National Women's History Project

Sonoma County, a dynamic county combining agriculture and industry, City and country, creating unique and varied challenges for its citizens join us as we present some of the information and services provided by the county of Sonoma to help us as we move into the 21st century. Welcome

to Sonoma County in the 90s with your host Dana to Rico and Gina Lash. Hello, I'm dana d'Errico and welcome to Sonoma County in the nineties. Today I have with me an interesting topic. It's the National Women's History Project and with me is mary Ruth's daughter

and she is the project director. So mary, it's great to have you on today. Thank you, inviting me. Yes. Can you tell us exactly what is the National Women's History Project? We're a national organization headquartered here in Sonoma County That started out in 1978 or a

nonprofit and educational group. Our whole purpose is to promote public recognition of women's contributions to American life in every aspect from homemakers through vice presidential candidates. So I understand that this originated in Sonoma County. It did. And this surprises everybody. We're now known around the globe.

And when people try to find us, they of course call Washington D. C. Or new york city or something. And when they finally find us, they say. And just where is Windsor? You know, there's this disbelief in their voices. So your office is actually located in

Windsor and were an outgrowth of a project that started with the Commission on the status of women in 1977 back when the commission was really quite knew, the education Task Force was perplexed by how little people knew about the 130 years of women's rights activity that

had been going on and they were trying to get people more involved in women's rights activities today. And there was this notion that, well, why should women have these things just just because they suddenly want them out of nowhere? What's this all about? You know, what

have women done to earn their way in american culture? I don't know anything about women's history, you know, I've never heard about women doing anything. It was a common obstacle we had to overcome and in fact women have been doing so much for so long. It

seemed that some specific program to talk about it was in order and the idea of women's history week was generated and first tried in 1978 here in Sonoma County, Sonoma County. And so what do you do? Is it a full month? Yes. Since 1987, Congress has

joined us in proclaiming all of March to be national women's history month. And that's just sort of the beginning of what we're trying to do though. March provides an obvious focal point for celebrations and for teachers to start saying to their class as well, let's see

what women were doing during this time that we're studying, but our goal is to have women's accomplishments incorporated in the telling of history as a simple matter of obvious fact all the time. Well, I notice I teach over at the santa rosa Junior College in the

applied engineering department and I noticed that during that month there's all these beautiful posters and things up that are absolutely stunning. Can you tell us a little bit about the women in the history of women? Just some brief. Well, um at the time the colonies were

established, we'll take it back to the beginning. The whole goal was for self determination, for representation, for freedom of religion, for everybody to be able to speak out safely in public. This was true for everybody except women and women had no rights whatsoever. When you or

I married, we became legally dead. We were invisible in the eyes of the law. The rule of thumb was that a husband could beat his wife with a stick no larger than the diameter of his thumb. We lost our names, we lost our property and this

was in the United States of America, the new democracy. How very peculiar. So by 1848, 70 years later enough women with some education gained through their families because girls weren't schooled, um were involved in the thinking that was going on about social change around the globe

and decided to have a women's rights convention the first in the world. Uh so in 1848 they put out this manifesto of declarations that women should be. Well, the most, the most egregious in the public eye was that women should have the vote. This was just

beyond the pale. The backlash started immediately. Um, they were ridiculed and many took their names off the document. They were so embarrassed at the public reaction. But since that time, women have made a lot of um, strides in gaining equality still to go there, we don't

have an equal rights amendment in the constitution, which does mention males specifically, but doesn't mention females. Uh, and in that interim period, women have been involved in every field in engineering, of course, in the arts and sciences, in medicine, advertising. There's just almost no area that

women haven't been involved with historically. We just don't know about them until more currently in the public mind. So that is the general basis to pull out all of this information throughout history. And that's the foundation of this organization. Yes. And not just to focus on

the stars, the people who were the leaders whose names made it into the public discussion, but on all women and all things that all women have always done at the community and family level as well as in the public arena. So what are some of the

kinds and types of things that you do to promote women's history? Well, you mentioned the posters that you've seen. We do a startling line of gorgeous posters. They're all announced through the women's history catalog that we issue three times a year. I've brought one copy here

to show you, would you hold it up? Yes. For our viewers to see. Our catalog is 48 pages of all kinds of wonderful multicultural materials about United States Women's history. So we issued 325,000 of these a couple of times a year with books and videos, C.

