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SPEAKERS BUREAU
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Jane Lancaster
Elleanor Eldridge: Justice and Injustice in 19th Century Rhode Island:
What was it like to be a black woman in early nineteenth-century Providence? Eldridge, granddaughter of a captured African and niece of men who fought in the Revolutionary War is the subject of one of the earliest "as told to" memoirs of a free black woman. She was a skilled worker, was consort to her brother when he was "African King" and later defended him from a murder charge. She worked hard all her life, and bought property which was later seized when she did not pay the mortgage. Her "Memoirs" penned by reformer Frances Whipple in 1837 and sold by Eldridge herself saved the day.
Reading Rhode Island Girls' Lives in 1799: Diaries as Historical Records
How did teenagers in Rhode Island live over two hundred years ago? Peeking at the private writings of adolescent girls reveals how young people passed their time before taking on adult responsibilities. While such personal accounts come mostly from girls of relative privilege, they write of places and events that would have been familiar to all Rhode Islanders. Their diaries offer a glimpse at the social expectations and constraints that shaped the lives of women. Recording confidential thoughts about boating on the Narragansett Bay or sharing a coach ride to Providence with a handsome "Indian Chief," these young women comment on the world around them with candor and spirit.
Weren't They Cheaper by the Dozen? The Gilbreths and Scientific Management in Rhode Island
Lillian Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth were early 20th-Century efficiency consultants who studied the movements of Rhode Island factory workers in order to streamline their labor, reduce fatigue, and maximize productivity. With a Ph.D. in psychology from Brown University, Lillian also collaborated with her husband on books about scientific management and raised 11 children. In Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey offer a comic portrait of how their parents applied principles of efficiency to the business of running a large household. This presentation tells the true story of an intriguing pair of working parents whose partnership anticipated America's changing social and technological demands.
I Should Have Been an Acrobat: Charlotte Perkins Gilman in Flight from Depression
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist author, lecturer, and founder of the Providence Ladies' Gymnasium. In her 1892 semi-autobiographical story,The Yellow Wallpaper, she explored the links between mental illness and the isolation of domestic life: a wife, confined to her bed, sinks deep into depression as she stares at the pattern on the walls and loses touch with the world beyond them. Gilman believed that exercise was essential to mental health and used calisthenics as a means of warding off her own bouts of depression. This slide presentation offers an overview of her life and work and considers her advocacy of women's fitness in the context of her larger feminist agenda.
I Must Work, I Live for That Alone: Elizabeth Prophet, Sculptress of Color
Learn about the life and work of Elizabeth Prophet, a 1918 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design who sculpted in wood, stone, and marble. While census records record her as either a mulatto or an Indian, her strongest personal and professional ties were with African Americans, including her husband, W.E.B DuBois, and Countee Cullen. She won prizes in Newport for her work and refused an offer of patronage from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Except during years spent studying in Paris and teaching at the University of Atlanta, Rhode Island was her home. This slide presentation explores the motivations for her art and the conditions in which she struggled to define herself as an artist.
The Home Front in World War II Rhode Island
See the effects of World War II through the eyes of a Rhode Island woman who kept a wonderfully evocative and detailed diary. Helen Clarke Grimes, descendant of an old Rhode Island family, was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, but during the Great Depression, was too poor to show her face at meetings. Her husband was out of work for several years in the 1930s. Grimes found solace in her journal, however, where she recorded events large and small. Things improved financially with the outbreak of war: there was plenty of overtime and she went to work in an office. Starting with an account of hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor, she records blackouts and flirtations, the rationing of gas and sugar, trips to New York and restaurants, as well as war news. This slide (or PowerPoint) presentation includes extracts from the diaries, together with a commentary on the historical context.
Christiana Bannister: From Shampoos to Shelters
Edward Bannister, perhaps the best-known African-American artist of the Gilded Age, said of his wife: "I would have made out very poorly had it not been for her; my greatest successes have come through her, either through her criticisms of my pictures or the advice she would give me in the matter of placing them in public." Christiana Bannister also supported him financially when he was learning his craft. A free black/Native-American woman, South County-born Christiana Babcock became a successful hairdresser in Providence and Boston. She was active in the abolition of slavery, and after her return to Rhode Island helped found the Home for Aged Colored Women, which became Bannister House. Although she died in poverty and lies in an unmarked grave, in 2002 her bust was unveiled in the Rhode Island State House.
Emily Post: By Motor to the Golden Gate
Before Emily Post became the expert on etiquette, she was a journalist. One of her assignments was to drive from New York to San Francisco, and that was easier said than done in 1915, since the roads were not yet built, the car unsuitable, and her attitudes very upper class East Coast. She took her son out of Harvard, bade him drive, and had many adventures on the way, as well as a lot of chocolate. It is a very amusing book!
In Search of Madame Jumel
Eliza Jumel was one of the most enigmatic women of 19th-Century America. Desperately poor in her youth, the daughter of a Providence prostitute, she may have followed her mother's trade for a while and then used her beauty and her wits to become immensely wealthy. She was very much a self-invented woman. Her obituary in the New York Times stated that Madame Jumel was born at sea of an English mother by the name of Capet (which is the name of a French dynasty); Providence town records suggest, more prosaically, that she was Betsey Bowen (1775-1865), the daughter of Phebe Kelley Bowen, who turned to prostitution to keep body and soul together. After one of Phebe's arrests her daughters were sent to the Providence workhouse. This was a formative experience for Betsey who, like Scarlett O'Hara, was determined never to be poor again. Betsey left Providence in her late teens, reinvented herself as Eliza Brown, and in New York married first a wealthy Frenchman, and second, former vice-president Aaron Burr.
This talk will be about Madame Jumel and how she rose from rags to riches, but she is hard to pin down. She left almost no letters, no diaries, and what remains is her house, a beautiful yellow silk dress, and a sensational law case over who was to inherit her great wealth. Ms. Lancaster's investigation is a work in progress, and she will share with audiences how she is uncovering the real Madame Jumel.
The Welsh Origins of Brown University
Most people think the Browns founded the university which bears their name. Not so! This talk reveals forgotten information about the role of Welshmen and Pennsylvanians, about the influence of slaveholders and the contribution of slaves and Native Americans, and the fights and intrigues which accompanied the move of the infant college from Warren to Providence.
Availability: Ms. Lancaster is away during the summer months.
Needs: Projector for a PowerPoint presentation (She will bring her own laptop) screen; lighted lectern/water
Jane Lancaster is an award-winning teacher, researcher, and writer. She received a Ph.D. from Brown University and wrote her dissertation on the life of engineer Lillian Moller Gilbreth (the mother of 12 celebrated in Cheaper by the Dozen). She is currently writing the history of Brown University. Her work on Rhode Island women has been published in periodicals ranging from the Providence Journal to the Journal of American History.