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Linda Crooks, the sales manger of Borders in Stroudsburg, PA, and Tina Zaragoza, business & educational sales account rep, greeted me as I walked into the store: "You must be our author," said Linda."Yes, " I replied. "How did you know?""You have that author-ly walk," she said. (Tina spelled "author-ly" for me.)"And what does that look like?""You're comfortable walking into a bookstore, but you're not sure about where we've set you up to sign books."And she was correct because sometimes authors are relegated to a far away corner. But not here--Linda had a table and terrific display of Adventurous Women right by the front door. For two hours, I had fun talking to people as they streamed into this great bookstore. There was the boy who asked his mother to buy Adventurous Women for me to autograph to his step-Nanny as a gift for Mothers' Day, a father who bought a copy for his teenage daughters Rachel and Alia because he wants them to "achieve their full potential," and the twin girls who zipped over to the display and grabbed a copy that their dad bought for them. He said he was glad that they wanted to read a book because he hadn't read one in three months. Jeanmarie was particularly interested in one of the women in my book--Alice Hamilton, a scientist who undertook hazardous adventures and established the field of industrial toxicology. Carol bought a copy to donate along with a quilt for a raffle at a breast cancer event in the Fall. We collaborated to come up with just the right dedication: "To all courageous women who are traveling down their own adventurous road."
Sophie and I spent a full day gardening. Here she is digging a hole in which to plant the French pink pussy willow tree that was loaded with plumb catkins (in the foreground). As always, my various writing projects were subminally at work in my mind. Also consciously gardening reminds me of writing--designing, digging, planting, tending, anticipating, and the arc of the seasons. The narrative arc for Stirring Up the World: Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, A Biography of a Powerful Friendship is divided into Part I and II: intimacy, adversity, friction, renewal, distance, heartbreak. Part III is: the story continues. That narrative arc could sort of describe gardening too, couldn't it.
Yesterday we started our Sophie/Grammie day with a long subway
ride to Lafayette Street and the Children's Museum of Art, a great space with activity stations where children can do everything from drawing a self-portrait, making a boat, playing with flubber, bouncing on big multi-colored rubber balls, etc. On our way back uptown, we stopped at New York University to visit our friend Sue Kirch, who is a science educator at New York University (Sophie's Daddy's alma mater). Sue took us to her classroom to see butterflies and plants with eggs and caterpillars. In the picture Sue and Sophie are looking through a magnifying glass to scrutinize a piece of leaf that broke off from one of the plants in the foreground that has caterpillar eggs and newborn caterpillars. Behind Sophie, is a stand covered with netting with trays of plants and butterflies. On our way back to the subway, Sophie spotted a baby robin under a bush!Sue's classroom is in the building at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, the site of the memorial to the 146 victims, mostly young women, who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, March 25, 1911. For many years, ceremonies commemorating that horrific event have been held around that date. In the picture, Sophie and I are reading the banner marking this year--the 97th year since the tragedy. Each stem of the white carnations has a label with a person's name. I learned about the Triangle fire during my research for my biography of Frances Perkins who witnessed the fire. The scene, she later explained "struck at the pit of my stomach. I felt I must sear it not only on my mind but on my heart as a never-to-be-forgotten reminder of why I had to spend my life fighting conditions that could permit such a tragedy." As secretary of labor, throughout the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Perkins did just that as the architect of far-reaching reforms and social legislation--safer working conditions, reasonable working hours, unemployment insurance, and, the establishment of Social Security.We ended our day in Englewood coloring Easter eggs, playing a game, and eating pasta. Then it was back across the George Washington Bridge--home for Sophie & a trip to Teachers College for Linda to pick-up and drop off work. It was a fun, fascinating on-the-go day!
Teachers who are taking one of the courses I teach at Queens College, read Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II and were delighted to learn that Dot Chastney whose memories I use throughout Rosie appears (under her married name Dot Emer) in my forthcoming book Thanksgiving: The True Story. "After reading Rosie, I feel that I know Dot," enthused Patricia, a kindergarten teacher. "Please say 'hello' to her from me."