Ds, games, all kinds of things about women's history. So how could someone get ahold of that catalog? Do you have a phone number and email? We have everything. Our telephone number is 838 6000. Our email is the acronym for our organization. It's N W H P

at A O L dot com. People doing email know about these dots and things. You know, we have a couple of wonderful websites which will tell you about when you call us or when you get our catalog. Um, there's a lot of information we're putting out.

We also do, we're known for our catalog and we're known for the month, but we also do a lot of teacher training. We work with publishers either as they're writing books or as they're trying to figure out ways to distribute them. Um, we work with teachers

doing curriculum development with video producers, looking for photographs. We've got a spectacular research library that anybody in the county can come and use. Oh, it's open to the public. So definitely. And where are you located? We're in the Windsor business on Bell Road, just south of

the water slide. So that address would be 7738 Bell Road 773. I've always wanted to come over. I had known that you had a business or a library there. Oh, it's wonderful. It's the largest women's history collection. This side of the east coast is enormous and

really excellent. Is there other people there available to assist you while you're using the library? Definitely. There are 12 of us who work full time year round three people are fully versed in all the resources we have. Um, and would be pleased to show you. So

what types of activities are planned for this year for the month of March to celebrate women's history month and living the legend Legacy legacy is just about any program you can think of dana. If your imagination can have it, it's happening. Girl Scouts are doing oral

histories with senior women. Brownies are doing skits in their schools. Um, the United States tactical air base of Korea is do our, I think Korea is doing exhibits in the six buildings on their base about women's history. Um, almost anything you can think of essay competitions,

panels, film shows, They're all listed and indexed on our website too. For anybody who'd like to see what about, you brought some information on the women's history. Um, 150th anniversary. What what can you tell us about that? What information? Well I mentioned when you asked about

the women who decided to hold a convention in 18 48. They did and they put out 18 different um demand Resolutions of things they were going to work for Henceforth and forever. A number of those have been achieved. A number of things have surfaced since that

they wouldn't have ever dreamed about spousal abuse, wasn't mentioned by them because even while the vote was considered radical spousal abuse was just thought not to happen. And if it happens, you don't talk about it. So some issues not imagined 150 years ago are rather new

and very definitely part of the women's rights movement. And these are things that the National Women's History Project is bringing to the fore during this coming year, the 150th anniversary of that convention, we're doing it with a lot of different things. We have one publication, I'll

leave this with you. As I go, it's a living the legacy brochure. Um 20 pages fully illustrated of all kinds of information. So, um, it has an elaborate chronology, essays on the women's rights movement, resources for learning more biographies about women who have been involved, very

thorough for $1. What kind of global impact has this had since it originated here in Sonoma County? The Women's History Month. There are programs that are happening in Amsterdam. Uh well, in several cities in the Netherlands that I know of. There's women's History Museum in Germany

now in Wiesbaden, the whole country of Italy celebrates international Women's Day, which is March 8th. It was the cause for a general strike by women two years ago in Germany where something like 80% of the women who were paid for their work, took the day off

in protest of german women's lack of full rights on March 8th, which is right there in the middle of Women's history month and why we chose March to be the center of it. Um since we've got an email and since we've gotten our two websites, we

hear from people everywhere from teachers in Wales and researchers in Switzerland and activists in Singapore asking us about how they can do programs like this one in their own countries and we respond elaborately so that they can do it as easy as possible. So you're there

