March is ........ WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH.....

...Or should we call it Women's Herstory Month?  We believe HER-STORY is very important to HIS-STORY.    Our monthly talk from the Bullis Room will be about the Notable Women Represented in the Bullis Collection.

Not only do we have Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth but we also have many other women who impacted their society around them.  Hannah More became an abolitionist. Maria Edgeworth created moral tales for children and published a parenting book.  Olive Oatman survived being captured by the Native Americans in the Southwest.  Helena Rutherford Ely who wrote a book on gardening methods in the early 1900's.  Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson wrote a guide for Victorian era women going on mountain or hunting trips.  And then there was George Sand - enough said!!

The photo above is of Stacey Wicksall (Director) and Helen Darrow (Library Board President) posing along side a life size photo of Sojourner Truth on Library Advocacy Day 2017 in Albany.  All of these women have impacted those around them.  Her-Story is an important story.  Join us as we talk about these women who impacted their world on March 29 at 2 p.m. in the Bullis Room at the Macedon Public Library.  

Womens' History Month

March is Womens' History Month and because of that our Bullis display case is full of books written by and/or about women.  Some of the books displayed are about famous women (The heroines of history -Jenkins; Famous Authors (Women) - Harkins; A narrative of the life of Mary Jemison - Seaver; Famous Women: George Sand - Thomas; Life and work of Susan B. Anthony - Harper; Women of the War; Their Heroism and self-Sacrifice - Moore;  Narrative of Sojourner Truth - Truth; A New negro for a New Century - Washington).  A couple of books are about Women's experiences ranging from captivity to traveling with your husband in the West (Captivity of the Oatman Girls - Stratton and A Woman Tenderfoot by Grace Seton.)  There is fiction -Little Women by Alcott;  cultures and women ( Moslem women - Zwemer and Western Women in Eastern Lands- Montgomery); a local woman's diary where she chronicles the year of 1870 - the year her husband died; and a look back at choices a woman might make (If I were a girl again - Keeler).  And this is just a small sampling of books one might find in the collection that pertain to women.
We also have another exploration of the Bullis Books Library occurring on March 29 at 2 p.m.  And the topic will be Notable Women in the Bullis Collection. The photo shows a sampling.  One of my favorites is A Woman Tenderfoot. The author was traveling west with her husband.  She had appropriate riding clothes made and just was very common sense as she approached this travel plan.  And then she shares the details of the trip. There was adventure/danger and lots of stories to tell.  In preparation for our exploration I've found books that were owned by Kate Gleason from Gleason Works.  One wonders if she shared them with Nettie Bullis because she thought they were a good read or a different reason.  We will also talk some about Miss Bullis.  Hope you can join us!
Another program planned around women will be History Now: 2017 Women's March in Washington, DC.  Our presenters will be our own Pioneer Library System director, Lauren Moore, and Denise Munson, Esq.  Both women attended the march with their daughters and will share the details of their experience on Saturday, March 25 at 3 p.m.  Hope to see you at the Macedon Library.

CELEBRATING WOMEN

Around the globe International Women's Day is recognized in many different ways. Those of us who are privileged to work with the Bullis collection celebrate this day quietly in two ways. First, we again acknowledge (and thank) Nettie Bullis for her generosity to this community. And second, we review the collection's books on great women. We've already posted information on this blog about most of these books; thus we're listing below the posts for your reference.

Please link to our posts on:

March 26, 2009, "Women's History Month," for Bullis books on everyday women who have achieved great accomplishments;

August 19, 2009, "Women's Equality," for Bullis books on Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton;

November 5, 2009, "Women's Sufferage," for Bullis books on Susan B. Anthony;

and

September 10, 2011, "Two Amazing Women," for Bullis books on Sojourer Truth.

March is Women's History Month. We invite you to stop by the Bullis Room during the month to learn more about women's accomplishments and contributions to our society.

TWO AMAZING WOMEN

This week we continued to read through the Bullis Room's copy of Sojourner Truth, and we couldn't help being reminded of another great woman who made an important impact on her society--Nettie Bullis.

Nettie Bullis made her impact in a quieter way, on a smaller scale, showing her contemporaries that it was possible for a women to succeed in what was then a man's world.

Sojourner Truth died ten years before Nettie Bullis was born, but although they were women of different centuries, they shared a cause--women's rights--and each in her way was truly amazing.

If you'd like to know more about either of these women, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room.

LABOR DAY(S)

In 1894, the year after Nettie Bullis was born, Labor Day was designated a federal holiday and observed with street parades honoring labor organizations and festivals for workers and their families. From what we know of the Bullis family, we wonder if they would have taken part in these festivities. Perhaps they did. Or, perhaps they stayed home and read some of their books on the subject. Here are a few they had to choose  from.

1) An Introduction to the Study of Organized Labor in America by George Gorham Groat, published in 1920.

2) Rural Letters and Other Records of Thought at Leisure, Written in the Intervals of More Hurried Literary Labor by Nathaniel Parker Willis, published in 1849.

3) Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a bondswoman of olden time, emancipated by the New York Legislature in the early part of the present century. With a history of her labors and correspondence drawn from her "Book of Life" by Sojourner Truth,  published in 1875.

Our choice of reading is the last book listed.   In next week's post we'll share some fascinating things about this book and its remarkable author.

(Just an aside - when we searched the Bullis Books data base for "labor," one of the results was David Copperfield, which of course is another wonderful read...but perhaps not for a "day off.")