welcome. i am elizabeth sackler and i'd liketo welcome you to the elizabeth a. sackler center for feminist art. we opened in 2007in march so we are coming up on our second anniversary which is a very exciting thing.thank you. yes. thank you to all of you and thank you to this wonderful museum and tomy staff at the foundation. it is wonderful to see you all here today. when i was envisioningthe center for feminist art part of what i wanted to have here in addition to hostingthe dinner party and having it available all the time and in addition to our herstory galleryand in addition to the feminist gallery is this space. this space brings to people allkinds of discussions, artists, politics, writers, you name it, that otherwise we wouldn't beable to do. we have called it the forum because
it is a forum for ideas, for discussions andalso for a chance to celebrate the kind of works and things that we are going to be seeingtoday. i'm delighted that you are here. obviously our focus is on feminist activism and feministart. today we have two artists in the audience with us. cristina biaggi is with us and alsolinda stein. i'd like to welcome you and thank you for coming. if i've missed somebody pleasetell me, joan semmel. nancy azara. nancy, i'm sorry. thank you, i didn't see you. lindahudler. hello linda. how are you? fine, thanks. good. this is great. today, yes they did!we just couldn't pass that one by, we stole it obviously, it's derivative. it is a celebrationof women who dared and the collection of photographs by daile kaplan and donna henes is comprisedof thousands of photographs as they liked
to describe them, of remarkable women whodid exceptional things. of course i like to think that all women are remarkable and thatall women do exceptional things. in this instance of course we have some documentation of that.it was really fun putting these remarks together because daile and donna have listed, and fromtheir list of the actions and the activities of the women, i was just sort of clumpingthem together. it comes out as a wonderful clump when i started to itemize them out:actresses, adventurers and artists; bullfighters and ball players; circus performers and modelsdoesn't that sort of make sense? nurses and nuns; politicians and students; and suffragistsand spies. we have also women who in their daily activities are caring for children,breastfeeding, cooking, cleaning and gardening.
i say happily are included and accorded equalstatus with political or cultural achievements and well they should be. they include familiarnames bella abzug, shirley chisholm, elinor chisholm, eleanor roosevelt, jane adams, susanb. anthony, amelia earhart, calamity jane, one of my favorite people in history. margotfonteyn, another favorite. mary todd lincoln, grandma moses, gertrude stein, sojourner truth,victoria woodhull, who was in our exhibition of first women's votes. i don't know if youhad a chance to see that one. it was at the herstory gallery. some names that i was notfamiliar with: conchita citron conchita citron. who was a bullfighter. love it. didn't knowthere was a woman bullfighter. pauline cushman, who was a civil war union spy. fanny gorman,strong woman. i guess she was lifting weights,
yes? jeanne la mar, who was a champion phantomweight boxer. obviously their collections features amateur, press and canted imagesas well as fine art photographs by recognized masters. all of the photographs are originaland vintage prints. i want to apologize to people who are standing in the back, we havea full house, and i hope there is a place to lean and to rest yourself when you needit. we'll see if we can provide additional chairs. i would like to introduce daile kaplan,who is vice president and director of photographs at swann auction galleries. if you haven'tbeen there, i'm sure it's a treat that you would enjoy seeing. it's new york's oldestspecialty auction house. she has been a photograph specialist on the antiquesroadshow since 1998, has appeared as a commentator
for tv segments produced by the herstory.herstory channel, see? i am already good. just changing. been programmed. the historychannel, discovery channel, bravo tv, and curated photography exhibitions for museumsin the united states and abroad. ms. kaplan has contributed essays to publications devotedto photography, including the education of a photographer with allworth press in 2007and the forthcoming in the vernacular, which is boston university press, and 2008, it says.so i guess it's out? it is out. she has lectured extensively about vernacular imagery and visualculture and i thank her for being here. donna henes is the author of the queen of my self:stepping into sovereignty in midlife, which was published by monarch press in 2005. sheis an urban shaman, a shawoman and contemporary
ceremonialist. so if you need something afterthis wonderful lecture, give her a holler. she was commemorated in the new yorker andnamed new york city's unofficial commissioner of public spirit. and the village voice calls her part performanceartist, part witch which i think is a compliment and part social organizer for planet earth.so this is a very great piece of energy and all of you who are here who are embodyingthe same energy, i thank you for coming. her public work has received citations from themayors dinkins and koch, and grants from nea and the new york foundation for the arts.she's a multi-published author. she also writes a weekly column for upi's religion and spiritualityforum. an artist included in wack! art and
the feminist revolution, which many of youmay have seen and was featured in feminists who changed america 63 to - 60? 70? what isit? i lopped it off 73, by barbara love in 2007. and she received an award from the veteranfeminists of america. so please join me in a hearty welcome for our wonderful paneliststoday. thank you. welcome. it is really great to see you all here, and thank you so muchfor coming. and yes, i hope your feet don't hurt at the end of this presentation. beforewe start, i would like on behalf of both of us to thank dr. sackler, elizabeth, who hasbeen great. and i really appreciate your interest in this collection and your support of it.thank you very much. our collection is called the better half, and daile is going to givea little bit of an overview about the collection.
well, the better half is composed of about2000 photographs. you're going to see a small percentage of them today. and what we decidedto do about 15 years ago when we looked at the history of photography, looked at ourpersonal backgrounds, and thought, we want a joint project. we want to do something thataddresses women our photography, history. and we began to focus on pictures of womendoing things. the photographs in our collection, as elizabeth said, are vintage photographs.they're original, first-generation photographs that span the entire history of photography.now with regard to the images, the reason i make that point is most of the images inour collection are anonymous. most of the subjects in our collection are unknown. so,the techniques associated with the history
of photography, in addition to bringing thesepictures to life, because we really love our collection, let me tell you, we really, reallylove it, they allow us to date the pictures. it allows us to create a narrative that'sboth chronological, anecdotal, and, of course, historical, when it comes to women of accomplishment,some to the names elisabeth mentioned earlier. so, what we thought we would do is talk alittle bit about our personal interest, or our backgrounds. and, shall i move to thefirst slide? no. no, ok. this is how we work. you're getting a preview of our collaborations.the first question that everybody asks us when the collection comes up in conversationis, how did you get started? why did you do this? what gave you the idea to do this? and,as daile mentioned, our lives are so different.
