The Museum of the Grand Prairie announces its fourteenth annual and its first virtual Lincoln Speaker series. This year speakers will highlight the influential and complicated role of women in the fight for the abolition of slavery as well as their own struggle for the vote. All of the speakers will be broadcast on Facebook and YouTube live on the dates and times listed. The lectures are as follows:
Sunday, October 4, 2:00 p.m.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE: THE ROAD TO ANTI-SLAVERY ADVOCATE Online Event, Streamed on the Museum of the Grand Prairie Facebook and YouTube pages. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the important anti-slavery novel, based on her experiences living in the border city of Cincinnati. Learn more about the woman Abraham Lincoln credited with writing the “book that started the Civil War”, as well as other members of her large, social reform minded family – including suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker and Illinois abolitionist, Edward Beecher. Christina Hartlieb is the Executive Director of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati. A former HS educator, she loves bringing together ideas of social justice advocacy, women’s history, and historical literacy.
Sunday, November 1, 7:00 p.m.
HISTORY BROUGHT TO LIFE: SUSAN B. ANTHONY
Online Event, Streamed on the Museum of the Grand Prairie Facebook and YouTube pages It had been a 72-year struggle for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing women their right to vote, with thousands of women dedicating themselves to “getting the vote,” but it was Susan B. Anthony, a former school teacher and advocate for temperance and abolition who through her leadership for women’s political equality, became affectionately and respectfully known as the “mother of The Cause.” Hear from Ms. Anthony herself as she describes her tireless work towards a more just society. Join Annette Baldwin, as Susan B. Anthony for this informative and inspiring presentation.
November 15, 2:00 p.m.
WOMEN, POLITICS, AND ABOLITION – A COMPLICATED COLLABORATION. Online Event, Streamed on the Museum of the Grand Prairie Facebook and YouTube pages. Professor Stacey Robertson will reveal in this how women abolitionists in Illinois and the Old Northwest engaged in partisan politics as an avenue to end slavery and through this process found themselves increasingly aware of their own gendered disempowerment. Their efforts to expand their influence and power laid the groundwork for future women’s rights accomplishments.
