claude” at Historiann (who was unable to attend herself because of a last minute family emergency), and Another Damned Medievalist who calls on future Berkshire organizers to include more pre-16th century sessions.

Hi folks,

Thought I would post a quick update before heading off to a busy day of sessions and workshops.  I arrived around 2pm.  The campus center and hotel was easy to find but there was no elevator in the parking garage — huh?  How does UMass get around ADA on that one?!

Fortunately, things went splendidly after that.  Got checked into the hotel and conference very quickly (it helps to arrive early!)  Then I attended the session, “Using the Past to Shape the Future: Interpretation at Historic Sites and Museums.”  The major theme of this session was community engagement — i.e. how to be more in touch with the local community and expand civic role by encouraging people in the surrounding area through programming that uses the collections to illuminate contemporary issues. For example, Lisa Junkin from the Jane Addams Hull House Museum said that the site is both a traditional house museum and a place that looks at the “unfinished business” of the settlement movement, such as “what happened to the Progressive era origins and intentions of the juvenile justice system.”  Junkin also cracked that it was easier than expected to start a Sex positive film series at the museum because her director acknowledged that Hull House was “one of the queerest sites in Chicago!”  (e.g. the partnership between Jane Addams and her life-long companion Ellen Starr Jordan).  Rosa Cabrera talked about the Field Museum’s work on collecting stories from immigrant communities in Chicago and how these personal accounts reflect these individual’s environmental values.  For the stories, see their blog.  Vivien Rose from the Women’s Rights National Historical Park also emphasized that women’s history sites, as they have become part of the “establishment” are in danger of becoming too static and need to be more creative about finding ways to connect to their communities (at least I think this was her point — I’m not an expect in museum studies!)

I had to meet some knitting friends for an outing to WEBS (for those who are not fiber freaks this is the famous yarn store in Northampton) so I left towards the end of Dawn Adiletta’s presentation on the Salons at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center— so by way of apology, I’ll give a big plug for these programs and make an effort to finally attend one myself!

After the trip to WEBS where I used the gift card I received for Christmas, we went to downtown Northampton for dinner where we discovered it’s restaurant week.  We had a huge three course meal at Spoleto for only $21.95.    Now I’ve got to decide which one to go to tonight.

Today I’m planning to go to the Digital History Lab at the library so I can find out what the folks here at UMass are doing, and then copy it for my courses this fall!