we're involved in such completely differentarenas of life. we thought, wouldn't it be great to work on a collaborative project?and, i come out of working on several collaborative projects with women, and i really love that.i was part of the very first consciousness raising group in new york. and, from there,i was on the editorial board of one of the issues of heresies magazine, if any of youremember heresies magazine, a journal of feminism and art or something like that. and then,after that, daile and i both, although the way we met was that i replaced her not becauseshe wasn't good, because she was leaving town as a member of disband, which was a women'sperformance group. and, i still belong to a goddess group that started with the heresiesissue. and, we still meet once a month 30
years later. so, i love working with groupsof women and this seemed a really interesting possibility. so, what did we have in common?daile is the photo expert, of course. but, i do have a love of photography and a privatephoto ritual practice, as it were. and, we both feel very connected to the lives of womenin women's herstory. so, this is how we got started. and, we thought, well, we'll collectphotographs of women, isn't that interesting? and then, i thought, well, not just photographsof any woman. photographs of every woman for sure in an archival sense, but 100 years ago.donnamaster's thesis was called women in art: object or subject? and, of course, my conclusionwas object. because, if you walk around most museums, women are depicted either as loungingon a or as standing behind their man or just
another pretty face. and, i was really interestedin women as subjects and the stories that they had to tell. and, that is what's so specialabout the sacred center where we are right now. so, this is what got us started, thisfirst slide that you are going to see. maybe we could turn the lights down. yeah. we'redoing that. yeah. you're wish is our command. yes. now, this is a family photograph of mine.and, the story that came with it that my mother always told me is, this is my grandmotherwith a bunch of her friends. they were all married women with children, and they werehaving a pajama party. but, what's interesting well, several things are interesting in thispicture. first of all, what interesting, is even though they were married women with childrenthey still had these two chaperones, who were
not in their night clothes. i guess they werejust making sure there was no hanky-panky in the sleep over. but, what really movedme about this picture, because on first look, you would say, well, these are, maybe, objects.these are just women sitting in a row and their outfits are interesting. the idea ofhaving a pajama party is interesting in the 1910s, but what fascinates me about this picture,and you'll know who she is, is my grandmother. if you look at the faces of these women, theymight be objects, although i hate to say that, because, of course, we know they are not.but, there is one woman in particular who is really asserting her personality. she'sdownright flirting with the photographer. that come hither look in her eyes, i can'tbelieve it, but that's my grandmother. so
that's what got us started. this was our firstpicture. and, another reason that we really love this picture is the notion of a womanin a picture flirting with the photographer. who's the photographer? we don't know. itwasn't my grandfather. we don't know exactly the gender, we don't know how this came about,but the narrative, something started to gel in relation to building a collection thatwas going to have a lot of interesting stories associated with it. so, in terms of today'spresentation, we're focusing on adventurous women, daring women. well, does it mean tobe a daring woman in art culture? in the 19th century, it could have meant simply beingunladylike, wanting to participate in sports, wanting to be politically active, cross dressing.in terms of 20th century economics and, as
we'll see images of the first world war, itcould have an association with economic necessity and taking on jobs and roles that were, again,stretching the boundaries of what it meant to be defined as a woman. we actually cameup with a little list, and it would be very curious if you have another idea of what'sdaring, just shout it out, because i think that would be fascinating. we have somebodywho invents her own life, somebody who defies expectation, who expresses her own individuality,who may be unladylike. i cannot find this quote, but i seem to remember that motherjones, who was a union organizer, and pistol, and anarchist said something like, rockefeller'shave ladies, but the good lord god made women. and who pushed the boundaries. does anyoneelse have an idea of what would be a daring
theme? it kind of covers it, but i thoughtmaybe with all creative women somebody might have another definition. so, our next slide.so, when we look at a picture like this, which has weegee-esque associations. but, in fact,it's not a weegee photograph. we bring to the picture a kind of reading, what's goingon here? we see to the right of the woman, smoke coming out of the window, we assumethat she's leaping for her life. there's what appear to be a police man in the foreground.but, often times, the real beauty of this collection and looking at images, is thisshared dialogue. well, what do you see? what do you think is going on in this picture?because, again, many of the pictures in our collection aren't by anonymous photographers.the subjects aren't identified. it's a vernacular
collection that is grounded in the historyof art and social history and in feminism. so, quite a difference, right? up until theindustrial revolution, the lives that most women lead were pretty circumspect. certainly,and we all know in the dinner party attest to it, there have always been daring, amazingwomen throughout history and throughout culture. but, these were the exceptions. up until that point, the only way that womencould really be out in the world, again, for the most part, was to read about it. and,that is, if somebody taught them how to read. because it wasn't considered necessary formost women to be educated or to be literate. so, the doors for a woman were really in herbook. and then, the industrial revolution
opened the window for women. it allowed themto go into the workplace in a different way and in much greater numbers. and it allowedthem to be more mobile and less dependent on their male counterparts to take them placesand chaperone them, as it were. so in looking at this image and some of the other imagesfrom the 19th century, because we bring so much of our own expectations to looking atolder pictures, it's important to understand that this is how this woman chose to be represented.she went to the local studio photographer, she brought her book, she set up the tableau.i'm sure with the photographer, him or herself, because photography from the beginning wasan equal- opportunity employer. there were many women daguerreotypists, many women practicingphotography from the 1840's onward. so this
notion of, how do i want to be shown, is verymuch a staged notion. and, what we see in this wonderful ambrotype is taking it to thenext step. this idea of a really curious, a really mischievous woman looking out, theseeker, the kind of quintessential seeker that is this foundation of our collection.so this is an ambrotype, it's a unique image, it's actually a photograph on glass. they'rehoused in these little leather miniature books called cases, leather cases. it's protectedwith a sheet of glass, a preserver. so you get a whole package here. and you can beginto understand how precious photographs were, how really special they were to the 19th centuryviewer. so the window opened, the door opened, and there's no going back for us. we're goingto harvard. or vassar, actually, which was
the first women's college. so women startedgetting educated and started going out into the world, living lives on their own. is thatelizabeth taylor? no, couldn't possibly be. maybe her doppelganger. couldn't possiblybe. this is an album from wells college, which a woman put together. and we have severalalbums, we love albums. because album-making, and even today scrapbooking, is the big thing.there are whole stores and television programs dedicated to the art of scrapbooking. so here,we love these albums, not just for the individual pictures, but because of the writing on them.and sometimes they're very creative, and there are little drawings, and they're just so personaland a real look into these women's lives. so you've seen these blue-toned images ifyou like to go antiquing, if you're a big
yard sale aficionado. these are cyanotypes,one of the more popular photographic techniques in the 1890's, turn of the last century. andwhat's interesting about it is that it really was a technique directed to women, especiallystudents, amateurs, because there were no chemicals involved in making these pictures.they were printed out with the sunlight. and so, in a lot of the student albums that wesee from wells college and from other universities this is the predominant technique. and asdonna said, the fact that the pictures are annotated, they're captioned, really givesus a lot of information about college life. it looked like it was fun. you can't go back.forget it. that was quick. you all recognized that, we all have one just like it. oh youdid go? oh thank you. thank you. thank you.
