Women
In St. Louis, Intrepid Women on the Frontier
I had never been to St. Louis until this fall. Funny I should have missed it, as I attended grad school in journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Mizzou classmates and I used to pile into a car and go eat catfish at a tin-ceiling hotel in Booneville. We drove to Kansas City…
Read More‘She Persisted’ in Giving Us Cherry Trees
Thanks, Andrea Zimmerman, for giving a nod to Eliza Scidmore as a woman who “persisted.” The Internet meme “she persisted” caught fire this month after a remark on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Sen. Elizabeth Warren opposed the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general by attempting to read a letter from…
Read MoreEliza Scidmore Inspires Wall Art in D.C.
“Eliza and the Emperor.” That’s the title of an Eliza Scidmore-inspired mixed-media canvas produced last year for the Carlyle Hotel in Washington by artist Anna Rose Soevik. Soevik, who studied painting in London, lives and works near Washington. She likes big canvases and has done art installations at offices, bookshops, and galleries in Washington and several…
Read MoreEliza Scidmore, ‘Downton Abbey’ and a Debutante
OK, fellow “Downtown Abbey” addicts. I managed to find a connection between the TV series and Eliza Scidmore, the subject of my book. The line runs through Cora Grantham, the American-born mistress of Downton Abbey. Julian Fellowes, the show’s writer, has said Cora represents American heiresses of the late 19th century who married into the…
Read MoreAt 1876 World’s Fair, Scidmore and … Irish Oatmeal!
When you’re working on a book involving U.S. history, you see connections everywhere. The latest for me is steel-cut oats, which I love for their chewy nuttiness. Oatmeal really fuels you to start the day, without the hunger pangs I usually get around 11:00 when I have my other standard breakfast: Greek yogurt with berries…
Read MoreOff to Japan, in Eliza Scidmore’s Footsteps
A busy Saturday. I just spent five hours with a film crew from the New York bureau of Japan’s NHK television, talking about my research on Eliza Scidmore. Miki Ebara, the chief correspondent in New York, first contacted me a year ago, not long after I launched this blog (previously as “A Great Blooming”). She…
Read MoreScidmore Book Titles at 1893 World’s Fair
Women’s History Month begins this week. The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress kicked things off things with a presentation March 2 on a new scholarly work, Right Here I See My Own Books. The book describes the woman’s library of 8,000 titles assembled for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 (officially the…
Read MoreCherry Tree Art at Library of Congress
With the 100th anniversary of Washington’s first cherry trees only six weeks away, on March 27, special exhibits and programs on sakura (cherry blossoms) are cropping up all over town. In late March, the Library of Congress will open an exhibition of 54 prints and art works from its collections depicting different scenes of cherry trees.…
Read MoreBooks: ‘You Need a Schoolhouse’
I’m heading up to Capitol Hill this evening for a presentation by Stephanie Deutsch, who’s launching her book on the so-called Rosenwald schools. The book, You Need a Schoolhouse, describes the unlikely partnership between educator and black leader Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck. The two men collaborated in efforts…
Read MoreLibrary of Congress Hosts Women’s History Forum
Today is the first Thursday of the month. That calls for packing my lunch so I can join the Women’s History Discussion Group at the Library of Congress. We all crowd into a small conference room and sit around sharing ideas about research avenues for our various projects. Some of the tips are things that…
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