The history of women’s roles in politics served as the focus for three speakers at a symposium held Monday, March 27. “Women, Politics and Power: A Symposium” was sponsored by the St. Louis University History Colloquia and Speakers Series.
“It was really interesting,” said freshman Kerry Doyle who recently became interested in the women’s movement through her Women in Literature class. “You can’t find this kind of information just anywhere.”
The guest speakers were three women, each with a distinct link to the women’s movement.
Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of a prize-winning biography on Eleanor Roosevelt, is a distinguished professor of history at John Jay College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.
Harriett Woods is the author of Stepping Up To Power, The Political Journey of American Women. As a former Lt. Governor of Missouri, she is the founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Dr. Elisabeth Israels Perry is a John Francis Bannon, S.J. Chair in History and American Studies at SLU. She is the author of Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith.
“The three of us had not coordinated exactly what we were going to say but spontaneously connected with one another in a way I felt was meaningful to the audience,” Perry said.
Adrienne Kindelin, senior history major, helped organize the symposium with Perry. For the campus, Kindelin created National Women’s History Month fliers to post around campus. The first flier consisted of brief biographies of four notable American women. The second flier consisted of “Famous Female Firsts” in American history, such as the first female doctor, lawyer and senator.
“I think it went extremely well,” Kindelin said. “Our speakers were intelligent and animated, and they seemed to hold everyone’s attention.”
Kindelin said, “The topic is both historical and relevant to events of today, and I believe the discussion illustrated that bridge from the past to the present.”
Kindelin had been planning the event since January, making the publicity posters, working with the SLU PR department on the fliers and contacting women’s groups around the city to publicize the event.
“Basically I handled all the organizational details for the event,” Kindelin said.
Kindelin said that she was pleased with the attendance around 55. “I had hoped to see more students, but nonetheless, we did have a good mixture of professors, students and members of the community,” Kindelin said.
“So many lectures on campus focus on very specific subjects, which may not be relevant or of interest to the larger community,” Kindelin said. “I believe our topic is relevant to several groups, both on and off campus.”
According to Kindelin, “Women, Politics and Power” was a symposium that should have attracted the female population of SLU, as well as historians, political science majors and academics of a variety of disciplines.
“I would certainly like to see more lectures on specifically female issues held on this campus,” she said. “As a student of women’s studies, I have noticed the lack of organized resources available to female students, faculty and staff.”
Kindelin said that she hopes this symposium will be followed by similar events to be held before next year’s women’s history month in March.
Perry became interested in the women’s movement through her work as a historian. In the early 1970s, she decided to write a book about her grandmother, Belle Moskowitz, who had been a close political advisor to Alfred E. Smith, four-time governor of New York and Democratic party presidential candidate in 1928.
According to Perry, “It was very unusual for women to reach such an important position in politics at that time.”
Perry said that she hopes to contribute to the effort to raise awareness among students of women’s accomplishments, both past and present, and of what women still need to do to achieve greater equality in society.
Books of the three authors were for sale in conjunction with the campus Barnes and Noble bookstore.