yes. so this is very recognizable and we reallylike pictures like this that are resonant to all of us. we can look at this and we seeour self in it, we see our mother in it, and also personally, we each have such a different,similar, the same and also different, take on creating this collection. personally, ilove when it comes to a type. whether it's a student, or a nurse, or a teacher, i loveto try to find them of every decade. it's so interesting to see how we have progressed.and so she's very recent. so, once women have gotten their education and once the roadswere built they took off. and this is, yes we love this picture, both of us love this.it's so lyrical. and it's just like it's a big world out there and my bag is packed andhere i come. watch out world! it just, again,
these pictures that don't have informationassociated with them sort of lend themselves to such poetic interpretations and the compositionof this picture, the way she's just gazing out into the sea, the world. we do, we lovethis picture. and this is the world. we started off on foot and don't you love that. i mean,hiking in those long dresses and those boots with little heels. slippery leather solesand hats. perfectly pressed white blouses. long sleeves. long sleeves. of course. so,here we are. and if there is a ledge you're going to find a woman on it. so that says.cliff dwellers, december 30th 1907. ooh, you have good eyes. yeah. this is the angel trailgoing down to the grand canyon. again, how do they keep those blouses clean i want toknow? now, there are going to be a few pictures
of her. her name is mrs. maxwell and she hadtwo skills. one, she was an expert marks-woman. and she was the first woman taxidermist. andwe'll talk a little bit more about the taxidermy, but here she was out hunting with her hound.with her real dog, yes. of course we don't know whether that is before or after it diedthis one we do know. this is a fox. so, this is a stereo image. it's captioned, it's dated1876. what we start to see in the 19th century images is this notion that women support theiractivities by selling photographs of what they do. and so, she was someone who exhibitedat the philadelphia centennial in 1876. what's interesting about her is that she electednot to exhibit in the women's pavilion (and that there even was a women's pavilion deservesfurther research), but that she decided to
exhibit in the natural history pavilion andcreated this diorama that apparently almost sent her in to bankruptcy. but, she was awoman who was a naturalist. she was a woman who had, as donna said, these other skillsets and she was a legend in her own time. and, who would have known if we didn't findthis picture. now, she has a name. her name is mrs. malen, and i'm going to read thisbecause there's a printed caption that was affixed to the back of the mount of this.this strange woman has become notorious throughout colorado for her queer manner of living. thecabin is situated on top of gold hill, opposite of buena vista, at an elevation of 10,000feet or about 3000 feet higher than the town. the cabin was built mostly by herself. she'salso making all of her furniture alone. mrs.
malen has lived in this odd place for twoyears. she carries water a mile for cooking and often carries a sack of flour, which,of course, would be a 10 or 50 pound sack, up the steep hill for three or four mileswhere others can scarcely follow empty handed. so, she's kind of shero. but again, what'snoteworthy about this is she's selling this picture, and she's talking about herself inthe third person, as this kind of queer local oddball. i mean, here's the photograph. thereshe is, posing in front of her cabin. guess what? there's no kodak camera available then.she is soliciting the services of a local photographer, creating this whole legend aroundherself and supplementing her income. pretty cool. and the exploration continues. thisis the 1940s. again, they're wearing high
heels to explore this cave. isn't that theonly way to do it? i guess. one wants to be ladylike at all costs. so as i said, if there'sa cliff, you're going to find a woman on it and her loyal dog. yeah. so, not only didthey set off by foot, but by wheel. and this is pre-bloomer. this is bicycle with longskirts again. this is, i think, our earliest bicycle picture. and, interestingly enough - i'm always going to be interjecting this photographic theme - the introduction of thebicycle is parallel with the introduction of the kodak camera. so you see this wholerecreational element emerging in the late 1880s, 1890s, and it was really revolutionary:women in long skirts on bikes. and then, cars. look, we know that there are places in theworld today that it's illegal for women to
drive. so this is very early. and then, thisis a kind of chronological sequence. so not only were they out for a joyride, she's ona serious adventure here with her map. this is a gas station she stopped in. oh, waita second. what does that say? coast oh, interesting. it's coast tires. that's her extra tire onthe side of the and once you have a car, you got to take care of it. what year is thispicture? i'd say this is the 30s, based on the car, although i'm not a car expert. buti think so. probably 34. yeah, 34. ok. 34! that was precise. wow. ok. and here we goagain. how do you change your tire? you got to wear a skirt and high heels. this is the50s, right? yeah, this is 50s. yeah, this is the 50s. and his is an automotive highschool. so, she's actually in school learning
to be a mechanic. so we should probably saythat finding these pictures is kind of difficult. there are just not at the top of the mattedphotograph heap, when you go into a trade show or when you walk into a gallery. thisreally has taken a lot of discovery and invention, because a visual history of women, not thatimportant. and so, we've really done our thorough homework. i mean, donna is great about goinginto every single picture in every stack. she's very thorough. and then, we go for thespeed. so this is an early motorcycle. and then, we just check to the sky. oh, yeah!again, notice her outfit. it just drives me crazy. i also think if you could if the picturewere a lot more readable on the screen, you would see that she too is flirting with thephotographer. she's having a wonderful time
up there. now, we do know who she is. thisis ruth law. yeah, this is ruth law. and on the back of the picture there's a handwrittennotation that says, ruth law, our first woman aviatrix, and yours truly. but we don't knowwho yours truly is. in daytona, florida, july 4th, 1921. so this is an early biplane. andagain, she's definitely dressed for the skies. and we know her; she's everybody's shero.even though she came along later, she was definitely the premier aviatrix and capturedeverybody's imagination. all i know about this picture is that it's in portland, oregon.and she's got her map and she's ready to take off. in her heels. now you see her name. herfull name is valentina vladimirovna tereshkova. she was the very first woman in space - russian.soviet, we should say. was sally ride. yes.
