Rochester NOW Women's History Month Program
Monday, March 15, 2010
7:00 pm
First Unitarian Church, 220 S. Winton Rd
Free and open to the public
Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, the executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, New York, will present "Matilda Joslyn Gage: Bringing Her Into History."
Gage worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in organizing the women’s movement in 19th century America. Dr. Wagner is a nationally recognized lecturer, author and performance interpreter of woman’s rights history.
In 1871, Gage was one of the first of the hundreds of women who tried to vote, breaking the law under a civil disobedience strategy she devised for the National Woman's Suffrage Association.
Adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation, Gage supported native sovereignty and treaty rights. She offered her home as a station on the Underground Railroad, an abolitionist who continued to work for full rights for African Americans after slavery was abolished.
She encouraged her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum, to publish the Oz stories with which he entertained his sons, and she influenced his vision of a world of peace and justice, which captures the hearts of children still today.
Dr. Wagner says Gage was, “A determined activist and one of the most logical, fearless and scientific writers of her day.” Dr. Wagner is a founder of one of the country’s first collegiate women’s studies programs, and received one of the first doctorates awarded for work in women’s studies.
Wagner has taught in women’s studies for thirty-nine years. She currently serves as adjunct faculty in the Honors Program at Syracuse University. Wagner appeared as a “talking head” in the Ken Burns PBS documentary, “Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony” for which she wrote the accompanying faculty guide for PBS. She was also an historian in the PBS special, “One Woman, One Vote” and has been interviewed several times on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Democracy Now.”
The author of numerous books and articles, the theme of her work has been telling the untold stories. Her monograph, She Who Holds the Sky: Matilda Joslyn Gage, (Sky Carrier Press, 2003), reveals a suffragist written out of history because of her stand against religious fundamentalism 100 years ago, while Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists (Native Voices, 2001) documents the influence of native women on early woman's rights activists.
This event is made possible through Speakers in the Humanities, a program of the New York Council for the Humanities. Speakers in the Humanities lectures are made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Legislature, and through funds from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
Since its launch in 1983, the Council’s Speakers in the Humanities program has linked distinguished scholars with a diverse audience through the presentation of lectures on a broad range of topics. All Speakers events are free and open to the general public. Each year, hundreds of cultural organizations and community groups take advantage of this program, which offers the very best in humanities scholarship to thousands of citizens in every corner of New York State.
The New York Council for the Humanities is a not-for-profit, independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through statewide collaborations, and programs and services that encourage imaginative thinking and critical inquiry, the Council works to ensure that the humanities are present in the intellectual and cultural life of every New Yorker.
This is a Speakers in the Humanities lecture made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities.