Oct. 25 symposium celebrates women’s suffrage centennial

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Oct. 23, 2012) -- “From Suffrage to Citizenship: Empowering Oregon Women in the Twentieth Century and Beyond” is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 25, from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in Knight Library’s Browsing Room, 1501 Kincaid St., on the UO campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Linda Long, manuscripts librarian at the University of Oregon Libraries and organizer of the symposium, says that the event is meant to not only celebrate past accomplishments of women as voters and citizens but to look to the future as well. “Women have accomplished much in the past 100 years,” she says, “but a primary goal of the symposium is to sustain and strengthen their contributions as citizens far into the future.”

From 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., a panel will address the question, “How Have Women Changed Politics?” Panel members include April Haynes, assistant professor, UO Department of History; Priscilla Yamin, assistant professor, UO Department of Political Science; Margaret Hallock, director, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics; and Kitty Piercy, mayor of Eugene.

At 4 p.m., Lauren Kessler will deliver a keynote address entitled “Perseverance.” Kessler is a UO journalism professor and director of the UO’s multimedia journalism master's degree program. She is the author of six works of narrative nonfiction and the founder of the online magazine Etude. A reception will follow Kessler’s talk.

Sponsors for the event include the UO Libraries, the Oregon Humanities Center, and the Center for the Study of Women in Society.

About the University of Oregon

The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.

CONTACT:Linda Long, Manuscripts Librarian, UO Libraries, 541-346-1906, llong@uoregon.edu

LINK: http://library.uoregon.edu/node/3156

Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with satellite uplink capacity, and a radio studio with an ISDN phone line for broadcast-quality radio interviews.