let see. we have. oh, let me see. so that'ssally ride in the lower left. that's judith resnik in the top right, who perished in thechallenger tragedy. and margaret rhea seddon. right. she is next sally ride, the blondewoman upfront. yeah. kathryn sullivan, shannon lucid, anna fisher, and judith resnik. sonow, we're transitioning to another category: as women horizons widen, broaden, so do theirambitions. these are a bunch of firsts. this is tennessee claflin. her nickname was tennie.she was victoria woodhull's sister, and the two of them were the first stockbrokers firstwoman stockbrokers. they had a brokerage house and then they went on to publish the woodhulland claflin weekly, which featured articles written only by women and about women's rights,education of women and free love.her name is louisa parker, and she's one the
very first women doctors. she graduated fromthe new england female medical college in 1861. she practiced in boston for 38 years,and in her spare time had 10 children. oh! oh, my god! this is a physician. we foundthe photo. we don't know her name or where she practiced. it's just one of those fantasticimages that, again, is posed. it's done intentionally. but to find a photograph of a woman doctoris pretty special. yeah. these are the first woman gendarmes in paris, in 1935. there theyare, pictured in there fabulous outfits. it looks like the heels gave away to clunky shoes.they did a lot of walking. our collection also includes photographs from around theworld. we want to see how there is this interrelationship between the quest for equal rights in england,in france and the united states. and how it
all kind of mixes and interrelates. so oh,yes and this is an early fire fighter. and this is a drill; a practice drill. it wasa rescue. so, it's kind of amazing. and then the next series that you are going to seeare all factory pictures. and this is what daile was mentioning before that oh, i'm sorry,i forgot about her. yes, and actually we just, just, just obtained a photograph of florencenightingale, which would be in the slide show before her. but it came so late we did noteven have time to scan it. but this is a field nurse in the field as you can see during worldwar ii. now the factory. now you know we are all familiar and love the idea of rosie theriveter. and that was world war ii. i don't think i ever realized that there were womenactively working in factories to support world
war i. and here they are. and they're justa whole series of pictures. and this is what daile was mentioning before about what isdaring. sometimes it's daring to leave your home and your children, and your whatever.and go out and work in a filthy, dangerous, noisy place because you had to. either foryour own personal economic situation, or because of a greater political situation, which calledpeople into service. so this is a scene from a munitions factory in britain, and againthe rosie the riveter archetype, in some ways can be traced to how women's roles were intransition during the first world war, and how that sort of trickles down to the unitedstates during the second world war. so this is all heavy, loud machinery. women workingin skirts, of course they are not allowed
to wear anything more comfortable. this isthe curtiss aviation factory. glenn curtiss was one of the pioneers of the american airplaneindustry. he had women workers in his employ. i just wanted to say that all of these arefascinating, but we don't really know who these women are; we don't have their personalstories. ok. this is called 20 ton crane oet, whatever that means. we're not quite surewhat these are. that looks cleaner and quieter than the other ones. i think it is parachutesagain related to british military presence in the first world war. exactly. thank yousherman. actually since we've been collecting these, i've read that the herstory of womenworking in factories to support war actually went all the way back to the civil war, andi would give anything to find photographs
of this. but women hand made, in little moldsthe lead bullets, which probably killed them actually. so for all you art history students,this picture has the association with renchenko with lewis hine as kind of turning the industrialwheel. and here's a woman behind it. this is the creed. is a sailboat making they'remaking? some sort of a boat part i think. looks like an airplane wing. yeah, maybe.these are the airplane wings. this is more curtiss motor corp. and we're still buildingthem. this is world war ii. yes. and then, after a hard day at the factory, girls justwant to have a little fun! it was fun to look up women's baseball to do a google search.because the first 20 pages were all about women as spectators at baseball games. but,if you dig a little deeper, you discover that
vassar; vassar keeps coming up. vassar hadthe first women's baseball team. there were teams in the 1870's called the blondes andthe brunettes. there were games in which teams, female teams played against male teams. andthis picture is probably, there it is, stated 1891. so it's 30, 40 years into the game,but again very rare to find an image like this and they're all identified, which iseven better. now i just noticed, this is called the young ladies baseball club, because thenext one. now we've got the bloomer girls, not so ladylike. they were not only daringbecause they played the sport, but that they put on pants. now, does anybody know whatgame this is exactly? it's a shot-put. it's a shot-put. shot-put. oh my gosh. so they'reateam. wow, i didn't realize the shot-put had
a string attached to it. this is 1927 highschool portrait. and the teacher. they figured out their outfits pretty well. the stripedsocks. this is jean la mar, the world bantamweight champion. and she was popular in the 1920's.this picture is dated 1925. looks like she's socking her manager, i guess he didn't doa good job. and here she is. here she is, conchita! she just died today. today? areyou kidding? oh my god! what, oh that's totally bizarre, wow. oh, well you know, here's toconchita. she was amazing. there is a really great story associated with this picture andthe next one. we were on a photo searching trip in texas. driving from little town tolittle town looking for old photographs, and we drive into a town called del rio, whichis on the mexican border. what was the town
in mexico? acuna. acuna, and we didn't seeany antique stores of trade shows or you know. and i said, you know what, there is an oldphoto studio. let's just go in there and see. and there was an elderly woman behind thecounter, and we said, we are looking for old photographs. that's all we said. and so shepulled out all the photographs from the famous flood of whatever, oh twelve where all thebridges in del rio blew over. and we said, actually we're looking for photographs ofpeople, specifically women. do you have any old photographs of women? and she said, "oh,like this? said, oh my god! so here we have the one picture of conchita, and the secondpicture. she was a matadora who retired at the age of 28. after killing 800 bulls. shewas a force to be reckoned with, and apparently
