Exhibits – News from the Archives

Jul 03 2019

Feminist Activism on Display in IWA

Posted on July 3, 2019July 3, 2019 by Anna Holland

The current reading room exhibit displays artifacts of feminist activism.

Over the next year, we’ll be celebrating the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. Already, we’re marking important dates. 100 years ago on June 4th, Congress passed the 19th amendment, and July 2nd was the 100th anniversary of Iowa’s becoming the tenth state to ratify it. Women’s suffrage is one of the United States’ greatest and perhaps best remembered women’s movements. In the Iowa Women’s Archives latest reading room exhibit, we tip our “pussy hats” to the many times since suffrage that women in Iowa have protested for rights and respect as equal citizens of their county.

The small exhibit draws from four IWA collections, touches on several women’s rights issues and protests and opens the doors to many IWA collections!

You may recognize the pink “pussy hat” from the 2017 Women’s March. Women knitted these pink (or sometimes purple) hats to wear to the January protest during President Trump’s inauguration. Some estimates say that 4.1 million women participated in Women’s Marches around the world, including sister marches in Iowa! This is just one of four examples of pussy hats preserved at the Iowa Women’s Archives along with photographs and protest signs of women who marched in Iowa City, Des Moines, and Washington D.C.

A selection of political buttons from the Ruth Salzmann Becker papers

Right below the hat is a Daily Iowan article by Iowa City activist, Barbara Davidson, about the 1979 Take Back the Night rally Iowa City. The women who rallied in College Park that night dreamed of a community where women could walk at night safe from fear and from sexual violence. Davidson said, “… women of Iowa City will have a chance to support each other in a move to reclaim the freedom that comes from being unafraid.” Take Back the Night rallies are still held around the country and in Iowa City. You can see more recent examples of Take Back the Night activism in the Miranda Welch papers.

Two children with Equal Rights Amendment sign, NOW Dubuque Chapter records

In the back of the case, you can see a large photograph from the National Organization for Women (NOW) Dubuque Chapter records. This particular chapter, founded in 1973, spent a large portion of its efforts on passing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA states simply that, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” In this photograph, you can see two young Iowans joining the campaign. Although Iowa ratified the ERA in 1972, it has struggled to pass a state ERA. State ERA legislation went to the ballot in 1980 and 1992 and lost both times. You can learn more about these campaigns in the Iowa ERA Coalition records, the Iowa Women Against the Equal Rights Amendment records, and the ERA Iowa 1992 records at the Iowa Women’s Archives.

Finally, the display features a sampling of political buttons from the Ruth Salzmann Becker papers. Becker was a nurse and community activist in Iowa City who was involved in the Johnson County Democratic Women’s Club. Becker’s papers have dozens of political buttons and this selection promotes some well known feminist topics such as the ERA and reproductive rights. For other political buttons, take a look at the Sarah Hanley papers and the Unbuttoning Feminism collection.

Does anything here peak your interest? You can see the display and any of the suggested collections during IWA’s open hours T – F 10 – 12 and 1 – 5.

Mar 25 2019

Playing, Pretending, Becoming: Iowa Girls and Their Dolls

Posted on March 25, 2019April 16, 2019 by Anna Holland

Shirley Briggs with her stuffed animals and dolls (Bunty far right) c. 1920s

Shirley Briggs had a lot of toys. As a very little girl in the early 1920s, Shirley had dozens of pictures taken of her ensconced in an oversized chair with children’s book, playing in a wheel barrow, sitting in the sun, all with a coterie of stuffed animals and dolls. The most frequent companion, and perhaps the most cherished, was Bunty, a baby doll in a bunny-like suit. Of all her toys, only Bunty made it into Briggs’ papers at the Iowa Women’s Archives. Today, you can clearly see that Bunty was a well-loved doll, with re-stitching around its face and a felt suit obviously different from its original clothes. You can see Bunty and a number of other dolls from IWA collections in our latest exhibit: Playing, Pretending, Becoming: Iowa Girls and Their Dolls, on display in the corridor cases on the third floor of the Main Library.

Playing, Pretending, Becoming invites visitors to connect these Iowa girls to the women they would become. Looking at an image of Briggs sitting outside with her line of stuffed animals, you can see the beginnings of a life-long love of nature. Briggs studied art, art history and botany at the State University of Iowa, earning a B.A. in 1939. While working as an Information Specialist/Illustrator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Briggs met and befriended Rachel Carson, the future author of the conservation classic Silent Spring. Later, Briggs would paint backgrounds for dioramas at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History and the U.S. National Park Service.