When I said that Dot had recently emailed a
picture, they asked me to post it (a picture of Dot in third grade is in Rosie, p. 1.) With Dot's permission, here is a picture of her with the Lama Tenzin along with excerpts from her email. But first a brief update: Having retired as the children's librarian in Englewood, NJ, Dot and her husband Ralph (who also appears in Thanksgiving: The True Story) moved to Boca Raton, Florida where Dot is a middle school librarian at Saint Andrew's.
"We're having an interesting week at school," she wrote. "The Friends of the Arts have brought a Buddhist monk, Lama Tenzin, on campus to create a mandala. Have you ever seen one? It's a beautiful design all made of colored sand . . . . He's working on the mandala in the foyer to the dining hall and so all the kids get to watch him as they go back and forth to meals . . . . On Thursday after lunch they will sweep all the sand into jars and carry them to the pond for a ceremony, returning sand to the earth and spreading it throughout the world . . . . The Lama has a very good sense of humor and seems to enjoy talking to everyone."p.s. Update from Dot in response to a request from my students that she send them a message: "I'll think about something relevant to write to your students. Right now we're on spring break until April 1. I brought home a stack of books to read from my new book shipment of about 400 books! Perhaps I could make some comment about doing that and my reactions to what I'm reading, AND my frustrations with some of the books. I can also make a few comments about non-fiction books I buy."
Rose M. Keene, a riveter and welder who helped build the Battleship New Jersey during World War II, came to my talk on "Rosie the Riveter" at the Camden Historical Society, Camden, NJ on Sunday, March 9. She recalled everything--the molding she welded around the officers' bunk, where she riveted, what she wore, and her boss Orville "Pop Robbie" Robinson. "He was constantly bugging me," she said. "So I took him home, introduced him to my mother, and he married her!"
In the top picture, I am giving Rose a close-up look at my PowerPoint. She was fascinated with the primary source documents--advertisements, photos, etc. We were a tag team as we talked about each image--me from my research, her from her first-hand experience. Along with an image of the sheet music for the "Rosie the Riveter" song, I had inserted the sound. When I click on the icon (all new technology for Rose), she immediately started singing along and dancing in her chair! Rose's granddaughter Debbie is standing behind her. Sovonne Ukam is standing behind me. Bottom picture: She also loved seeing all the pictures in my book, Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II. I, of course, gave her a specially autographed copy of my book. In the spring, Rose is taking her 8-year grandson Damian on a tour of the "New Jersey." She
wants him to "know what I did to help win the war!" I am planning to go with them. These unexpected encounters are one of the perks about being a writer.
A modern picture of The Battleship New Jersey, now a museum located on the Camden side of the Delaware River (Philadelphia skyline is the in the background).
March 8th is International Women's Day, a day of world-wide events, including a two-day workshop in Saudi Arabi on women's economic rights, an anti-domestic violence event in Albania, a discussion about women's world-wide friendships and children's rights in Iceland, and a musical festival in Kenya. IWD dates back to 1908 and a march by thousands of women workers. The day was named in 1909 and widely celebrated by 1911, the year of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City that killed 146 girls and women. In the 1970s, the UN held a global IWD. I'll be marking it by speaking at Borders Bookstore in Ft. Lee, NJ, on Adventurous Women: Eight True Stories About Women Who Made A Difference. My appearance coincides with a Sophie-sleep-over so she'll be there too; very cool because I dedicated that book to her!
A press release from the National Women's History Project. Check out their terrific website at www.nwhp.org
March 2008 National Women's History Month Women's Art: Women's Vision Each year, March is designated as National Women's History Month to ensure that the history of American women will be recognized and celebrated in schools, workplaces, and communities throughout the country. The stories of women's historic achievements present an expanded view of the complexity and contradiction of living a full and purposeful life.The knowledge of women's history provides a more expansive vision of what a woman can do. This perspective can encourage girls and women to think larger and bolder and can give boys and men a fuller understanding of the female experience.The theme for National Women's History Month, Women's Art: Women's Vision pays tribute to the originality, beauty, imagination, and multiple dimensions of women's lives. The history of women and art is quintessential women's history. It is the story of amazing women's accomplishments acclaimed at the time but written out of history.