her ring was in acuna, mexico. so the picturesof her were made by the local photographer in texas. she was actually chilean born, but,yeah. wow. and here's althea gibson, first tennis champion. it's really wonderful, allthe pictures that we've seen of her she's kissing a trophy! and here is oh, sherman,this is just for you! this is kitty adams, pro wrestler from long island! and in preparationfor this picture, sherman, we did a little research. you can see a video of her on youtube.ok. and then we move into the arts. and, you want to talk about this? this is a tin typephotograph. tin types were introduced around the time of the civil war. they're those littlesilver pictures that you see that everybody thinks are made of tin, when they're actuallymade of iron. they're unique; they're one
of a kind. and to find a picture where womenare actively painting at their easels, again, there's a kind of spontaneous element to aphotograph like that. tin types are on the cusp of the sort of revolution of this staid,posed photographic image and the freer, liberated photographic image. have easel, will travel.yeah, it's kind of wonderful because it's like how did she get there? yeah. if anybodyknows the name of this artist, please raise your hand. we got this picture, no informationas to who she is, reputation, nothing. but the notion of posing in her studio, what appearsto be a fairly squalid studio, with her cherished works of art. this is just, it's amazing!it's amazing to find anything like this of there's president washington on the rear wall.it's probably 1880's, 1890's. and a bottle
of wine on the floor! or something stronger!you've got to get in the mood! i think it's turpentine. and here's mrs. maxwell againin her studio creating her stuffed animals, as it were. actually there's a descriptionof what she did at the centennial exhibition, position let's see oh, no, she was in thekansas colorado building. and she did a rocky mountains display that fascinated both thevisitors and the press. she used paste, pulverized ore, water, lime, gravel and evergreenas herconstruction materials. and she built a realistic natural landscape in which to place all ofher wildlife specimens which she, you know, had personally killed and stuffed. next hereis grandma moses aka anna mary robertson, who started painting at the age of 78. herfirst paintings were available for $2 a $3.
she was picked up by the galerie st. etiennewhich recognized her skills as a naä«ve folk artist and the rest, as they say, is history.she worked in maine, she worked in upstate new york and, again, this is a picture, anearly color picture, by harry warnecke, a daily news photographer who did all the coversof the rotogravures in the 30's, 40's and 50's in color. we haven't been able to identifywhich painting she's working on but there she is! she worked for almost three decadesand created 3,600 paintings. oh! wow! this is a brassi photograph of sculptures thatthe academy julienne in paris in 1935. and of course what's interesting about the contextof this picture is, women were allowed to model but they were not allowed to be students.thisis a picture that's of after the school of
thomas aiken's. again, the notion that a woman,young woman, would get undressed in the united states in front of male students was prettyracy. and thomas aiken, as some of you may know, was excoriated for not only allowingit but encouraging it and was forced to resign his position at the pennsylvania academy ofarts. but this picture has a kind of visual residence because there's the nude model nextto the nude male figure. and this picture, if we, if you have time. might be a littlefamiliar! yeah, to look at the burning down the house show. it's an icon of feminism,there's carolee schneemann. this is a fluxus event that she did in 1975 where she apparentlycame out fully dressed in an apron, started to disrobe and eventually removes this scrollfrom her vagina. there's a life-size photograph
of it in the exhibition next door. 1975. andthis is the guerrilla girls, this is one of the posters that they did. of course, theonly pictures you'll ever see of the guerrilla girls are behind their guerrilla masks. so,we won't tell you who they are. and then we transition to women with a camera! we startto see the camera get smaller, get lighter, get easier to operate and in fact kodak directsits advertising campaign to women! to homemakers, to young women and there's a real resurgenceof photographic practice that of course we see to this day. these are the different kodakcameras circa 1893, 1895, 1900. and there's kodak's logo in the lap of the woman at theright. see how easy it is? this is one of our favorite pictures! so, this is a cross-culturalencounter where the photographer has shared
her camera with her subject who seems to beinterested in taking the picture but he's a little unclear about how to actually doit. we would love to be able to say this is margaret niven but it isn't. no, we don'tknow. we don't know. and then we come to queen victoria, who is a really important personin the history of photography. who would have thunk? in addition to ruling the world, shebecame an avid practitioner. there was a darkroom at buckingham palace; she created scrapbooksof family events. i've been fortunate enough to see some of them, stag hunts, birthdayparties. the fact that she's posing with family photographs on the table next to her. whenher husband died, after prince albert's death she wore a gregorian bracelet, a memorialbracelet for the rest of her life honoring
him and just showing her citizenry, the relationshipshe had to photography. she championed it, she practiced it, she made it popular, shemade it fun. and we're looking for one of her family albums, if you happen to have one.so, this is fanny fern. she was a writer and she was the first woman to have her own columnin 1852. and she was so good at it that by 1855 she was the highest paid writer in theunited states. and she coined the expression the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.among many other wonderful quips. here's gertrude stein. a photograph that we actually can attributeto carl van vechten, who was a very important photographer of the harlem renaissance inthe 1930s, knew everybody. this is actually stein in france, and van vechten got to travelaround as well. and of course, she was daring
in her use of the english language. she reallyopened up literature, and through her own salons, championed not only literature, butthe visual arts. she and her brother had a huge art collection. so, she was really daringin many ways, in her personal life, in her career life. who knows what she's writing?maybe that's how. who knows what she's writing? it's so great. it's the vernacular counterpart.it's kind of like: there's gertrude stein, and there's the woman in her kitchen. andshe may have turned out to be. who knows? now, this is a great segue. i just want youto know notice this. we go from the arts to entertainment. ok. here's this woman writerin her kitchen. and, here's the presbyterian kitchen band. and they really are playingpots and pans that are creatively reconfigured.