Betty paper dolls cutout book, Naomi Novick papers

Naomi Novick, another woman whose toys are on display, was mayor of Iowa City from 1996 – 1997. She served on the City Council from 1990 – 1997. Her papers reflect her years in politics and her commitment to organizations like the League of Women Voters. But tucked away in the artifacts is a book of paper doll cutouts. “Betty” the doll in the book, looks like a perfect example of 1930s beauty and fashion. She has outfits and accessories for activities in every season and a wedding dress at the end of the book. Before she got into politics, Novick had a brief career in fashion, standardizing bra and girdle sizes for the Formfit company.

Novick and Briggs are just two of the women whose artifacts you can see in Playing, Pretending, Becoming: Iowa Girls and their Dolls. We invite you to see the exhibit in the cases outside of the Iowa Women’s Archives between now and October and to consider the girl at play behind every woman’s mind at work.

Oct 24 2018

New Website Celebrates Mildred Wirt Benson, the First Carolyn Keene

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Anna Holland

Rachel Black, creator of The Mysterious Mildred Benson, poses by a cabinet filled with Benson’s work.

In 1930, the Stratemeyer Syndicate published the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene. Since then, Nancy Drew has become known around the world. But who was behind Carolyn Keene? The mystery of the pseudonym persisted until a 1980 court case identified Mildred Wirt Benson, a journalist and Iowa woman, as the original ghost writer. Benson began working as a ghost writer for the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1927 when she was still a student at the State University of Iowa. Eventually, she wrote 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries. The Iowa Women’s Archives received Mildred Wirt Benson’s papers in 2013.

In The Mysterious Mildred Wirt Benson, you can learn more about Benson’s papers, her legacy, and her adventurous life as a ghost writer, an airplane pilot, and a journalist. Benson was an alum of the University of Iowa. She became the first person to receive a master’s in journalism from the State University of Iowa in 1927.

In the 1990s, she was inducted into the University of Iowa’s journalism schools Alumni Hall of Fame and received the University’s distinguished alumni award. The site includes pages dedicated to biography, the University of Iowa Nancy Drew Conference in 1993, the story of the custom made cabinet that houses 146 of Mildred Wirt Benson’s published works, and resources for Nancy Drew and Mildred Wirt Benson scholarship.

Sep 13 2018

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Things: Iowans of the Greatest Generation

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Anna Holland

The central artwork in “Stories Worth Telling.”

In the window of the Main Library Gallery sit two bags, a trunk, an Army uniform, and the navy nurse’s cape that Evelyn Crary Bacon wore as a student at the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa.) What do all of these items have in common? They belonged to members of “The Greatest Generation,” a cohort of Americans that came of age during the Great Depression and rose to the occasion of World War II. The Gallery’s current exhibition, “Stories Worth Telling: Marking 20 Years of “The Greatest Generation,” commemorates the bestselling book by Tom Brokaw as well as members of the generation that inspired it.

The exhibit is centered on a massive ceiling to floor art installation made from copies of enthusiastic letters Brokaw received from fans of the book. It is as if a bag filled with stories is being poured out onto the floor. Around this are cases filled with the stories of individual Iowans, including many women (and one man!) whose materials reside in the Iowa Women’s Archives. Here are just some of our collections you’ll see represented when you visit:

Evelyn Crary Bacon

Born in 1916 in Grundy Center, Iowa, Evelyn Crary Bacon made her mark in Europe where she participated in the invasion of Normandy as a captain in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. After the war, Bacon embarked on a teaching career. She held positions in nursing colleges from California to Virginia. Besides her nurse’s cape, a WWII military helmet and a canteen from her papers are present in the exhibition.

Dick Hayashi

During World War II, Dick Hayashi’s family was sent to live in Japanese internment camps while he spent the war as a member of the Armed Forces. As a soldier, Hayashi met Evelyn Corrie, an Iowa woman who would go on to become columnist and radio homemaker Evelyn Birkby. A photograph of Hayashi and a letter he wrote to her survived in one of her scrapbooks and are now on display.

Blanca Vasquez Gaines

Vasquez was born in Puerto Rico in 1918, but military service took her to Iowa. She joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and trained at Fort Des Moines just south of the state’s capital. There, she met her husband, Harold Gaines. Blanca Vasquez Gaines and her husband lived in Iowa until 1956 when she returned to Puerto Rico to teach English and American Literature at the University of Puerto Rico.

