January 20 – The Flappers: Beyond the Fringe – Beverly Marshall
This session will examine the flapper as a bold cultural figure of the 1920s, emerging in the wake of World War I and the enactment of the 19th Amendment. In many ways, flappers symbolized women’s expanding freedoms, flaunting their disdain for what was considered acceptable behavior. We will explore how flappers redefined fashion, gender roles and social behavior while embracing the Jazz Age and the energy of the modern city. We will also consider key shifts in music (jazz, swing and ragtime) and literature (F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway), and reflect on both the glamour and contradictions of this transformative era.
January 27 – Julia Child & Dr. Ruth Westheimer: Spicing Things Up – Steve Solomon
Despite their very different backgrounds, each of these women broke similar taboos and molds: Julia in the kitchen, Ruth in the bedroom. They were not just media personalities; they were cultural educators who used the intimacy of television to connect, inform and inspire. They made expert knowledge fun, interesting and accessible. They empowered people to take control of their lives, whether in the way they ate or in their personal relationships. Today, we see their legacy in the vast variety of television and radio shows, podcasts and websites devoted to food and personal relationships.
February 3 – Margaret Fuller: Public Intellectual, Feminist, Social Activist – Kathleen Hunter
Margaret Fuller belonged to the New England intellectual community of Transcendentalists during the early 1800s. She was a contemporary of Emerson and Thoreau and was equally influential but not promoted or studied at that time — or thereafter — to the same extent. We are fortunate that a new biography has been written and her complete works have been published and reissued. Her ideas and her life are interesting and still relevant for women today.
February 10 – Mrs. Jane Tracy: The Westside Social Club and Other Ideas, 1890-1938 – Jim Perkins
As a summer resident beginning in 1890, Jane Tracy took an early and unusual interest in New London’s cultural welfare, with her plans for town improvements — often modeled on experience in her native Cleveland, Ohio — and later informed by her unaccompanied travels across the globe at the outbreak of World War I. This presentation looks at Jane beyond Tracy Memorial Library — at her life, travels, writings, photography and lesser-known works spanning fifty years in New London.
February 17 – Women of the Wild West: Legends or History? – John Peterman
American history of 19th century western expansion is filled with tales of heroes and villains, most of them men. Yet a number of women carved out their own legacies on the frontier, and their names still echo through our culture thanks to print and digital media. Figures like Annie Oakley, Belle Starr and Calamity Jane feel larger than life, but how much of what we “know” is truth, and how much is legend? Join us as we unravel the myths and realities behind these extraordinary women, alongside others such as Stagecoach Mary, Pearl Hart and more.