Jenna Bush is supposedly getting married this saturday in Crawford, TX. From an article about the town of Crawford’s role in the ceremony:

I asked ‘Oh, are you going to be going to the wedding?’” Judy asked. The woman replied: “No, I just want to be in town when it’s happening.’”

It wasn’t until late this week that the downtown began to show signs of the event, which will end up in presidential history books.

A white banner with red wedding bells on either side of “Congratulations Jenna and Henry” now stretches across a local storefront. via

“Happy Days” Jenna on left. The rest you can figure out yourself.

Interesting food for thought regarding past women in politics from this article, The Fight Stuff, in relationship to how men are and have been warming to HRC:

NOTABLE in the Indiana and North Carolina primary results and in many recent polls are signs of a change in the gender weather: white men are warming to Hillary Clinton — at least enough to vote for her. It’s no small shift. These men have historically been her fiercest antagonists. Their conversion may point less to a new kind of male voter than to a new kind of female vote-getter.
…

The specter of the prissy hall monitor is, in part, the legacy of the great female reformers of Victorian America. In fact, these women were the opposite of fainting flowers. Susan B. Anthony barely flinched in the face of epithets, hurled eggs and death threats. Carry A. Nation swung an ax. Yet they were regarded by men as the regulators outside the game. Indeed, many 19th-century female reformers defined themselves that way — as reluctant trespassers in the public sphere who had left the domestic circle only to fulfill their duty as the morally superior sex, housekeepers scouring away a nation’s vice.

What Faludi is actually promoting is a trend change toward male interest/acceptance of women in politics. Wonder what the historians think of her idea?

This Women’s History Month began with a bang with interesting news bits that hasn’t positively affected women.

On March 6, Samantha Power, key foreign policy aid to Barack Obama called Hilary Clinton a monster. Following the negative press, she stepped down from the campaign.

A similar story about a much more well established woman in the media and politics occurred a day later.

On March 7, news broke that Geraldine Ferraro made some unfortunate comments about Barack Obama:

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept. via

She was then dropped by the Clinton campaign, and Hilary Clinton was accused of being racist among many other things.

On March 10, it was announced that Eliot Spitzer cheated on his wife with a prostitute probably more than once. And then begins the whole should she have stood next to her man questions about Silda Wall Spitzer.

Even better (worse) was the media breaking the myspace page of the prostitute he slept with.

Following these headlines, we saw plenty of Dina Matos McGreevy and with the latest revelation that the newest NYC Governor Paterson also cheated, we saw a lot of imagery of his wife as well.

All of these issues inspired a NYTimes article that I wrote about in this entry.

The rest of NWHM went by (unfortunately) quietly. With St. Patrick’s Day and earlier Easter a week a part, a lot of people stopped paying attention to women’s history in the middle of the month.

To celebrate the month, I attended two events put on by the National Women’s History Project. They honored women in the arts this year. The events finished up with a brunch at the Pen & Brush organization. The brunch honored Molly Murphy MacGregor who had the original idea for National Women’s History Month. She is a woman who I have been in close touch with for the past five years, as I wrote my M.A. thesis about the development of women’s history as its own academic field in the 1970s. MacGregor was one of the powerhouses behind that development.

It has been a hectic month. I wish I could have had more time to focus on NWHM but I had to attend to life’s matters.

I wonder what NWHM will be like next year when I am in graduate school again!

The last few days have been spent entertaining out of town family, attending National Women’s History Month events, and hanging out with friends.

Yesterday, I met up with the husband’s family and we headed to Union Square. I led us to the fabulous Strand bookstore where I browsed through the Americana and history sections. I finally decided to give up a search for the book I left on the airplane last week and bought some Margaret Atwood books for under $25. I purchased

Cat’s Eye

Oryx and Crake

Wilderness Tips 

I forgot how much I loved going to the Strand and exploring the different shelves. You definitely cannot go in there expecting to buy a certain book but have to be open to the possibilities of what is in store for you.