samson and delilah. samson's the one withthe hair. so, all we know is her name is delilah. is it really delilah, we don't really know?but she was a circus performer, and clearly had a lovely relationship with her pet lion.and here's some more recent version of that. not so recent, but. this is marie rasmussen,who was associated with ringling brothers circus in the 1930s. you'll see that thisis an actual performance. there are people in the bandstand. if you look at the picturecarefully, she's wearing a leopard scarf. which is a subtle threat, you guys behave.this is a real photo postcard of a sharpshooter. the photographic techniques include pictureslarge and small. real photo postcards were introduced in the early 20th century. andguess what? you got to send your picture through
the mail. and we have a bunch of those, withidentifying features. and this is calamity jane. her name was martha jane cannary, andshe was born in missouri. we didn't write this. this hard drinking woman wore men'sclothing, used their body language, chewed tobacco and was handy with a gun, i wouldsay to say the least. she participated in the gold rush. there's a wonderful book ofcalamity jane's letters to her daughter. so i urge you to look into that. this is mabelstrickland on stranger. and she was a rodeo rider, obviously. there's also a movie. yes,the movie about.oh, calamity. with doris day. oh, absolutely. actually, that was the firstmovie i ever saw, which was prophetic. i was three years old. my father took me to thecircus, and i was so terrified at the clowns.
i was shrieking. he took me out, and thenwe went to this movie. it was just a real memorable first milestone in my life. whoknew? oh, that's mabel strickland, again, trick rider. see, you can also wear heelson a horse. but there's our favorite, georgia sweet. she, again, was associated with. ringling.ringling brothers circus. she makes it look so easy. this is fanny gorman, who was a strongwoman. somehow she lost her neck during her career. it's depressing. i love this photobecause of its depiction of family values. can we say she supports your family? now, we don't know anything about this, exceptshe was a female escape artist. she's being tied up and tossed into the water. i don'tknow, i guess she got out of it. she looks
a little suspect in that picture. and here'sanother water. now, yes, here's an entertainer, early entertainer. of course, she's smoking,which was also a no, no. and she's dressed sort of in circus regalia, but also a littlecross- dressy. and apparently that was the big vaudeville thing - is for women to performas men, which is ironic because the women's parts in early theater were played by men.so here's a visual history of the bathing suit. no high heels. this is one of my favoritepictures. it's a can-can photo of, again. it's a small picture from the 1920s, snapshot,just really captures the outlandishness of that dance. a weegee photo of a stripper.after weegee left new york and crime- scene-ville, he went out to hollywood and got into theatricalphotography. and then, this is a snapshot
that somebody took at a family gathering,and here's the guest artist belly dancer. and, of course, until very recent. belly dancingis having a big resurgence right now. i have to say that at the age of 62, i started takingbelly dance lessons. but here, it was still a little under on the risquã© side. and herewe have. nothing to say about her, really. she speaks for herself. she definitely speaksfor herself. so this our segue into, you know, we can call them bad girls or girls with anattitude. she's got a run in her stockings, so she's got a bad attitude. now we love thispicture. i mean, is she bad? of course, she's not bad. but it's so about daring and theattitude of. of what? i love this picture, and i really don't know what to say aboutit. now, she is bad, because she is smoking
in the garden while she's supposed to be servingdinner. and they're smoking, too. i don't know if you can read that sign, but it says,no smoking or talking. she's smoking a box of cigars, which is still a no, no. and hereis the bad girl of all bad girls. mae west. and she really was. i mean, she was toughand she was really smart, and she really ran her own career. she did what she felt wasright, no matter what. that's because she was from brooklyn. here's a little dialoguegoing on. i don't know if it came to anything. now, this is a little series that we havehere. and, of course, they are not bad girls, and their attitude is not bad. but, this littleseries is of women who are really owning their sexuality. really owning it and displayingit and feeling really comfortable about it.
these are not porno, these were not paid models,these were not done to turn on men. this is clearly for her partner in the privacy ofher own bedroom. and, here's another one. i love this picture. she is happy. can youall read that, what it says? erma the body, she says, we back our men in vietnam. you'regood neighbor policy in action. now these women were paid for sex. these are prostitutesin the red light district in holland, amsterdam. come up and see me some time. disturbed, lakehuntington, new york. are they peeing? yes, they are peeing. and, this women is undressing,getting into the bath, and then on the toilet. sort of french lartigue representation. really,just, so intimate. can you take our picture? bad girl. really bad girl. you are such abad girl. are those french? no, these are
american. again, amateur pictures. caughtin the act. now, here we have a series of, what we think, are lesbian depictions. wedon't know if they are relationships or whatever. it's odd; you don't see pictures like this.and you don't see pictures like this either. we worked really hard finding these pictures.isn't that sweet? jitterbugging. here's a double wedding. united we stand, divided wefall. now this is another segue. these are our cross dressers. and, again, we don't knowwho they are or what their motive was, except that this was dangerous to do in public. so,sometimes it's theatrically related, clearly some of these are performers, probably college.party. and some of them aren't. keep cool, palm beach. and, here we go from the sublime.this is poker alice, who was also a deadwood
celebrity. lived in deadwood at the same timeas calamity jane. we're now in a new area of the collection: criminals. she was a gambler,a bootlegger, a madam. and, apparently, as a young woman, she was renowned for her beauty.we don't know who she is. it's austin, texas, but that's all we know. this is squeaky fromme.oh this is so bizarre. i didn't know, neither one of us knew very much about her life, butas a young girl, she was a performer for a popular local dance group called the westchesterlariats which, in the late 1950s toured the u.s. and europe and appeared on the lawrencewelk show and at the white house. from then, she fell into bad company, as it were, anddrugs and so on. took up with charles manson. she was not involved in the taped murders,although she was arrested and imprisoned afterwards
for protesting manson's jailing and so on,but those are very minor charges. but, then she went on to attempt to assassinate presidentford. and was sentenced to prison for life where she still lives. i don't know if youremember, those of you who can remember. there were two assassination attempts on presidentford in 17 days, hers was the first. woops. no. they had nothing to do with that. andneither did she. well, the caption to this picture is actually kind of interesting. thisis rose lemonya, who is in prison darning the socks of her or darning the clothes ofher 10 children while awaiting trial for the murder of her husband. here she is. yes, ok.so, this is sarah jane moore. the second person to attempt to assassinate president ford.he wasn't very popular with women somehow.
