Women's History Resources/Suffrage Centennials

March - Women's History Month, is a terrific time for young and old readers to learn more about the incredible women who have paved the way for us.

Some of Claire’s favorite women’s history resources:

(Books for young readers starred)

*Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World, by Cynthia Chin-Lee, illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy.

*America in the Time of Susan B. Anthony by

America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines, Gail Collins.

*American Women: Their Lives in Their Words, Doreen Rappaport

* Fanny Lou Hamer and the Fight of the Vote, by Penny Colman

* Demanding Justice: A Story about Mary Ann Shadd Cary by Jeri Chase Ferris

*I Could Do That! Esther Morris Gets Women the Vote, by Linda Arms White

*Jeanette Rankin: Political Pioneer, Gretchen Woelfle; Jeanette Rankin: First Lady of Congress by Trish Marx

Jeannette Rankin: America’s Conscience by Norma Smith

Iron-Jawed Angels, HBO movie, starring Hillary Swank, set in the 1916 suffrage battle. These incredible women were willing to die for the vote.

Living Voices: Brings Life to History – Seattle - 206-328-0798, www.livingvoices.org
livingvoices@livingvoices.org. Variety of live programs available for schools.

*Luba: The Angel of Bergen-Belsen by Luba Tryszysnska-Frederick, picture book set in Nazi POW camp

* Mama Went To Jail for the Vote, by Kathleen Karr, illustrated by Malene Laugesen

*Rabble Rousers: 20 Women Who Made a Difference by Cheryl Harness

* Radical Red by James Duffy, out of print middle grade novel about suffrage

*Victoria Woodhull: Fearless Feminist by Kate Havelin (older nf)

*We the People: The 19th Amendment by Michael Burgan

Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement, P.J. Cooney, TERRIFIC RESOURCE - in collaboration with the National Women’s History Project www.nwhp.org.

*With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right To Vote, Ann Bausum

Women’s Voices form the Western Frontier, by Susan G. Butrille

Please
“Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices, 1910-2010” Washington Centennial Suffrage Commemoration

Commemorations around the state on February 25,2009 and November 8, 2010. Email or sign up with Claire Rudolf Murphy (clairerudolfmurphy@gmail.com) to help plan events for Spokane area.

For more information:
http://www.washingtonwomenshistory.org/
The Women's History Consortium, part of the Washington State Historical Society, dedicated to preserving and making available resources about Washington women's history.

email: sstevenson@wshs.wa.gov
211 21st Avenue SW
Olympia, WA 98501
Phone: 360-586-0171
Fax: 360-586-8322

A Force for Children

Here at StoryForce our goal is to be a Force for children. Sometimes we meet or read about someone who inspires us through their own actions on behalf of children. Writer Lynn L. Caruso introduces us to one such a person in her latest book "Honoring Motherhood."

Gabriela Mistral:
First South American Woman to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature
Poet, Educator, Diplomat, Reformer

“We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is Today.”

– Gabriela Mistral Su Nombre es Hoy (His Name is Today)

Gabriela Mistral:

• Chilean 1889-1957, pseudonym for Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga
• Often referred to as the “Mother of the Nation” because her poems often referenced children.
• First Latin American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945)
• Started her career as an elementary and secondary school teacher in Chile.
• Later worked with government educational reform programs in Chile and Mexico and as a cultural minister and diplomat.
• And later as a professor of Spanish literature in the U.S.

HER WRITING:

• Mistral wrote on the dominant themes of motherhood, love, childhood, nature, and death. She was an advocate for children, particularly those living in poverty.
• Mistral experienced many hardships in her life including the suicide of both her fiance' and her adopted son. The first collection of poems for which she received recognition addressed her lover's suicide.
• Four of her poems are included in Honoring Motherhood (pp. 24, 35, 72, and 91).
  • The Franciscan Order of Chile requested a monetary donation to “the impoverished children of Chile” as compensation for reprinting her poems in Honoring Motherhood. In this small way, her life’s work/legacy continues -- both her written work and her advocacy for children.

Support School Libraries

Citizens across the state of Washington are calling on state leaders to ensure that all Washington elementary and secondary students have full-time access to school libraries and a certified teacher librarian.

It is our hope that Washington voices can help reverse the trend of serious reductions to our school library programs by calling on our leaders to ensure that teacher librarians, library programs and technology training are no longer at risk. It is our wish that our children and their teachers have full and equal access to the literacy and collaborative opportunities provided by our school libraries and certified teacher librarians. It is our belief that information literacy and the technology training facilitated in our school libraries are crucial to our children, and that the teacher librarian's knowledge of student ability allows them to place "just right books" into the hands of students, fostering a love of reading and life-long learning.

If you want more information or to contact your legislature:

http://gopetition.com/petitions/world-class-education-for-washington.html

Resources You Can Use: Women's History

Web Links for Women's History Information

American Women's History: A Research Guide
Digital Collections of Primary Sources
http://frank.mtsu.edu/%7Ekmiddlet/history/women/wh-digcoll.html

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a national research library devoted to collecting, preserving and providing access to resources documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world. This portion of their Web site has full text of biographies by or about African American women of the 19th century, arranged alphabetically by author.
Digital Schomburg: African American Women Writers of the 19th Century: Biographies and Autobiographies

A project of Brown University and Honors English Program at South Kingstown High School, RI. This site is mainly composed of twenty six oral history accounts of grandmothers by their granddaughters. It also includes a glossary, a brief WW II timeline and several articles on women and WW II.
What Did You Do in the War Grandma?

WWW Virtual Library Women's History
The main purposes of this virtual library are to list women's history institutions and organizations, locate archival and library collections, and provide links to Internet resources on women's history. In addition, also included are a list of women's studies journals and a few comprehensive link collections useful as a starting point for searching the Internet for women's studies in general.
http://www.iisg.nl/w3vlwomenshistory/unitedstates.html

Study on women looking at pages from Ladies Home Journal 1889.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ573385&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ573385

Women Working, 1800 - 1930 focuses on women's role in the United States economy and provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections. The collection features approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images.
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/

StoryForce in Spokane, Washington

StoryForce Kicks Off Women’s History Month

March 3, 2008

3:30pm-4:30pm

Forza Coffee in the Lincoln Heights Mall right next to 2^nd Look Books.

Please join us for:

· Conversation

· Local authors Claire Rudolf Murphy, Kelly Milner Halls,

· Lynn Caruso, Mary Cronk Farrell

· The story of Spokane Foremother May Arkwright Hutton

· League of Women Voters

· Door Prizes

· Resources on Women’s History

· No host coffee bar

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess

Author Mary Cronk Farrell gets a wonderful, warm welcome at Harrington School on Dr. Suess' Birthday. Thanks Harrington!! Mary had a great time celebrating with you and honoring one of the best writers known to children. Her favorite part was reading "Sneetches" aloud to the students. She also appreciated the mining display and your interest in her historical novel "Fire in the Hole!" .

StoryForce in Salt Lake City