“Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Legacy is Remembered in New York City,” a short video that I wrote and narrated and that was edited by Milena Jovanovitch is done!! Great fun to do, more to come! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WimCgL5MlCU&feature=youtu.be
You can also see it at the book Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/flGdOa
Just read the news that President Obama has finally evolved to the point of supporting marriage equality! Congratulations & kudos to him and to all the people, including his daughters & staff members in same sex relationships, who helped him get to this point!
On May 1, I did a first – - talked with a book group, the Red Tent Book Club, Seneca Falls, NY, via Skype. It was great fun! Judy Pipher, who coordinated the event posted this on the book Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/flGdOa “As one of the Red Tenters Penny spoke with via SKYPE last night, let me confirm that we all had a great experience, it was very warm and intimate, in addition to being informative. Thank you Penny.” I’m happy to set up a Skype conversation with any book club or group of interested readers, just contact me via my web site.
My basement office has a window with a view of our bird feeders, so I can take writing breaks by watching the birds . . . our regulars – - a red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, cardinals, titmice, nuthatches, sparrows, mourning doves . . . yesterday, much to my surprise I spotted birds that I’ve only ever seen in fields, certainly not in backyards– red-winged blackbirds and brown-headed cowbirds! I emailed my daughter-in-law re climate change and the appearance of those birds. “Well,” she replied, “I guess we’ll worry when you start getting penguins.”
Back from giving my multimedia presentation based on my book "A Woman Unafraid: The Achievements of Frances Perkins," which I end with her words: "You just can't be afraid . . . . if you're going to accomplish anything."
I was delighted that Frances Perkin's grandson & my dear friend Tomlin Coggeshall was at the event and spoke about the Frances Perkins Center that he founded.
Tomlin brought a hard hat that his grandmother, Frances Perkins, wore. To accommodate our picture taking, Kay Althoff modeled it with the photo of Perkins. I met my dear friend Kay years ago while doing research for my biography of Perkins. Kay is a graduate of the Frances Perkins Program at Mount Holyoke (FP'84), and Associate Director, Frances Perkins Program and Development Leadership Gift Officer.
Friendships were important in the lives of all the historic women I’ve written about. Dorothea Dix, fierce advocate for humane treatment of people with mental illness and head of Civil War nurses, wrote in a poem for her lifelong friend Anne Heath “In the sad hour of anguish and distress/To thee for sympathy will I repair.” Frances Perkins extolled the “beauty and chivalry between women” that sustained her during the tumultuous years in her first-woman-to-serve career. Then, of course, there is Susan B. Anthony who said of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “I never could have done the work I have if I had not had this woman at my right hand.” And Elizabeth who wrote, “Nothing that Susan could say or do could break my friendship with her; and I know nothing could uproot her affection for me.”
I rode Chelsea, Sophie rode Ice Man, our guide was Rick for a trail ride on a lovely April day. Saw groups of deer who were unbothered by our presence, but then again, it is their forest!
I’m going on a trail ride with my granddaughter Sophie (she’s on Spring break) tomorrow, April 10th, and you can be sure, I’ll remember to tell her that it’s the birthday of Frances Perkins, the first woman in the U.S cabinet, and the architect of far reaching social and labor reforms, including Social Security. I’ll also tell her about Frances Perkins’s very brief movie moment in “Dirty Dancing.” It’s in the scene when Patrick Swayze asks Jennifer Grey, “What’s your real name, Baby?” And she replies, “Frances, for the first woman in the cabinet.” On Saturday, I’ll be at Mount Holyoke College, Perkins’s alma mater, in South Hadley, MA, to give my multimedia presentation, “A Woman Unafraid: The Achievements of Frances Perkins,” (also the title of my 1993 biography of FP) at an event celebrating Frances Perkins 132nd Birthday.”
Before I sat down for an hour-long conversation with Kent Pavelka, host of “Metro & More,” a television show in Omaha, Nebraska, he asked me if I had read “My Antonia” and did I know that the Antonia was based on someone from Cather’s childhood who fascinated her — Anna Sadilek, later Anna Pavelka. When I said, yes, yes, Kent said, “Anna Pavelka was my grandmother.” I loved learned that! Years ago, I had visited Cather’s home, museum, and namesake prairie in Red Cloud, Nebraska. I’ve also gone to her grave in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where her headstone has these words from “My Antonia”: “that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
Today, March 25th, is the 101st anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire in New York City, in which 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women died. I first learned about it while doing research for my biography of Frances Perkins, who witnessed the tragedy. That searing experience, Perkins later said, was “a never-to-be-forgotten reminder of why I had to spend my life fighting conditions that could permit such a tragedy.” The first woman in the U.S. cabinet, Frances Perkins served as Secretary of Labor (1933-1945) and was the architect of far-reaching and important reforms and social legislation, including the establishment of Social Security. Every year there is a moving ceremony at the site of the event where there is a historic marker.
I’m off to Omaha, Nebraska, tomorrow to give a talk about my actual research and writing process of “Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World.” On Friday I got an email from the organizer asking what snacks I’d like in my guest room; Sophie happened to be here so I asked her what she’d like–”donuts and ice cream!” Saturday night was “Girl Scout Night” at the American Museum of Natural History and Sophie and her Brownie troop were among the 300 girls who had a sleep-over at the museum, which included a flashlight-fossil-hunt! Her Daddy just emailed that she had a “great time but is exhausted”!