History Department Announces Women’s History Month Events Featuring UNCA Alumni & Faculty
Tuesday, March 3, 2020 6-8 PM – Blue Ridge Room of Highsmith Student Union: Anne Slatton, who teaches video production and film studies at UNCA, will present the film Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. The film tells the story of a pioneering French filmmaker who began her career in 1894 at the age of 21. One of the first people to make a narrative fiction film, Guy-Blaché produced and directed over 1000 films throughout her career and experimented with sound, color-tinting, interracial casting, and special effects. Even before women had the right to vote, Guy-Blaché used her films as a vehicle for the expression of female drives, desires, and self-determination. Slatton will lead a discussion directly after the film.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020 12-1 PM – Highsmith Room 225: UNCA history alumni Catherine Amos, a local historian, and Katherine Calhoun Cutshall, the collections manager and lead archivist of the North Carolina Collection at Pack Memorial Library, present “You Have to Start a Thing”: Early Women in NC Governance. Through the lens of so-called 19th-century “New Women” such as Helen Morris Lewis, LIllian Exum Clement Stafford, and Leah Arcouet Chiles, all of whom were elected to public offices previously held by men, this discussion will explore the idea of Asheville and Buncombe County as environments that produced progressive and professional women, as well as the North Carolina suffrage movement.
Thursday, March 19, 2020 12-1 PM – Highsmith Room 225: Sharon Baggett Withrow, who holds a BA in History from UNCA, presents “Molasses Catches More Flies Than Vinegar”: Women’s Suffrage in Western North Carolina. In this discussion, Withrow will explore how suffragists and their supporters in western North Carolina used existing preconceptions and power structures in their fight to win the right to vote.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020 6-8 PM – Highsmith Room 225: Dr. Laurie Green, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas, Austin will present “Women’s Liberation through a Different Prism: The View from Austin.” Dr. Green will explore the narratives of the U.S. Women’s Liberation Movement, and whether geography and historical context mean more than has been acknowledged when it comes to these narratives. She asks: “Have we accepted narratives that emanate from the urban Northeast and Midwest as universals, rather than particular perspectives? And if so, what are the historical consequences?”