NEW ORLEANS – As part of its current exhibition on influential women of New Orleans, The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) will offer three special events this summer. Women’s history scholars and authors Pamela Tyler and Janet Allured will be speaking at THNOC on Wednesday, July 27, and Thursday, August 11, respectively, and a conversation with civil rights advocates Dodie Smith-Simmons and Sybil Morial is scheduled for Saturday, August 20.
The exhibition “Voices of Progress: Twenty Women Who Changed New Orleans” has been on view at THNOC’s Williams Gallery, 533 Royal St., since April 13 and will remain on display through September 11, 2016.
Presented with support from Nola4Women, a newly established nonprofit focused on New Orleans women and girls, the display looks forward to the city’s 300th anniversary by revisiting the stories of 20 women who helped shape the local community from the 19th to the 20th century.
Organizers said the individuals in the exhibition were selected for their dedication, foresight and tenacity. Together, they represent a variety of backgrounds, but their shared devotion to their community forms a timeline of women’s growing political agency. Through photographs, letters, diaries and personal effects, the exhibition offers windows into the lives of those who broke boundaries and advocated for a wide range of social and economic issues, including the advancement of women in the workplace, child labor reform, woman suffrage, civil rights and architectural preservation.
The exhibition and its related events are free and open to the public:
• “Tender Hearts and Business Heads: New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home”
A lecture and book signing with Pamela Tyler
The Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal St.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 • 6:00 p.m.
Extended exhibition viewing: 5:30 p.m.
Pamela Tyler, author and associate professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi, will discuss her latest book, “New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home: More Durable than Marble” (LSU Press, 2016) on Wednesday, July 27, at 6:00 p.m. at 533 Royal St. Tyler’s new work offers a complete history of the 200-year-old institution originally known as the Poydras Asylum, from its founding as an orphanage for young girls to its present-day operation as a retirement community and assisted-living facility. Admission is free, and the book, which retails for $39.95, will be available at the event and through THNOC’s museum shop, The Shop at The Collection. Tyler’s previous title, “Silk Stockings and Ballot Boxes: Women and Politics in New Orleans, 1920–1963” (University of Georgia Press, 1996), will also be available at the event. The exhibition will be open prior to the lecture, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
• “Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women’s Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950–1997”
A lecture with Janet Allured
The Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal St.
Thursday, August 11, 2016 • 6:00 p.m.
Extended exhibition viewing: 5:30 p.m.
Janet Allured, professor of history and director of the Women’s Studies Program at McNeese State University, will discuss the late 20th-century women’s rights movement in Louisiana on Thursday, August 11, at 6:00 p.m. at 533 Royal St. Research regarding second-wave feminism often concentrates on activities happening in the northern U.S., but vibrant pockets of activism existed across the country, including the South, organizers said. Allured will speak about her attempts to reshape this narrative, offering a corrective to the centralized power of northern feminism by focusing largely on the grassroots women’s movement in the South, particularly in Louisiana. Her talk comes in advance of her new book, “Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women’s Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950–1997,” which will be released in November 2016 by University of Georgia Press. The exhibition will be open prior to the lecture, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
• A conversation with civil rights activists Dodie Smith-Simmons and Sybil Haydel Morial
The Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal St.
Saturday, August 20 • 2:00 p.m.
This unique event will feature a conversation with two stalwarts of New Orleans’s political scene: Doratha “Dodie” Smith-Simmons and Sybil Haydel Morial. As a teenager, Smith-Simmons became one of the founding members of the local chapter of CORE, the Congress for Racial Equality, and a Freedom Rider. Morial was the first African-American teacher in the Newton, MA, public school system after graduating from Boston University. Upon returning home, she participated in some of the first legal tests for integration at Tulane and Loyola Universities. With her family—her husband Ernest “Dutch” Morial, the first black mayor of New Orleans, and their five children—she pursued a lifetime of political activism. She chronicled her experiences in her 2015 memoir “Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment” (John F. Blair), which will be available for purchase at the event.
Founded in 1966, The Historic New Orleans Collection is a museum, research center and publisher dedicated to the study and preservation of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South.
The galleries are open Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