Today I went to a national women’s history month celebration at the Puck Building in collaboration with the A.I.R. Gallery and the National Women’s History Project. We had a high tea where we celebrated and honored eleven women in the Arts. Full list here.

I went to see my funny friends who’s regular gig is Delusions of Spandex do their improv show Hot for Gym Teacher. Good Stuff! We went out to a wine bar afterward where I managed to spill a glass of $8 Malbec. I went home soon thereafter. I know when to call it a night!

The combination of celebrations today and this month make me think of the women in Northern Ireland and all they have done to work for peace not only in their area but throughout the world.

An example of this was the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, a political party made up of Catholic and Protestant women. While the group never stated whether they thought if Northern Ireland should be a part of the UK or Ireland, they opposed any form of violence. The group officially disbanded in 2006.

Just perused the news under “women’s history month” and found these interesting links!

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Prior to the 1970s, women’s history was rarely a subject of serious study. Now, almost every college and university in the United States offers courses focused on women’s history. How did all this come about? Much of it began from a local effort in California to raise public awareness about the importance of the topic of women in history.

Nonstarvingartists.com covers NWHM events in March.

This year’s annual State of Black America is dedicated to “The Black Woman’s Voice,” with all responding essays written by black women.

History in the Making? explores the the possibilities of what a female president would mean for women’s history.

Maryland Congress tries to institute a day of remembrance for Harriet Tubman:

The resolution was introduced as Black History Month (February) ends and Women’s History Month (March) begins. Several states, including Maryland, already recognize Monday, the day of her death 95 years ago, as a day of remembrance for her.

Lately, I haven’t felt compelled to update my blog because I’ve been overwhelmed with travel, emotional decisions, and the desire NOT to update about the Spitzer bonanza. In my inclination not to post, I have missed a great opportunity to blog about National Women’s History Month. In late March, I am attending two events in New York sponsored by the National Women’s History Project. I am taking part in their Women’s Art: Women’s Vision Celebration. Check out this link to see all of the women they are honoring this year.

I am very excited for these two events and plan to use the next few weeks to write about women who have really inspired me to honor Women’s History Month.

Their events:

Friday, March 28: There will be a high tea celebrating the honorees at the Puck Building at295 Lafayette Street from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

Saturday, March 29: There is a special Women’s Art Brunch and Bus Tour. From noon until 2:30, we will host a brunch at the Pen and Brush Club, 16 E 10th Street , NYC, which was established in 1894 and is the oldest women’s art club in New York City.

about this!

I reserved a spot to see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich at the Tenement Museum here in NYC!

Yeah!

I first came across Laurel Thatcher Ulrich when I read A Midwife’s Tale for a gender history class in college. And then I came across her again when I took another gender history class. However, it was not until recently that I realized that Ulrich was Mormon and that she came up with the saying “Well behaved women seldom make history.”

Via the NYTimes about the release of her new book Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“The pervasive theme is rebellion.” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich begins her new book, “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History,” struggling to explain — understand — the appeal of an aside she made in the spring 1976 issue of an academic journal, a comment that has become a popular slogan printed on T-shirts and coffee mugs and bumper stickers, usually without her permission and often without attribution.

I recently read a book entitled Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah a collection of historical writing and research by a group of Mormon women in the 1970s.  Many of these women were not professional historians.  Ulrich was one of these women.  Even then, in the beginning of her career, her work was spot on.

Rock on, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

So I am going to start keeping track of the books I read in a much more orderly fashionable way.

I keep lists of all the books on my good ole macintosh. I’ll start keeping monthly lists, but to speed it up, I’ve divided the books I read into a few categories.

(1) Fiction
(2) Mormon specific
(3) Women’s History specific
(4) Nonfiction misc.
(5) Historical case studies/ historiography

Of course, there will be some overlap in categories.

Rating guide will be four stars and suggestions for who would like it.

In this post I’ll list the books about women’s history:

Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (**)
Decoding Abortion Rhetoric (***, for scholars and people interested in media and consumerism)
A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America (****)
Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (***)
When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 (***, for history buffs who are into medical history)
A Woman’s Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences (****, a staple for women’s history and economics)

More posts to come!