Program and photographs of productions of The Nutcracker from the records of the Dieman-Bennett Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres.
Dancers Edna Dieman and Julia Bennett opened their dance studio in 1951 at a rented room in the Cedar Rapids YWCA. Ten years later they formed the Dance Theatre of the Hemispheres and built a repertoire in classical ballet, Indian and Spanish dance, tap, jazz, and historical dance.
For more information about the company and its productions, go to
In 1942 a group of female mathematicians helped win a war and usher in the modern computer age. Top Secret Rosies shares the little known story of a group of female mathematicians who did secret research for the US Army during WWII, a handful of whom went on to serve as the programmers of ENIAC, one of the first electronic computers.
Please join filmmaker LeAnn Erickson for a reception and a screening of her new documentary Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII on Monday, December 6th at 6:30 p.m. in 1505 Seamans Center (College of Engineering—across from Old Capitol Town Center). The film will begin at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
• Read about an overlooked Iowa suffragist, Annie Savery, in the book Leader and Pariah: Annie Savery and the Campaign for Women’s Rights in Iowa, 1868-1891 by Iowa Women’s Archives founder Louise Noun. You can purchase the book through the Iowa Women’s Archives.
The Iowa Women’s Archives and University of Iowa Archives Collaborated on the exhibit entitled “LGBTQ Life in Iowa City, Iowa: 1967-2010,” which was entered in the “Since Stonewall Local Histories Contest” hosted by OutHistory.org.
Kären Mason, curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives and David McCartney, University Archivist, curated the exhibit, which was posted along with LGBT histories from across the country on a non-profit website dedicated to uncovering and preserving the history of the modern movement for LGBTQ rights.
The online exhibit begins with the 1967 publication of The Iowa Defender, which included an article about lesbians in Iowa City. Photo from the Iowa Women’s Archives.
Rally in Iowa City to celebrate Iowa Supreme Court ruling upholding gay marriage, April 3, 2009. Photo by Laurie Haag
The Iowa City exhibit begins in 1967 with The Iowa Defender publishing an article on lesbianism in Iowa City and ends in 2010 with The Iowa City Press-Citizen naming a lesbian couple (Dawn and Jen BarbouRoske) as “Persons of the Year” for their role in challenging Iowa’s defense of marriage law and ushering in same sex marriage in Iowa in 2009. According to OutHistory.org, the exhibits are meant to be “works in progress” that continue to chronicle important events.
The curators used collections from individuals in Iowa City, the University of Iowa Archives and the Iowa Women’s Archives to compile a visual timeline of the history of LGBTQ activism in Iowa City.
Some collections used from the IWA include: Ain’t I a Woman? newsletters, Rusty Barceló papers, Tess Catalano papers, Cherry and Lockwood papers, Common Lives/Lesbian Lives records, Jill Jack papers, Jo Rabenold papers and the Women’s Resource and Action Center records. To find more collections that have materials on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activism, visit: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/iwa/Topical_holdings_lists/LGBT.html
The fourth biennial conference of Women and Gender Historians of the Midwest (WGHOM) will be held on June 17, 18 and 19, 2010, at the Town Clock Center for Professional Development of Northeast Iowa Community College in Dubuque, Iowa.
This conference will bring together scholars, educators, students and the public to explore current issues in women’s and gender history to showcase the academic work of Midwestern and other scholars who focus on women or gender.
Honoring the conference location in the historic river community of Dubuque, Iowa, the 2010 theme highlights the convergence of scholarship and contemporary pedagogy in all areas of women’s history and related disciplines.
Dr. Pat Cohen, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara will be the keynote speaker. Her address is titled, “An 1850’s Challenge to Traditional Marriage: Mary Gove Nichols and the American ‘Free Love’ Movement.”
Program and further information can be found at: http://department.monm.edu/wghom/
This just in….
We have just processed a large addition to the Iowa Federation of Women’s Club (IFWC) records. The IFWC was founded in 1893 to help women’s clubs from across the state to communicate and collaborate. The Iowa chapter was the first state federation to join the national one—the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GWFC). By the 1980s, the GFWC was considered the largest and oldest non-denominational women’s organization in the world.
Women in the organization campaigned for literacy, conservation and civic responsibility, but there was also a serious peace movement in the IFWC following World War I.