as almost a library ahead ahead satellite office or a head office where the satellites can come in and get the information and do something in their countries or their It's become that, isn't it amazing dana. That is amazing. It just every now and then it sort

of catches me too, I think my goodness, it's true. You know, um I didn't know anything about women's history when I began this, I was a good writer and the group of people who did know about women's history needed some more writing talent. So I joined

them and I thought women's history that it would take about a week to tell, you know, I just had no clue. I had been educated. Well, I thought, but not anything about women. Um, since then our office has become the source for women's history information in

the United States. We know who has the traveling exhibits where the films are, who's in the process of making films in the movie and the movie industry and television. Like right now, the latest video from ken Burns, ken Burns is going to be about Susan b

Anthony Elizabeth, cady Stanton. It's in production at this point and they've been in touch with us trying to find people who were activists in 1920. Oh my that's a, you know, a stretch. And then to cover the legacy of these two remarkable women who started the

women's rights movement in this country. That's really interesting. They want to find out the individuals who were, I mean, we see pictures in our history books now when I was in high school carrying the banners and where they were arrested on these little victorian ladies and

having fire in their bones about how they were being treated. And so now they're looking for the names and listings of these types of people for this movie and some women activists from that period or women who were in their early teens perhaps are still alive

and lucid enough to talk about that experience to make that connection with today and today's activism. So they, oh, I see two to present it in the movie to actually talk about it. Yeah. Why I remember when I was a little girl. I can just see

you know a woman named Mabel perhaps from the midwest talking about this? Oh, I can hardly wait for this program. Uh huh. So is it going to be aired on television? Yes, it'll be one of those PBS specials. He did one on baseball in the civil

war. We know him through those programs of his. And this will be the next one that airs well that sounds really interesting that it has grown so much out of something that started right in win in Windsor California. So can you tell me some of the

people who recommended these are made recommendations as to what aspects of the women's history to bring into the focus point? Who would they be? Well, I would lay that at the in the arms of the learner. I think we need to take a brief pause right

here so stay tuned and we'll be right back with more information on women's history project. Changing your oil where you gonna go with that, pour it down the storm drain? You know that oil and water don't mix. You put it down the storm drain eventually it's

going to end up somewhere in the water system. What do I do with it? Recycle it? Recycle your used motor oil? It's an easy thing to do. Cut cut cut cut. Hey, how come you always get to play the hero because I'm the good looking one.

Right, Alright, take two. Welcome back to Sonoma County in the nineties and I am here with mary Ruth's daughter and we're talking about the national Women's history project that originated here in Sonoma County. So let's join mary again, mary we were just getting into, can you

recommend for young women or women of any age? Um that would be more interested in finding out about the history of the women's movement in the United States or in the world for that matter, titles, some names of some books, some research that they can do

on their own. Yes. Um Sonoma County is fortunate to have a very good collection in its central public library in part because the librarians there have always had an interest in the women's history issues that we've brought up in Sonoma County discussion. And in part because

all of the duplicate books that are sent to our office, we donate to the local library system. So I suggest that people approach it the same way I did as I mentioned, I had no history background. I was not raised to think that women had done

anything worth talking about. I thought history was all how many people won the war, You know, things like that, who was president. It didn't occur to me that what women were doing was history also people like myself and that was a terrible loss. You know. So

when I needed to start bringing myself up to speed about women's history, I started reading Children's biographies, biographies that were written for Children. You know, they're real thin, they've got good pictures, they get right to the important points to be raised and then it's over. And

if you want to know more than you could read more. But in the meantime it's a good way to get introduced to different women I know in our local libraries. We have books about jane Adams who started the whole house in Chicago, which became a model

for settlement houses during the period of heavy immigration in the United States at the turn of the century. This is still happening today. There's a settlement project here in Sonoma County. Um, Jane Adams was a fascinating person, an example of an educated woman at a time

when women were generally educated. So what was she going to do? She and these other women that she went to school with. There was no place for them in our culture yet. And so they turned their work to what had been traditionally women's interests and involvements,

community improvement, safe water, public education, cultural things. And they did it with an eye to helping immigrants become more comfortable dealing with the novelty of living in this new country. They have excellent books about her. Alice paul is a fascinating person and who is Alice paul,