All in all, “Stories Worth Telling” has materials from nine IWA collections and much more from the University of Iowa’s Special Collections & University Archives, and the African American Museum of Iowa. You can see the exhibition in the Main Library Gallery until January 4, 2019.

Nov 16 2017

25 for 25: Iowa Suffrage Memorial Commission

Posted on November 16, 2017November 29, 2017 by Anna Holland

Iowa Suffrage Memorial bas-relief, Nellie Walker

Lindsay Shannon, Assistant Professor of Art History, North Central College

It is in part thanks to the Iowa Suffrage Memorial Commission that the IWA has such a collection of materials on the suffrage movement in Iowa. The commission, incorporated in 1922, was organized “to commemorate the efforts of the Pioneer Suffragists and the long procession of workers who helped secure the final enfranchisement of women.” In addition to successfully erecting a bas relief memorial by native Iowan artist Nellie Walker in the state capitol building, the commission worked to preserve materials relating to the women’s suffrage movement through 1941. Many years later, Lindsay Shannon, Assistant Professor of Art History at North Central College and author of “Uncharted Territory: The Iowa Suffrage Memorial and the Pioneer Spirit“, found the collection quite useful. Shannon, who received her Ph.D. in American art history from the University of Iowa, had this to say about the collection:

“The Iowa Suffrage Memorial Commission records are a true gem! I often begin a research project on a female artist expecting to find very little documentation of their working methods or process, but was delighted to find a detailed account of these politically astute women debating and deciding how best to represent their achievements in a work of public art. This collection has been crucial to my efforts to give the Iowa Suffrage Memorial the recognition it deserves through published research and public presentations, such as the exhibition “Women’s Suffrage in Iowa: 90 Years after the ‘Winning Plan'” at the Blanden Art Museum. What excites me the most is knowing that the Iowa Women’s Archives is custodian to historical collections like this and that it continues to actively seek out new material that represents overlooked or undervalued voices.”

— Lindsay Shannon, North Central College, 2017

_{This post is a part of the Iowa Women’s Archives’ 25th anniversary celebration and exhibition: 25 Collections for 25 Years: Selections from the Iowa Women’s Archives on display until December 29th at the Main Library Gallery. Gallery hours are available on the Main Library website. For more information about events, see our 25th anniversary website.}

Nov 03 2017

25 for 25: Nurses and nursing

Posted on November 3, 2017November 9, 2017 by Anna Holland

The collections in the Iowa Women’s Archives feature women from all walks of life. For Karissa Haugeberg, Assistant Professor of History at Tulane University, the papers regarding nursing and nurses are of special interest. Collections in this broad topic include papers authored or co-authored by Geraldene Felton, Professor and Dean of the

Article on the work of Barbara Fassbinder

College of Nursing at the University of Iowa from 1981 to 1997, newspaper clippings and letters of support concerning Iowan Barbara Fassbinder, who advocated for the rights of AIDS patients from 1990 to her death in 1994, and records pertaining to the involvement in professional organizations of Myrtle Aydelotte, the Director and Dean of the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa) College of Nursing from 1949 to 1957. Haugeberg, who worked as a graduate assistant at the Iowa Women’s Archives while she was a student at the University of Iowa, comments on her use of all of these collections for her latest project.

The records of nursing organizations and the papers of key nurses are fueling my research on the history of American nursing. The papers of Geraldene Felton, who served as the first African American dean of nursing at the University of Iowa, include her reflections on the women’s liberation movement and

Karissa Haugeberg, Tulane University

her scholarship on topics ranging from nurses’ work with abortion to the physical demands of working night shifts. Barbara Fassbinder’s papers include newspaper clippings, speeches, and correspondence about one of the first nurses to contract HIV on the job. After she disclosed her illness publicly, Fassbinder traveled the nation, often speaking before church groups, in an effort to destigmatize the illness. Finally, Myrtle “Kitch” Aydelotte’s papers and the records of UI’s College of Nursing illuminate the relationship between nursing education and larger movements for social justice during the twentieth century. The breadth of IWA’s collections is

enabling me to offer new insights about the history American nursing.

