Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council

Takeover! West Michigan Suffragists and the 1914 Grand Rapids Press
2018-07-26 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Holland Museum, 31 W. 10th Street, Holland, MI, 49423, United States
Wolfgast Knocked Out by a Suffragist: Former Champion Goes Down in Three Rounds in Battle of Words” headlined the sports page of the May 2, 1914, edition of the Grand Rapids Press, when local suffragists took over production of the newspaper for the day. The takeover was a result of the National American Woman Suffrage Association call for rallies and parading across the country.
Ruth Van Stee of the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council will talk about the Grand Rapids edition, the area women involved, and how the work of West Michigan women fit into the national movement. Ruth will bring along hard copy of the first section of the actual 1914 suffrage edition of the Grand Rapids Press. You do not want to miss this lecture!
This is a free event, but donations are always appreciated.

Betty Ford Sculpture Unveiling
2018-07-14 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum

Hollyhock Lane Parade
2018-07-04 08:30 - 10:30 (America/New_York) | Ottawa Hills neighborhood, Grand Rapids, MI
Back by popular demand, the GGRWHC will take to the streets to honor parading suffragists from a hundred years ago. Watch for details & join the fun with bands, bicyclists, candy, and placards! To quote a past participant: this event is “oddly exhilarating”!

Fourth Annual Midwestern History Conference
2018-06-06 | Ralph W. Hauenstein Center, GVSU downton campus
The Long Reach of Midwestern Women into the WWI Council of National Defense and 1918 Children’s Programs – We have offered a panel presentation for this day-long conference in Grand Rapids. Admission will be free, including a complimentary lunch, and is open to the public. The program is the second in a three-year GGRWHC project illustrating women’s initiatives to create a home defense by guaranteeing healthy food sources, raising healthy children, and ensuring the health of women in the industrial work force. This year the GGRWHC will demonstrate how women’s programs benefited children, ensuring the ongoing health of the nation. Melissa Fox, Jayson Otto, and Sue Caldwell will integrate local histories into the national story by reporting on a variety of 1918 “Children’s Year” intiatives.

National Genealogical Society 2018 Family History Conference
2018-05-05 14:30 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | DeVos Place Conference Center
Bringing Your Female Ancestors to Life with Archival Resources Featuring unique collections at the Grand Rapids Public Library and the ambitions of the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council, this GGRWHC-sponsored session will focus on the building of and identification of unusual archival resources. It will highlight materials long available but unused when researching women (century-old furniture factory newsletters) as well as materials recently sought out and donated (individual’s suffrage scrapbooks) or purposefully created (the city’s women’s entire elective history; date on nineteenth-century African American women’s clubs). Librarian Julie Tabberer will illustrate how to think beyond the usual records and to identify sources with unexpected information. Women’s historian Jo Ellyn Clarey will discuss how disparate data uncovered by genealogists and historians can be collected and shaped for easier access and analysis. They will highlight the recently finished database featuring 23,000 Kent County women war registrants in 1918. Conference registration required.

National Genealogical Society 2018 Family History Conference
2018-05-02 17:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Amway Grand Plaza Hotel
GGRWHC at NGS Society Night! The national gathering of over 2000 family historians and genealogists will open its conference in Grand Rapids with “Society Night,” where the GGRWHC will join other groups showcasing their organizations on the Center Concourse of the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. This event is open to the public, as will be the huge exhibit hall during the conference. Check the Society website for details: https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/home

Treasures Of Your Library - A White Glove Event
2018-04-18 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, United States
The Grand Rapids Public Library Foundation will celebrate women–past, present and future–who make Grand Rapids great. Enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at treasures from GRPL’s archival collection, a silent auction, appetizers, and craft cider, beer and wine. Tickets are $75 per person and are available at grplfoundation.org or by calling 616-988-5399.

In Step with Betty Ford: In Celebration of Her Centennial
2018-04-10 | Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum
Grand Rapids’ Central High graduate, student of dance, New York model, proud mother, and Congressman’s wife. First Lady Betty Ford spoke openly about personal and political issues near and dear to her heart; her courage endeared her to the American people as she found herself in step with the times. The exhibit run from April 10, 2018 – January 6, 2019.