I've never heard of Alice paul, my daughter's name is Alice, I wish it was because I knew about Alice paul at the time. I didn't, but I think it's a good coincidence. Alice paul became prominent in the news in 1918 and 1919 for being arrested repeatedly

as she was trying to win the vote for women and you know what she did, that was so horrible that would get her arrested. She stood outside the White House silently holding signs asking for women's right to vote. This was considered disturbing the peace and she

and all of the women who stood with her for a year through all the changes of weather that you can imagine in Washington from sweltering to freezing that whenever they were um attacked, they called it molested whenever they were attacked by people going by who thought

that this was an outrageous thing. The women themselves were the ones arrested for disturbing the peace and taken to jail. They were called serfs like suffragist like Ike is called Eisenhower just to make it fit in the newspapers better. And it was all this stuffs arrested

again, suffers freed again, arrested again, suffers freed again. And Alice paul was the personality behind that. But first civil disobedience in the United States for the vote, interesting story. She went on to lead the movement for the equal rights amendment. She introduced that to Congress, um,

has a very fascinating story and our public library has books about her for young readers as well as for a but I suggest the Children's section first Amelia Earhart. Now this is someone you probably did know about when you were growing up, Amelia Earhart's flight has

just been redone flying around the world trying to fly nonstop. She was an early pilot in aviation history um she had the good sense to marry a publicist and together they popularized both her and her professional work as a pilot and the concept of women being

able to do something that was considered so very male fly an airplane, one of those big machines now of course women drive earth moving machines and you know everything else in between sports cars and racing by but this was extraordinarily novel and as she did it

in trousers. Oh my goodness! So Amelia Earhart is a favorite. Always, always. I always enjoyed Julia morgan. Oh yes, and what do you remember from what you've read about her that she went to the bazaar school of Architecture, she went to UC Berkeley at turn of

the century and she was not, they did not allow women into any of the programs, they did not have an architectural program. So she went into the engineering program because they didn't know what else to do with her. And so then she went on, studied under

Maynard, what was his name, started with a b anyhow, She studied, bernard Bernard, Yes, yes and she studied under him, he encouraged her to go on to France to the bazaar school of Architecture where they studied the classical and they wouldn't lower in because she was

a woman and after four times she scored six on the test out of thousands they let her in. When she graduated she won all the honors, all the gold medals etcetera. They wrote she would make a perfect employee for the depart for any architects firm as

she does excellent work much superior to her male counterparts. And needless to say she's only a woman so you have to pay her nearly nothing. And so I just love that part about her. It was very interesting. Well you get a belated a for your women's

history knowledge. That was very good. Well thank you. Her story was repeated with Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. When Sandra Day O'Connor finished law school at stanford. Oh my goodness, this was recently and it seems so long ago, doesn't it?

Late eighties, 19 eighties she's currently seated. She was the first woman ever on the U. S. Supreme Court. But when she graduated from college about 20 years before she was also very high in her class at stanford. No small potatoes and the only job she could

get was as a law secretary which she took, she wanted to be in law. The same happened with Patsy Mink who graduated from law school in Chicago in the sixties. Couldn't find a position for a lawyer only as an assistant. So she started her own firm

and later ran for Congress where she's been for, I think eight terms now doing all sorts of law on behalf of women's rights in particular. So it happened at the turn of the century, it happened as recently as during our adulthood that well trained women could

only find support positions and this has to stop. Half the population must be, you know, fully integrated. So that will have the benefit of the whole populations brain power and interests. So, um, let's talk about how is the women's History project supported? We've talked about maybe