A county and city federation scrapbook compiled by Blanche Wingate in 1923-1924 (Box 20) reveals how club women actively campaigned for peace in the interwar years.
Selected headlines from the scrapbook read: Peace by Any Plan, Demand Clubwomen; Women Told it Is Their Duty to End Strife; Mrs. Armstrong Urges Women to Advocate Peace; Next War Means Civilization’s End… Other clippings in this particular scrapbook highlight a Daughters of the America Revolution event, a fashion show and meetings of the executive officers of the club.
Student processor Annette Bramstedt just helped finalize a new exhibit in honor of the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States (and Iowa).
Bramstedt says working on the exhibit broadened her view of women’ s suffrage—she didn’t realize how much the women of Iowa played a role in national events.
Some highlights of the exhibit include quotes from influential women, photos and a 1920-1945 ledger from the League of Women Voters.
We’ve put up a small exhibit in the Iowa Women’s Archives reading room in conjunction with our upcoming Women’s History Month event about the history of the Lamaze method of natural childbirth. The exhibit includes several Lamaze books from the 1970s from the papers of Patricia Hillard, a leader in La Leche League International from the 1970s through the 1990s. Also in the exhibit are a baby bonnet dating from the early 1900s, and an unusual glass breast pump.
The breast pump came to the Iowa Women’s Archives with various artifacts and historical records from the Heritage Room of the University of Iowa College of Nursing. A tag accompanying the breast pump says that it was purchased in New Orleans in 1750. If anyone knows how this early breast pump worked, we’d like to hear from you.
On Wednesday, March 10th, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. we’ll be talking Lamaze in the Iowa Women’s Archives.
We’ve joined forces with the UI History of Medicine Society and the Council on the Status of Women’s Herstory Committee to bring you some entertainment and enlightenment. Join us from 4:30 to 5:15 for cookies and conversation with old friends and new.
At 5:15 p.m., Theatre Arts graduate student Janet Schlapkohl will entertain with “There’s This Thing Called Lamaze,” a brief monologue and song about natural childbirth in the 1970s. We’ll be entering uncharted territory in the IWA with live music (if we can pull it off). Some of you will have seen Janet perform at the Riverside Theater as part of Walking the Wire.
At 5:30 p.m. Professor Paula Michaels of the UI History Department will present a lecture “Comrades in the Labor Room: The International Story of the Lamaze Method, 1950-80.” Most of us are familiar with the Lamaze method’s patterned breathing and conscious relaxation that became popular in the 1960s and 70s along with the natural childbirth movement (be sure to check out the very seventies attire pictured on the Lamaze books in the IWA reading room display). But who knew about the Soviet origins of Lamaze and its association with the French Communist Party? Paula Michaels will talk about the origins of the Lamaze method and the efforts to obscure these leftist ties during the Cold War in order to make Lamaze palatable to Americans.
Hope to see you here on Wednesday afternoon.
(3rd floor, south side, University of Iowa Main Library at the corner of Burlington and Madison in Iowa City).
Our first women’s history month event features the work of Eve Drewelowe, who in 1924 became the first person to earn a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa.
The painting “Summertime with Sis and Soot” evokes Drewelowe’s Iowa childhood and on a day like today, with the sun shining and snow melting, I can almost believe that summer–or at least spring–is on the way. I’m lucky to have this painting hanging in my windowless office, providing a glimpse of Iowa fields and sky on a summer day.
On Wednesday, March 3rd, from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. in the North Exhibition Hall of the University’s Main Library, we’ll unveil the Eve Drewelowe Digital Collection that was recently completed by the University of Iowa Libraries with the assistance of Lindsay Shannon, a graduate student in the School of Art and Art History. Upon her death, Drewelowe bequeathed her artworks and personal papers to the School of Art and Art History. When the Iowa Women’s Archives was established in 1992, the papers were placed in the Archives on permanent loan. These materials have now been digitized in their entirety for the online collection, which features more than 700 items, including paintings, sketchbooks, scrapbooks, and correspondence.
Professor Joni Kinsey, Curator of the Drewelowe art collection, will speak about the artist’s work and the significance of the collection at 4:30 p.m. Please join us on Wednesday to celebrate the remarkable Eve Drewelowe.