Votes for Women: Untangling Michigan's Suffragist History
2018-03-23 01:45 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | MI
Join us at the Historical Society of Michigan’s Local History Conference in Detroit! Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council board members Jo Ellyn Clarey and Ruth Stevens will lay out Michigan’s history of local legislation initiatives and court decisions revealing the crucial role played by local school board elections as both a testing ground for suffrage and a launching point for women in elective office. They will outline a better history of suffrage organizations by correcting faulty assumptions about geography, ethnicity, and race; and revalue Michigan history’s effect on the national story, illustrating once again the importance of full and accurate research about local women throughout the nation.
From the conference brochure: A century ago, Michigan granted full suffrage to women, which at last allowed them to vote in state and local elections. In this session, the speakers will discuss the history of the suffrage movement in Michigan; the significance of local school board elections; and the movement’s inclusion of geography, race, and ethnicity

Who in the World is Merze Tate?
2018-03-22 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, United States
Author Sonya Bernard Hollins will update us on her research into the amazing life and mysteries of Merze Tate. An African American girl born in 1905 in rural Michigan, Tate graduated first in her class from Western Michigan University in 1927, earned a doctorate from Oxford University, worked for the State Department, and traveled around the world twice. She became a Howard University history professor and sometime U.S. diplomat, held patents, spoke five languages, wrote seven political books, and purchased a ticket for a flight into outer space before leaving a legacy of millions to educational institutions. Bernard Hollins will release a book on Tate soon. Maybe in March! Be there!

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Rediscovering Emma Cole's 19th-Century Grand Rapids Flora
2018-03-19 18:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Bunker Interpretive Center at Calvin College
In 1901 Emma J. Cole published Grand Rapids Flora, a catalogue of plants growing without cultivation in the vicinity of Kent County. Enormous changes have taken place since those “horse and buggy” days, yet her book remains the most complete account of plants specific to our area. Who was this remarkable high school teacher, world traveller and Kent Scientific Institute botanist? Where were her favorite spots for wildflowers? Do they still exist?
Julie Stivers will speak about the life of Emma Cole. Professor Crow will describe the work he and Dr. Warners are doing with Calvin students to rediscover Emma’s haunts and assess their natural quality today. There are interesting surprises as we don our “sleuthing” hats, grab our hand lenses, and observe the changes over more than 116 years.

The GGRWHC Annual Reception
2018-03-15 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | John F. Donnelly Conference Center at Aquinas College
The annual reception immediately follows author Rebecca Traister’s visit to Grand Rapids on March 13 discussing her book All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation. The GGRWHC will add to the conversation by complicating the relationship between singledom and progress for women. To Traister’s examples we will add vivid anecdotes about our own “single ladies” in Grand Rapids – single for so many different reasons – and we will lift a glass to favorite married ladies for their contributions to social reform and massive change in Grand Rapids’s history. Honoring them we honor our researchers who have brought them back into the light.

Author Lecture with Rebecca Traister
2018-03-13 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | GVSU, Allendale Campus, Kirkhof Center, Grand River Room
Community Reading Projects Author Lecture with Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies!
Door open at 6:00pm, book signing will follow the lecture. Free and Open to the Public!

Atmosphere of Distinction
2018-03-02 | Holland Museum, 31 W. 10th Street, Holland, MI, 49423, United States
Open to the public on March 2! During the twentieth century, women throughout the country took great strides toward equality and began abandoning their traditional roles, as well as restrictive fashions, in search of greater opportunity and comfortable clothing. “Atmosphere of Distinction” displays how the emergence of the women’s rights movement impacted West Michigan fashion trends and how it reflected women’s changing role in society. This exhibit runs through September 1, 2018.

Links to the Local: Building a National Women's Elective History
2018-02-21 13:30 - 14:45 (America/New_York) | GVSU, Allendale Campus, Kirkhof Center, RM2270
The historical charting of Grand Rapids women’s runs for public office upends conventional wisdom and offers surprises about dates, the numbers of races, and the identities of women who participated in local politics beginning in 1887. Julia Bouwkamp and Jo Ellyn Clarey will report on how the national crowdsourcing project Her Hat Was in the Ring invited local researchers to share their data with the world, helping others complete and complicate American women’s history by seeking out every woman who ran before 1920. This unique historical accounting hopes to inspire cities across the nation to create their own comprehensive elective histories.
Presented by Julia Bouwkamp & Jo Ellyn Clarey
This event is co-sponsored by the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council and GVSU’s Office of Integrated Learning and Advising Community Reading Project.

A Team of Her Own: Minnie Forbes & Negro League Baseball
2018-02-18 13:30 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, United States
The last female owner of a Negro League baseball team will talk with former Grand Rapids Press columnist Jaye Beeler at Taste of Soul Sunday about playing softball at fifteen for Cook’s Brown Dolls, a traveling team from Grand Rapids, and playing baseball with the Kansas City Monarchs against the Grand Rapids Black Sox. When in 1956 Minnie Forbes took over her uncle Ted Rasberry’s team the Detroit Stars, black baseball was winding down because of integration into the American major leagues. But, along the way from player to owner, Forbes interacted with such players as Satchel Page and Ozzie Guillen and visited the White House as the guest of President Barack Obama. This program will have two sessions, at 1:30pm and 3:00pm. Co-sponsored by the Grand Rapids Study Club and the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council.