— Karissa Haugeberg, Tulane University, 2017

Nov 03 2017

25 for 25: Equal Rights Amendment

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Anna Holland

The Iowa Women’s Archives features several collections related Iowa’s rejected 1980 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was the first state ERA initiative after the passage of the national ERA in 1972. These include the Iowa ERA Coalition papers, and the Iowa Women Against the ERA papers. Both collections were of use to Celeste Campos-Castillo, Assistant Professor at UW-Milwaukee, and stef shuster, Assistant Professor at Appalachian State University, when they were grad students at he University of Iowa and researching social movement activists. Exciting discoveries were made in the research process, which shuster explains.

Celeste Campos-Castillo (Sociology PhD at UIowa, Assistant Professor at UW-Milwaukee) and I (stef shuster, Sociology PhD UIowa, Assistant Professor at Appalachian State University), used the Iowa ERA Coalition and Stop ERA collections to examine how social movement activists pitch their issues to a wide audience in the hopes of mobilizing them to action. We had some pretty exciting results! While social movement theorists tend to assume that activists should present their issues in a way that

stef shuster, Appalachian State University

resonates with their audience (called frame resonance) to enable a higher chance of success, we found contradictory evidence to this longstanding theory. In analyzing the archival material from the IWA, we found that movement activists might consider pitching their issues in a way that creates dissonance in their audience to improve the chances of mobilization (e.g. like voting for the ERA). These ideas were published in the March 2017 issue of the Social Psychology Quarterly.

We intend to turn our attention next to how issues can be framed in a way that compels certain emotions, and which emotions might be most effective for mobilizing people. Some of the artifacts that we would like to incorporate are the cartoons from both pro- and anti-ERA organizations.

—stef shuster, Appalachian State University, 2017

Oct 27 2017

25 for 25: Dieman-Bennett Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres

Posted on October 27, 2017October 26, 2017 by Anna Holland

“Diversity in Dance.” This was the motto of Edna Dieman and Julia Bennett when they founded the Dieman-Bennett Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres in 1951. The Cedar Rapids dance school operated until 1997, with classes in classical ballet, as well as dance styles from Spain and India. Miss. Dieman and Miss. Bennett, as they preferred to be called, donated the records to the Iowa Women’s Archives in 1996 and later years. Since then the photographs of dances, choreography notes, costume designs, and scrapbooks documenting Dieman’s and Bennett’s international training among many other items have been used by students and researchers alike.

Jane Nesmith, an assistant professor of rhetoric and director of the writing center at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. She explains her interest in the Dieman-Bennett Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres.

For the past few years, I’ve been doing research on Edna Dieman and Julia Bennett, who ran the Dieman-Bennett Dance Studio in Cedar Rapids from 1951-1997. They taught my dance teacher, so I think of them as my “dance grandmothers.” I began visiting the Iowa Women’s Archives, which holds their collected materials, to do research in the summer

Jane Nesmith, Coe College

of 2013, and I have been thrilled to find so many rich and interesting materials: diaries, manuscripts, newspaper articles, photos, recital programs, video footage and more. These items help the story of Miss Dieman and Miss Bennett come alive for me, and for the groups to whom I’ve given presentations. The librarians here are so welcoming: they find materials, make copies, and

have even connected me with others who are interested in the Dieman-Bennett papers. I don’t know what I’d do without this resource that preserves and shares materials important to the story of these two important women.

– – Jane Nesmith, Coe College, 2017

University of Iowa associate professor and chair of the dance department Rebekah Kowal likewise found the records helpful for her research. Over the years, she has brought many of her dance students into the Iowa Women’s Archives. Here, she describes some of what her students have loved about using the Dieman-Bennett materials:

I was first introduced to the Dieman-Bennett collection my first semester at The University of Iowa. An MFA student in dance had encountered the collection as part of an assignment given to her by Professor Linda Kerber in a women’s history class. The assignment was to find a topic of interest in the Iowa Women’s Archives and explore the resources accordingly. The MFA student was thrilled by the idea that there was a Cedar Rapids based dance company devoted to the teaching and performance of global dance, and that Edna Dieman and Julia Bennett had been so generous to leave their materials to the Iowa Women’s Archives. At the time, I had not begun my current research project, which is investigating the significance of international dance performance during the postwar period, so I shelved away the information about the collection as something I would explore when ready. Flash forward 15 years, and the Dieman-Bennett collection has provided a wellspring of materials for my current book project as well as for several undergraduate dance researchers to discover. For the past two years, I have been working with several dance

Rebekah Kowal, University of Iowa

major honors students to examine the legacy of Dieman’s and Bennett’s mentor, La Meri, in southeast Iowa, including the inspiration to inaugurate the Dieman-Bennett

Dance Theater of the Hemispheres and related school. My students have thrilled at the opportunity to study Dieman and Bennett, poring through their records, especially diaries and Bennett’s unpublished autobiography “A Chest of Jewels.” They have taken the initiative to design and build a website to document their research, and to provide a lens onto the legacy of international dance performance in our region. We have all also appreciated the chance to view related videotapes, which are unique among repositories across the U.S. in demonstrating the educational lecture-demonstration format preferred by Dieman and Bennett as an approach to community engagement and education.

