The content of presentations made by individuals listed in this Speakers List represents the individual presenter’s work and the individuals are solely responsible for the presentations and any harm or damages resulting therefrom. The Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance, an initiative of the League of Women Voters of Vermont Education Fund (VSCA/LWVVT-EF), takes no responsibility for, nor claims a property interest in the presentations. The views or opinions expressed in the presentations are those of the individual presenter and may not represent the views or opinions of the VSCA/LWVVT-EF. The VSCA/LWVVT-EF accepts no liability or responsibility for any harm or claim of damages arising out of the presentations made by individuals listed in this Speakers Bureau.
Click on each speaker’s name and program title for contact information and other details.
Program Description:A history of activism to gain the vote, 1848 to 1920, when the 19th amendment finally passed giving women the right to vote. This will include the special story of Vermont women trying to be the 36th state to ratify the amendment. What are women marching about now?
Speaker Bio: Cyndy Bittinger is faculty, the Community College of Vermont, where she teaches Vermont history and Women in U.S. History. She gives lectures for Road Scholar and OSHER, the Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Vermont. She also is scheduled for Green Mountain Academy in Manchester.
Contact Information: bittingercynthia1@gmail.com, 603-643-6810
Availability: Statewide
Equipment Needed From Host: Projector for PowerPoint, Screen, Podium, and Microphone
Fee Information: Contact Speaker Mileage Reimbursement Required? Yes
Program Description: Blackwell will detail the uneven progress of the quest for woman suffrage through the eyes of three of its most ardent leaders from the late 1840s until 1921.
Speaker Bio: Historian Marilyn Blackwell has published many articles about women in Vermont history and coauthored, “Frontier Feminist,” a biography of Clarina Howard Nichols, Vermont’s earliest women’s rights advocate.
Contact Information: lyn.blackwell3@gmail.com
Availability: Caledonia County, Chittenden County, Lamoille County, Orange County, Washington County
Equipment Needed From Host: PowerPoint presentation capability
Fee Information: Contact Speaker Mileage Reimbursement Required? Yes
Program Description: I have written a play that introduces Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Carrie Chapman Catt. I switch characters by adding or subtracting clothing or props and take a short break for wardrobe change. The actions of these 5 suffrage activists moved Women’s Suffrage forward and made it possible. Each woman’s story reveals what made them donate their lives to winning the right to vote and often were arrested. I also have an information board per woman for additional information not covered in role play. I conclude with a question and answer session.
Speaker Bio: I taught history for 45 years and Women’s History for 30 years. I started to perform historic roleplays in 1989 for my Women’s History class and performed at Senior Centers and Historical Societies. I make jewelry and all proceeds are donated to non-profits that help families with Huntington’s Disease.
Contact Information: earthnwearwhisper@gmail.com
Availability: Chittenden County, Franklin County
Fee Information: $100 Mileage Reimbursement Required? No
Program Description: Our grandmothers, our mothers, our neighbors, ourselves: When it’s time to gather people and move forward, do women bring particular qualities to leadership and decision-making? What assets do women bring to today’s cutting-edge deliberative democratic practices? Vermont is also known for its long-standing tradition of town meetings, where townspeople assemble annually as the town’s legislature. How have Vermont’s town meetings measured up in their inclusion and empowerment of women? Explore Vermont’s patterns and our future, and share your experience in this interactive presentation and conversation.
Speaker Bio: Susan Clark is coauthor of “Slow Democracy: Rediscovering Community, Bringing Decision Making Back Home”; and “All Those In Favor,” a book about Vermont town meetings. Susan consults with communities across the northeast on how to build inclusive, deliberative and empowered public engagement. She is Middlesex town moderator.
Contact Information: slowdemocracy@gmail.com, SlowDemocracy.org
Equipment Needed From Host: Projector, screen, prefers room with chairs in circle formation
Availability: Statewide
Fee Information: Contact Speaker
Program Description: In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited states from denying suffrage “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” There was no mention of sex. It took fifty years for women’s votes to be similarly protected. Why so long?
Suffragists might have achieved their ends through the states. Instead they chose the harder road. To amend the Constitution, they had to convince three-quarters of the states that Congress should protect their rights. We’ll consider arguments for and against women’s suffrage and what finally helped the Nineteenth to complete the arduous journey of ratification.
Speaker Bio: After twenty years of teaching young radicals at Marlboro College, Meg Mott is peddling constitutional politics to Vermont audiences. Her award-winning series, Debating Our Rights, looks at the controversies within the Bill of Rights, asking audience members to consider all the arguments, even when they can’t endorse them.
