Current events should lead us to a new way of thinking about women’s history.
Current events should lead us to a new way of thinking about women’s history.
Thanks for reading my newsletter these last months, and for reading this one where I share the news that pub date is here.
It’s cold in Boston as I write and I’m feeling cooped up. Maybe you are too. I don’t have a magic fix but I think books can help.
Like quilts and blankets, the history of America is composed of many strands.
This month, I’m sharing an article I wrote for MS Magazine. Here it is, as it appeared on November 11.
Yesterday I voted in Boston’s mayoral election where there were two candidates, both women. A little more than a century ago, this could not have happened — neither me in the voting booth nor women on the ballot. Upstate New York had a lot to do with making it possible.
This month, I’m talking about art again. Actually, a book about art, The Mirror and the Palette, by Jennifer Higgie, where she covers five hundred years of women’s self-portraiture, a genre women have long practiced, even if mostly under the radar.
What would Titian do? With six of his paintings now on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, a bruhaha has arisen about how they should be presented to a contemporary audience. This leads me to wonder what Titian would do if he were among us today.
In last month’s newsletter, I ruminated on how women can move history. Now I’m back with more on the subject, specifically Phebe Lord Upham, born in Maine in 1804.
Two years ago I was invited to give a reading in New York. My husband Andrew came with me and, naturally, we added museums and restaurants to the trip. One evening we went to Prune, a wonderful place on East 1st Street (now regrettably closed) run by chef Gabrielle Hamilton and her wife.