she was an fbi informer, who worked for oneof the members of the hurst family. her story is as convoluted and crazy as it gets andshe is still in prison. no. she served 32 years, though. and this is m.e. montague harris,one of the co founders of the simbanese liberation army. right. so they were behind the kidnappingof patty hurst, and she also served in jail. they killed people, essentially. they robbedbanks and they killed people. and here's patty herself, who was, of course, kidnapped bythe army and then became a member and spent two years in jail as a result of her activitiesand associations. and, she was given pardon by bill clinton. actually, her sentence wasfirst commuted by jimmy carter, and then she was completely forgiven by bill clinton. so,as you can see, the collection includes ephemera
as well as original photographs, because whowouldn't want a wanted poster. an original patty. once hung in the post office near you.so, these are algerian freedom fighters, as they would call themselves. this is a sovietfreedom fighter. a partisan milking her cow. i love that picture. an anarchist. ready tothrow a hand grenade. and, what's interesting here, is are these freedom fighters or arethey terrorists? if you'd ask them, they would consider themselves warriors for a cause,i'm sure. so, the pictures really depend on, the interpretation really depends on who'slooking and who's writing the history. what does the writing. yeah, this is a postcardthat is heavily inscribed on the front and the back. and even the depiction of this youngwoman, it's somewhat comprised, because, here
she is an anarchist with off at the shoulderblouse and kind of this very traditional depiction of femininity. so now these are what we wouldcall warriors. these are military women. this is pauline cushman, who was a union spy, transitionedfrom being an actress to working for the union army. she went through the entire war withoutever having been discovered to be a woman. patriotic figure from the first world war.this is the first world war, too. also, i should say. this is what they called the negrotroops in world war ii. they're at ease here, as you can see. they're at same sort of basictraining camp. these are not at ease. this is their first. review. yeah, their firstreview. and this is very current. this is a young woman in iraq. now we get to womenwith a cause. and this is a photograph of
a painting. some of the women in our collectionare pre-photographic. so, the painting becomes the record by which we recognize the figure,who was, in this case, elizabeth gurney fry, the angel of newgate prison, a social reformerin the uk, in the 1830s, 40s. she was a quaker, an american, and went to england and workedon prison reform. quakers usually don't act large. their do-goodness is usually in smallcircles. she is just about the most famous quaker who had a large impact in the worldaround her. she was a prison reformer, and in the prison, she did all this stuff forwomen in terms of childcare and education and so on. she also set up this whole seriesof halfway houses for women who were trying to come out. she called them the newgate association,and then they sprang up in prisons all the
over the united states and in britain. andthen. oh, i'm sorry. i just wanted to say one other thing. she was very influentialto florence nightingale. and then, here's isabella baumfree, sojourner truth, who, again,very active supporter of women's rights, equal rights, and abolitionist movement. and howdid she support herself? by selling this carte de visite, this photograph, that was availableat the lectures that she gave around the country, and probably in europe too. i sell the shadowto support the substance the shadow being the photographic image. and these are women's rights. they're wearingsashes oh, no. i'm sorry. these are temperance. the one on the left, it's hard to read, butit says, how dry i'm. and these are more reformers:
isabella somerset, frances willard, very activein the temperance movement. these were minor royalty in england, too. they were duchess.and there is mrs. woodhull, sister of tennie claflin. she was the first female candidatefor president in the 1860s. and these little cards, these business cards that people gaveone another, were a form of portraiture for everybody, know as carte de visite. hers,of course, is stamped with her vocation. broker. spiritualist, also proponent of free love.susan b. anthony, who was photographed by cirrone in new york city. these are a groupof suffragettes in england being arrested by bobbies. in my research i discovered thatthere was a difference between suffragists and suffragettes. and it's interesting becausesuffragette sounds a little diminutive and
like it's not as important as a suffragist,but the suffragists were very moral, very calm, very reasoned thinkers, and the suffragetteswere very impatient for social change and they believed in protest. civil disobedience.civil disobedience, they broke the law, they were not opposed to violence in the name ofthe cause. and the headline on this newspaper says, we did it! here we see another suffrage-relatedimage. there's elizabeth cady stanton, seneca falls commemorative. this is great. this isa union parade, and if you look at it really carefully, they're all holding umbrellas andthey're placed in such a way as that the umbrellas create an american flag. the stars are inthe upper right. and we were able to read the billboard on the back that indicated itwasn't a suffrage parade, it was a union parade.