Contact Information: megmott@marlboro.edu, 802-258-1515
Availability: Statewide
Equipment Needed From Host: Data projector to run off laptop (Mac)
Fee Information: Contact Speaker Mileage Reimbursement Required? Yes
Program Description: Early efforts of American women to be given (!) the right to vote evoked well-known and well-documented resistance from outside female ranks. This talk looks at struggles inside the movement, outlining both conflicts among different points of view and the compromises that eventually worked out to achieve consensus and cooperation. (Vermont plays a part in this national story.)
Speaker Bio: My career has been—and still is—in higher education, primarily as an English professor, including international experience and teaching at times in other languages. My degrees are from Colby College (B.A.), Stanford (M.A.) and Princeton (Ph.D.), where I began soon after that university had started to admit women. I’ve published scholarly articles, poems, and books. At present I teach at Champlain College. View a previous presentation
Contact Information: nahra@champlain.edu, nancynahra.com, 802 658-6993
Availability: Addison County, Bennington County, Caledonia County, Chittenden County, Franklin County, Grand Isle County, Lamoille County, Orange County, Orleans County, Rutland County, Washington County, Windsor County
Equipment Needed From Host: Projector to connect to my laptop, screen
Fee Information: Contact Speaker Mileage Reimbursement Required? Yes
Program Description: This presentation explores the debate over women’s suffrage through the artwork of 19th and 20th century cartoonists.
Speaker Bio: Susan Ouellette, Professor of History and American Studies at Saint Michael’s College, received her PhD from the UMass Amherst. Her teaching/research interests encompass early America to the Civil War, women’s history, immigrant history, labor history, and local history. Her enthusiasm for regional history is reflected in several published works.
Contact Information: souellette@smcvt.edu, 8026542256
Availability: Statewide
Equipment Needed From Host: Projector, connection for laptop, screen
Fee Information: Contact Speaker Mileage Reimbursement Required? Yes
Program Description: Talks include:
Susan B. Anthony – From Farm Town Girl to Feminist Icon
“So Wide and Deep” An Introduction to Racism in the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movement
Pedals, Pants, and Print Culture: The New Woman and her Fight for Equality
Women’s Work: Textiles and the (Her)Stories They Tell
A Future Looming: Inside the Lives and Minds of 19th Century New England Mill Girls.
Contact speaker for information about each program or visit the speaker’s website for more details.
Speaker Bio: Cassandra graduated Magna Cum Laude from Mount Holyoke College in 2018 with a B.A. in History and “Nexus” Minor in Public History, Museums, and Archives focused in the politics of women’s fashion. She now serves as Executive Director of the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum overseeing Suffrage Centennial Programming.
Contact Information: cassandra.l.peltier@gmail.com, Website
Availability: Statewide
Equipment Needed From Host: Projector for PowerPoint slides
Fee Information: Typical honorarium is $200. Travel and accommodations extra, when applicable.
Program Description: Singer and historian Linda Radtke, in period garb and “Votes for Women” sash, celebrates the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, specifically highlighting the decades-long persistence of Vermonters, both women and men. Radtke also traces the movement’s alignment with other social justice initiatives such as temperance, labor conditions, wage equity, peace, and children’s welfare. Both the songs and stories in Radtke’s engaging presentation, accompanied by pianist Arthur Zorn, highlight Vermonters’ efforts from 1840-1921, as they lobbied in churches, at “parlor meetings” at town halls and at the State House for total enfranchisement.
Speaker Bio: A classically trained singer, Linda was a Vermont high school teacher for thirty-one years and now produces the VPR Choral Hour on Vermont Public Radio. Pianist Arthur Zorn is a visual artist and musician.
Contact Information: lraerad@aol.com
Availability: Statewide
Fee Information: Contact Speaker Mileage Reimbursement Required? Yes
Program Description: Born a slave in New Paltz, New York, Isabella Baumfree walked away from slavery and in her travels evolved into Sojourner Truth: maid, laundress, evangelist, abolitionist, suffragist. This program tell her story in her own words, speeches and songs.
Speaker Bio: Kathryn Woods has acted on stage, screen, television, and radio. She has performed in theater festivals in Russia and the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. She and Sojourner have been seen on CSpan, heard on NPR and the Voice of America and witnessed in forty three states.
Contact Information: kw4284@aol.com
Availability: Statewide
Fee Information: $350, Plus Transportation, as well as Lodging and Meals for necessary overnight stays
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