some areas of interest for our viewers to look into all interested. How is this supported? Well, it's really different from most nonprofits anywhere in the United States were almost entirely self supporting through sales of materials from our catalog, through the consulting. We do for publishers and

media people through the in service trainings we do for teachers all over the country. The conferences we put on, um, what else do we do? Uh, the videos we produce, the posters we produce that are sold by other people as well. This is really different. Um,

a lot of organizations are dependent on outside funding, either on another organization that supplies them with the capital they need or on grants which are increasingly difficult to get or on direct contributions from supporters like the red cross perhaps. Um, it was apparent to us from

the beginning that that was going to be a difficult road to follow for women's history when people had no concept about the value of it or Yeah, what on earth is this they're talking about? So with the help of local people in business, we started our

mail order service, making it possible for people wherever they live to get really quality materials through the mail from us. Um, then in order to find materials that were really of quality, often we had to produce them. Point in case is the video that we've done

about mexican american women's History Until about two weeks ago. Yeah, it really was just two weeks ago. There wasn't even a book about Mexican American women's history. Just the history. There were psychological profiles and sociological surveys and things, but not the history. So we did a

video, we did it in Spanish and in English and got that out in 1992. Um, I think a lot of what we're able to do too is just the fact that we've worked together for so long and so. Well, that's been an interesting thing. Go on.

Some of the people who started the project way back in 1978 are still with it. Um, I, every now and then I'm just stunned that I still am. I thought, as I mentioned to you women's history. How long did this take? Six weeks? Maybe? Maybe at

the most. Um, and here I am, almost 20 years later. Still just up to my eyebrows and happy about it, you know? Um, but we work together very well and Um, we have new people all the time. Do you publish books? We don't publish books, but

we publish things up to about 60 pages. And what are these 60 page documents a lot of times their curriculum units. So if you, for instance, were a teacher and you were charged with teaching civics. Now, I know that in civics, women have had a lot

of impact. But I wonder what, so you can get in touch with us. We could send you this curriculum unit about women's participation, constitutional issues. And without having to become an expert yourself, you could start incorporating women routinely in your civics class. Likewise, in mathematics, we

know a lot about women in mathematics and engineering for instance. Um we can help teachers in mathematics use women to exemplify progress in the field of mathematics as they do men right now. We also publish a lot of planning guides. So if you, for instance, move

to Bakersfield and he thought gee, they're not doing very much here. I'd like to do something about women's history. I wonder how I should get started. We could send you a get started booklet. Oh, I see. So you provide the information on how to get started

to make the community aware of, of women's history, what a press release is and what you do with one for instance, not everybody knows. We helped make that just as easy as abc what about the museums and and those types of things. Do you work directly

with any of them internationally? Son House and Museum. And here are local museum has done a number of things about women's history. They had a wonderful Women's Equality Day program about three years ago, I think where Lynn woolsey who had just been elected, our representative came

and spoke on the steps of the museum in the tradition of the suffrage movement. They had a beautiful traveling exhibit about the suffrage movement in California. And they did this for August 26 the day women won the vote in 1920 and we coordinated it for them.

We worked with museums all around the country, not only the special interest women's museums, but all the public ones as well. You know, my grandmother is still alive and I need to ask her about that because in 1920 she would have probably been about 10 years

old and I should ask her if she remembers anything about that just triggered that, that thought. And just generally how her life and her expectations were different from her daughter's life and expectations and from years it would make a wonderful thanksgiving day. You know, exchange just

the next time you're together. Find out about the women in your own family. Yes, I guess my daughter did a minor in Women's History, Women's Studies. So well, we're about out of time. And you have so much information. It's been so interesting. And I'm going to

be paying you a visit up in on Bell Road and Windsor. Thank you for joining us and we'll be looking forward to all those events in March on Women's history. So thank you for joining us. I'm Dana Derek. Oh, and this is Sonoma County in the

nineties. I hope to see you next time.