yeah. here's jane adams, founder of hull housein chicago very important pacifist, went with henry ford to try to stop the first worldwar, involved in immigrant rights. first president of the ladies' guild of peace and freedom,and one of the very first women to win a nobel peace prize. these are the first women. inparliament. in parliament in the uk. this is what, 1920? yeah. eleanor roosevelt atplymouth rock. which they had to chain down because they were afraid somebody was goingto take the rock. do you see that? yeah. so we all know about eleanor, but she was calledthe first lady of the world. she was the first first lady who had her own agenda and fordecades after her husband died she continued doing her own work for peace, freedom, equality,the rights of the poor. women's rights. definitely
women's rights. oh i love this. this is helenkeller at her braille typewriter. and we couldn't decide: should we put her in the arts? wheredo we put her? but she was definitely a woman with a cause. i don't know how she, i mean,she travelled around the world. she definitely was a supporter of people with disabilitiesbut she also worked for peace and freedom and justice. she was a radical. she was nota liberal. she was a radical and was really out there. she was actually an anarchist andit's funny because, i guess because of her so-called disabilities, she was never calledto task for it. but it's shocking, the things that she has written and said. it's hard tobelieve. and this is an unknown peace protester. we were able to get some of the old presspictures from an old neighborhood newspaper
in greenpoint, new york, and this is a localprotest against the incinerator in greenpoint. this is the million youth march, photo byazeem thomas. bella abzug for congress. that's barbra streisand behind her. really? diannefeinstein, who did win the mayoral race and her career is marked by many firsts. yeah,she was the first female president of the board of supervisors in san francisco, sanfrancisco's first female mayor, the first woman to serve in the senate from california,one of two female's jewish senators, both from california. first woman to serve on thesenate judiciary committee, first woman to chair the senate rules committee and the senateintelligence committee, and maybe we will be the first, you know what? here is shirleychisholm; she was congress woman for seven
terms. she also ran for president of the unitedstates and received 152 first valid votes at the 1972 convention. and isn't that. ohnever mind. and here we all know, this is princess diana of wales, who really it wouldhave been fascinated to see how she would have matured because she certainly was goingin the right direction in terms of a woman with a cause or many causes. seems to be inney york city. right. and here, our final image is of linda carter as wonder woman andwhat we discovered is that 'wonder woman' is of course in amazon. read this whole thing,it's really good. the all female tribe of amazons and was sent to the man's world asan ambassador. among the amazons, she is known as princess diana, being the daughter of theamazon queen hippolyta. but in the man's world
she takes on the secret identity of dianaprince. her powers include super strength, hand to hand combat and flight. she also makesuse of her lasso of truth, which forces those bound by it to tell the truth, a pair of bulletdeflecting bracelets and an invisible plane. so, on that note, we thank you and thank you.then i just like to add a note of where do we go from here, and i would like to say lookaround because the whole world is in our hands. i think we have time for a few questions.are there two or three that anybody would like to, yes, in the back please? i just wantedto say that wonder woman's bracelets are made of feminum. thank you. also let's not forget.dara birnbaum of course has done the infamous wonder woman which was one of the very firstvideos that was ever done as video art and
women have not been really recognized fortheir very early work in videos in medium for art. and our next exhibition actuallythat's going to be coming up here is going to be on a woman's video and so will one ofderra, so will wonder woman be available. yes, any other? there was another question,yes, christina. it's not a question. i was very inspired by this. thank you, christina.so thank you all, i apologize again for those who couldn't get seats and i would like togo over one more time, the schedule for coming month because march, in addition to beingour second anniversary is also a women's history month. and next weekend, actually, faye wattletonis coming and she is a women's right activist and president of the center for the advancementof women and she is going to be talking on
feminist issues. first saturday, we have dianewolkstein coming and the young voices talk for younger women and gallery talk by nicolecaruth who was the co-curator of burning down the house which is out now. i hope you'vehad a chance to see it. we are going to have on the 14th, the feminist archeology by ellenbelcher and diana craig patch. and then on the 15th, rusty kanokogi, i can never sayher name correctly. and she is fabulous. she is the mother of women's judo. and she willbe here to speak about her trailblazing entrance at the competitive world of judo. she disguisedherself as a man and she actually won an olympic medal which was stripped from her at the pointthat the olympic committee discovered that she was a woman. but she really opened thedoors in the olympics for women to enter in.
so, i would encourage you to hear her. sheis quite marvelous and she hasn't been well lately. so the fact that she is coming withthe power point is part of what's keeping her alive at the moment. and it will be reallyan unusual opportunity to hear from this incredible octogenarian trailblazer. and then i hopeyou will join us for the second anniversary which is going to be on march 21st. it's goingto be by extension downstairs in the auditorium. and about a year and a half ago, i put togethera think tank that we titled unfinished business. and we are a corporate of women inter-generationaland diverse, identifying ways of mobilizing external networks and raising public awarenessabout inter-generational communications and issues of course of race, class, gender andthe effects of current events on women and
children. and we are calling it a speak outbecause that is what it is going to be. it's a vision for the nation, what is it goingto take. it is going to be moderated by a very fantastic laura flanders who you mayknow from grit tv and nicole mason who was women of color policy network, is going tobe doing our keynote. ana oliveira who is new york women foundation and ai-jen poo fromdomestic workers united are going to be our respondents. tony blackman who is from brooklynis going to be doing a performance and closing remarks by liz abzug, daughter of course,of our great bella abzug. and those who have been involved with unfinished business includeliz abzug, sharna goldseker, sarah gold, ms. foundation, mia harden, third wave foundation,carol jenkins, the women's media foundation,
and monique meta who is an independent consultantat this point. benita miller, she is from the brooklyn's young mother's collective.and, amy sananman from here brooklyn's groundswell community mural project. we will be havinga reception here in the center afterwards and also be doing a group mural which willbe sponsored by groundswell after that. and then we have the following day, a.i.r katgriefen and ferris olin who many of you are surely familiar with, are going to be moderatinga panel, the market: women artists from collection to cultural records, strategies which wouldensure women artists a place in the cultural record. panelists include debra harris, claireoliver, sue scott, and deepanjana klein. and if you haven't had enough by that time, ourmonth ends on the 28th with a symposium. and
it is feminism now: new feminist art scholarship.and we would be highlighting the work for the entire day on saturday, the 28th, of emerginggraduates and post graduate students and scholars who will be presenting their groundbreakingresearch on a wide array obviously of issues. and it will be moderated by the wonderfulcarrie lovely. so i hope you can join us. and i want to thank the two of you becausethis was absolutely fantastic and inspirational. really wonderful and thank you very much.it was exciting on so many levels, historic, visual. i think it really gives all of usa great deal of enthusiasm to forge ahead and i thank all of you for coming and makingit such a wonderful presentation as well. thank you very much.
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