February – March 1989
This exhibition has been prepared in recognition of International Women’s Day on March 8, 1989. Materials have been selected from the Libraries’ collections to illustrate the accomplishments of women world-wide who have distinguished themselves in various fields of endeavor and who had made important contributions to the arts and sciences. Emphasis is on the Twentieth Century.
Literarcy figures selected include Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand); Flannery O’Connor (United States); Marguerite Yourcenar (France); Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (India); Alfonsina Storni (Argentina); Clarice Lispector (Brazil); Isabel Allende (Child); Gabriela Mistral (Chile); Natalia Ginzburg (Italy); Marguerite Duras (France); Marina Tsvetaeva (Russia); Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina); Nathalie Sarraute (France); Christa Wolf (Germany); Nadine Gorimer (South Africa); Anna Akhmatova (Russia); Anna Seghers (Germany); Nelly Sachs (Germany); Hualing Nieh (China); and Gertrude Stein (United States).
Representing music, art and film are Thea Musgrave (Great Britain); Lotte Lehmann (Germany); Miriam Makeba (South Africa); Barbara Morgan (United States); Georgia O’Keefe (United States); and Lina Wertmuller (Italy).
Scientists include several Nobel Prize winners: Marie Curie (Poland); Gerty Cori (Czechoslovakia); Maria Goeppert-Meyer (Germany); Dorothy Hodgkins (Great Britain); and Rosalyn Yalow (United States). Dr. Florence Rena Sabin (United States) first woman professor at Johns Hopkins; Caroline Herschel (Germany) early woman astronomer, and Sonya Kovalesky (Russia) and Amalie Emmy Noether (Germany), both prominent mathematicians will also be included.
Representatives of other fields include Alva Myrdal (Sweden) winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; Shirley Chisholm (United States) first Black congresswoman; Maria Montessori (Italy) founder of a revolutionary teaching method; Helen Blavatsky (Russia) co-founder of the Theosophical Society; Simone Weil (France) writer, philosopher and mystic; Hannah Arendt (Germany) noted 20th Century philosopher; Dorothy Day (United States) founding member of the Catholic Worker Movement; Dervla Murphy (Ireland) exploer and traveler in the Orient; Nadia Comaneci (Romania) first gymnast to achieve a perfect score of ten in the Olympics; Indira Gandhi (India); Corazon Aquino (Phillippines) and Margaret Thatcher (Great Britain) political leaders; Gloria Steinem (United States) womens’ rights activist and founder of Ms. magazine.
This exhibition was prepared by Timothy Shipe, Helen Ryan and Lucy Marino, with assistance from Lauren Goetz.