African Americans in Early Grand Rapids
2018-01-20 13:00 - 13:45 UTC | Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, United States
At History Detectives, GGRWHC’s Ruth Van Stee will present African Americans in Early Grand Rapids—including, of course, more women’s history. From 1850 to 1920 African Americans here were a steady one percent of the city’s rapidly growing population. After an overview of this vibrant community as a whole, Van Stee will provide snapshots of individual business, political, and cultural leaders illustrating their life during an era that sometimes encouraged but often repressed their full involvement in this city.

Elective Detectives & Crowdsourcing Grand Rapids Women's History
2018-01-20 10:30 - 23:15 UTC | Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, United States
At History Detectives, the Grand Rapids Public Library’s day-long offering of local history programming, Julia Bouwkamp and Jo Ellyn Clarey will report on how the charting of 19th-century local women’s candidacy for public office is upending conventional wisdom and offering surprises about dates, the numbers of races, and the identities of losers. This unique historical accounting hopes to inspire cities across the nation to create their own comprehensive elective histories. And now a national crowdsourcing project, Her Hat Was in the Ring, has invited local researchers to share their data with the world, to help others complete and complicate American women’s history by seeking out every woman who ran before 1920.

The Wives (and Lives) of the Early Dutch Pastors - Janet Sheeres
2018-01-06 13:30 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | Ryerson Auditorium, Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49503, United States
START the new year with new women’s history!
On Saturday at 1:30pm, “The Wives (and Lives) of Early Dutch Pastors” — Unlike the biographies of early male ministers of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, which have been well documented and honored, the stories of their wives, who were important community builders in their own right, have been sadly ignored in the historical writings of the church. Now Janet Sjaarda Sheeres pulls them out of obscurity in her new book, For Better, For Worse. Adding to her increasing body of historical work on invisible Dutch women, Sheeres highlights the living conditions of these women and the challenges they faced. Sponsored by the Western Michigan Genealogical Society at the Grand Rapids Public Library: http://wmgs.org/news.htm (Free and open to the public)
Previously, Janet Sjaarda Sheeres has reported on early Dutch women midwives and single women immigrants, also sidelined in early historical records. Born in the Netherlands, Sheeres is the author of three books and over 70 articles in national and international journals. Among her many service positions, she has been president of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies, chair of the Christian Reformed Church Historical Committee, and is the associate editor of Origins, the historical magazine of Calvin College’s Heritage Hall Archives.

The Second Line of Defense: Grand Rapids Women and the Great War
2017-11-09 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Ryerson Auditorium, Grand Rapids Public Library, 111 Library NE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49503, United States
Presenter: Melissa Fox, President, Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council
Upon U.S. entry into WWI, national women’s groups transformed their organizational structures for war work. Grand Rapids women are among the midwestern leaders whose pioneering efforts have been too long neglected. Get ahead of history–credit them!
Co-sponsored by the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council, the Grand Rapids Historical Society, & the Grand Rapids Public Library

No Más Bebés
2016-03-29 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Cook-Dewitt Auditorium, GVSU Allendale Campus, 10720 S Campus Dr, Allendale, MI, 49401, United States
The Latin American Studies & The Women’s Center at Grand Valley State University present: No Más Bebés, a documentary about Los Angeles County General Hospital’s sterilization abuse against Latinas. The film tells the story of Madrigal v. Quilligan, a historic lawsuit filed by 10 Mexican-American women who had been sterilized in the early ’70s after having emergency Cesarean sections.
More information can be found here.

Women, Art, and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise
2016-01-31 - 2016-04-17 | Grand Rapids Art Museum, 101 Monroe Center, Grand Rapids, MI, 49503, United States
The exhibition presents over 125 rarely-exhibited Newcomb ceramics, tableware, jewelry, textiles, bookbinding, and graphics, from one of the most remarkable collections of 20th century American pottery.
Between 1894 and 1948, some of the most beautiful and functional art objects of the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements were created at the Newcomb Pottery Enterprise in New Orleans. The Pottery was an innovative educational experiment as much as an operational facility: it was conceived in the late 19th century at Newcomb Memorial College, Tulane University’s coordinate institution for women, as an income-generating venture for women training in the applied arts.
