![]() Photo credit: Joe DuPont Past Speaking Engagements Include:"PRATTlit" Pratt Institute Brooklyn, New York "A Literary Tea" Manhattanville College Purchase, New York Hawley Women's Club Hawley, Pennsylvania The Hewitt School New York, New York The Mary Louis Academy Jamaica Estates, NY John Jay H.S. Brooklyn, New York The Berkeley Carroll School Brooklyn, New York Fallsburg Central H.S. Fallsburg, New York Dominican Commercial High School Jamaica, New York John Wilson Intermediate School 211 Brooklyn, New York "Meet the Writers" P.S. 321 Brooklyn, New York National Women's History MonthWhat is now celebrated as National Women's History Month began in March 1978 in Sonoma County, California, as Women's History Week. In 1981, Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) and Representative Barbara Milkulski (D-MD), introduced the Joint Congressional Resolution that created National Women's History Week. It was first celebrated as National Women's History Month in 1987. |
Lectures and Speaking EngagementsIt would be a pleasure to help your school or organization commemorate National Women's History Month or to visit on an ordinary school or business day. Possible guest lecture topics include: Women's Suffrage in America. It may surprise you to know that Lucy Stone allowed her household possessions to be sold at auction rather than pay taxes due upon them, to protest taxation without representation. Or to learn that state congressman Harry Burn of Tennessee, whose vote was the last needed to ratify the women's suffrage amendment, ignored threats and supported suffrage because, among other reasons, his mother had long wished to vote. My discussion of Women's Suffrage in America provides a broad overview of the seventy-year-long campaign, with emphasis on the fact that the suffrage struggle was, for many, an extremely personal one. Women's Rights on Trial. It may shock you to learn that, in 1855, the Missouri courts rejected a black woman's claim to self-defense against rape, holding that no enslaved female fell within the meaning of "woman"; that until 1974, it was legal to bar pregnant teachers from the classroom; and that, until 1981, a husband could mortgage or sell a couple's jointly-owned home without his wife's knowledge or consent. The courts have rendred noteworthy verdict on women's rights since earliest colonial times. My discussion of that history charts the general course of women's progress under the law, while highlighting the courage and vision of individual women who stood in those courtrooms. These are but a few of the topics available for discussion. If you'd like to arrange a speaking engagement, please feel free to e-mail me at kcd@ All best, Kathryn Cullen-DuPont |
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