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Native American Artists and Poets
Today I visited the Grace Carpenter Hudson museum in Ukiah, which is about to close its special exhibit on Art and Poetry from Native American California. Featuring 32 contemporary artists, the exhibit...
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California women artists quiz
Have you heard of these women? Helen Hyde, Matilda Lotz, Clara Taggart McChesny? They were among California women artists whose paintings were on exhibit at the Columbian International Exposition of...
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Frances Fuller Victor, 1826-1902
Victor's best known work is her story "The New Penelope." There she challenges traditional gender views of the mid-nineteenth century by describing women who take advantage of the opportunities of the...
View ArticleGrace McCann Morley
While researching California women artists, I came across Grace Morley. She is one of several women during the 1930s (e.g., Gertrude Whitney, Juliana Force, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller in New York) who...
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Maxine Crissman, "Lefty Lou"
Depression Californians brought a new music to the state, old timey hill tunes and style. Woody Guthrie is usually honored for playing the key role in introducing this format, but he was not alone....
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Elizabeth Gunn, 1811-1906
I stayed at the Gunn house in Sonora several times before learning that its original owner had written about her travel to and life in California. She went around the Horn with four children in 1851 to...
View ArticleCalifornia Women: A History
Joan M. Jensen and Gloria Ricci Lothrop wrote this for the blue paperback Golden State Series (Boyd and Fraser Publishing), surveys written for a general audience and students, yet with the research...
View ArticlePaula Gunn Allen, Ph.D., 1939-2008
Raised in New Mexico of Laguna Pueblo-Métis-Scot and Lebanese heritages,this award-winning poet and scholar spent much of her professional life teaching at California universities. Allen's many books...
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Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
A belated entry for this couple that was most deservedly allowed the first marriage at San Francisco City Hall in June, 2008. When I was growing up back east, I never heard the word lesbian or any...
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Caroline Seymour Severance, 1820-1914
At age 91, Caroline Seymour Severance deserved the honor of becoming the first woman in California to register to vote in Los Angeles following the passage of state suffrage in 1911. She was...
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Kay Ryan, Poet
Ryan, a lifelong Californian and graduate of UCLA, was recently named our 16th Poet Laureate. [Ryan, on right, with Emily Warn at a poetry conference. Photo: Star Black,Flickr]It was only after this...
View ArticleJuana Briones de Miranda
Here is a topic for your child or grandchild taking California history to write about. Briones was born in 1802 in Santa Cruz. Her maternal grandparents and mother were part of the deAnza expedition in...
View ArticleAnna Strunsky Walling
Anna Strusky is well-known to those who are familiar with Jack London's life. They crossed paths at various socialist events during the turn of the 20th century. Born in Russia in 1877, Walling was 9...
View ArticleStill missing....depending on where you look
Today the California Historical Society sent me a message concerning their store. I checked out their book list and was dismayed to find not one concerned women or women's activities in California. The...
View ArticleElla Lefland, writer
(The writing muse seems to have struck again, following a long break. So entries will be arriving at shorter intervals.)I read Leffland's 1970 novel Rumors of Peace several years ago, yet many of its...
View ArticleSonoma County Women's History
Several years ago the late Mary Ruthsdotter, one of the founders of the National Women's History Project, conceived of a history of the feminist movement in Sonoma County, where it was very active from...
View ArticleDo Your Own History
The following comment is a reminder of how important it is for you to preserve information about women's groups in which you are active, whether political, civil rights, artistic, craft, domestic...
View ArticleElinor Remick Warren, 1900-1991
Similar to the fine arts, music has been a field where women have not received the lasting notice deserved. On an impulse, I searched for a California woman composer and came up with this name. During...
View ArticleBarbara Rosenblum
A much-beloved woman in my music world is dying. We sang under her direction recently and she had difficulty completing the concert due to pain. Watching her these past weeks has brought in mind...
View ArticleRita Lakin, mystery writer
I discovered Lakin's books at a book fair, and was intrigued by their fictional detective and location. Gladdy Gold is a 79-year-old retiree in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she lives in the Lanai...
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