brandi burns, boise city department of arts & history
PROPOSAL TYPE
Working Group
SEEKING
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
- Seeking Additional Presenters
RELATED TOPICS
- Advocacy
- Place
- Preservation
ABSTRACT
As one of many individuals across the country that worked on the 2020 suffrage commemoration, I would like to propose convening a working group to discuss efforts to continue bringing stories of women to the forefront in our local communities. How do we use the momentum from the centennial to include more women’s voices in our local histories, from Indigenous to Black to Brown women? What is the best format for this work in a world where we are socially distant? How can we coordinate efforts to ensure that even the smallest communities have access to reliable, accurate, and inspiring stories of the women who made a difference in their communities?
DESCRIPTION
The goals of this working group will be to provide attendees a forum to discuss developments in uncovering new stories of women’s contributions to communities across the nation during the 2020 centennial commemoration of the 19th Amendment. Attendees will be able to identify the work still needed to advance the stories of women in their communities and the preservation of local sites. Much of this work was sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic.
High-level goals of the working group will be:
-discuss work accomplished in 2020 (programs held, women uncovered, historic properties identified, etc.)
-discuss how the centennial of the 19th Amendment moved your organization (or personal) work forward
-identify what work still needs to be done (where are the gaps? Who is still left out in the narrative?)
What I’m looking for:
-panelists for the discussion portion of the working group
-advice on topics to include in the discussion
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Brandi Burns, Boise City Department of Arts & History, [email protected]
ALL FEEDBACK AND OFFERS OF ASSISTANCE SHOULD BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 6, 2020. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Hi Brandi, you might want to reach out to Katherine Kitterman of Better Days 2020, https://www.betterdays2020.com/ She has been working within that organization on the centennial commemoration in Utah. Her email is [email protected].
HI Brandi – This sounds fantastic. Here is a list of people to potentially include who are in a position to discuss 19th amendment celebrations and public women’s history in general:
1. Rachel D. Kline, HERstory in the USDA Forest Service (https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/excel/federal-womens-program-visibility-empowers-employees-work-better) and completing a PhD at New Hampshire
2. Alicia Barber, Independent Historian (https://aliciambarber.com/) in Reno, Nevada
3. Jillian Allison, Director of the Center for Colorado Women’s History (https://www.historycolorado.org/center-colorado-womens-history-byers-evans-house-museum)
4. Turkiya Lowe, Chief Historian of the National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/chiefhistorians.htm#)
5. Sylvea Hollis, Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and Sexuality Equality (https://mli.cgu.edu/hollis-sylvea/)
6. Carolyn Brucken, Autry National Center (https://theautry.org/press/expert-resources-2019-01-23)
I really like the idea of this proposal! On the national level, I think that historians such as Martha Jones have been successful in framing this commemoration as a long struggle for citizenship. I would be really interested in how community historians have responded to this challenge, and how they are envisioning a more inclusive women’s history on the local level.
Good luck!
Hi Brandi- I’ve discusses with Alicia and would like to include Nevada’s story.