— Rebekah Kowal, University of Iowa, 2017

Oct 20 2017

25 for 25: Edna Griffin

Posted on October 20, 2017October 17, 2017 by Anna Holland

Edna Griffin’s civil rights activism earned her the title of the “Rosa Parks of Iowa.” Griffin moved to Des Moines with her husband and children in 1947 and by 1948 she was agitating for change. She led a campaign to desegregate the lunch counter at the local Katz Drug Store, organizing picket lines, and filing charges against its owner, Maurice Katz. Her suit went to the Iowa Supreme Court where Katz was declared guilty of violating the 1884 Iowa Civil Rights Act in 1949.

Landon Storrs, Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the University of Iowa’s history department has supervised many undergraduate graduate students as they’ve used the Iowa Women’s Archives and the Edna Griffin papers in particular:

IWA has been an indispensable resource for my undergraduate students conducting original research assignments for classes including the Introduction to the History Major (a methods class on how to find and interpret historical documents), US women’s history since 1877, and The Sixties in America. I’ve also supervised many honors theses, masters’ essays, and PhD dissertations that have relied on IWA collections. Topics have included Iowa women’s fight for voting rights and later for AND against the Equal Rights Amendment; women’s war work on the WWII home front, women’s military service, women’s antiwar activism, African American women’s fight for civil rights, Iowa City women’s liberation groups,

Landon Storrs, University of Iowa

and farm women’s activism during the 1980 farm crisis. The archives has rich records of diverse individual women and also women’s organizations.

One example that leaps to mind is the collection of Edna Griffin (1909-2000), an African American who successfully campaigned to desegregate the Katz Drug Store in Des Moines in the late 1940s; one undergraduate from Des Moines wrote an excellent paper explaining the origins and significance of Griffin’s campaign, which preceded the more famous Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. This is just one example–if time permitted, I’d also discuss Emma Goldman Clinic records, the collections of several Iowa League of Women Voters chapters, and the feminist periodical of the 1970s, Ain’t I a Woman–all these have fascinated the diverse male and female undergrads who learn to find and interpret historical evidence using these locally resonant papers.

— Landon Storrs, University of Iowa, 2017

Oct 17 2017

25 for 25: Lenabelle Bock

Posted on October 17, 2017January 18, 2021 by Anna Holland

Today, the Iowa Women’s Archives commemorates Lenabelle Bock. Bock, whose name is spelled variously Lenabelle and Lena Belle, was politically active in Iowa for over twenty-five years before her election to the Iowa House of Representatives. Bock, a Republican, campaigned for and won the House seat for Hancock County. She was one of five women elected to the House in 1960. She is often remembered for her statement: “Women in the legislature need to look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, and work like a dog.”

The Lenabelle Bock papers, housed at the Iowa Women’s Archives consist of three scrapbooks covering Bock’s legislative career from 1961-1964.

When I was starting research for my MA on women in politics in Iowa in the 1950-60s, I was delighted by the trove of useful primary sources I found at the Iowa Women’s Archives. One of the best finds of my research there, which in turn helped shape my MA project, was discovering the political

Danielle Hoskins is a current American History graduate student at the University of Iowa.

scrapbook of Lenabelle Bock, who served the Iowa House of Representatives from 1961-1965. What struck me most about the Lenabelle Bock scrapbook was its compilation – I saw her constructing a narrative about her political career not just in what she chose to keep and collect in the pages of a scrapbook, but in how she decided to compile it. For example, Bock placed a newspaper article listing her as a candidate at a Republican rally opposite a page describing her as “our state representative” at the same rally the next year, despite the majority of the scrapbook running month-to-month chronologically. She was making a conscious connection between the two events, as if to say that she made good on her candidacy.

— Danielle Hoskins, University of Iowa 2017

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