March is Women’s History Month, and to commemorate it, the Central Arkansas Library System and Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art are taking a deep dive into the history of women in Arkansas with the new Monday Matriarch series.
Each Monday in March, guests can join a different virtual session exploring various facets of life for women in Arkansas’ past. Sessions are held via Zoom and YouTube Live at 6:30 p.m. and are presented by the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
Here’s what’s on the lineup:
“Inevitable Insult and Humiliation: Black Women Writers of Arkansas” with Carmen Williams
March 8
Carmen Lanos Williams is an assistant professor of English and Heritage Studies at Arkansas State University. Her recent dissertation, “Arkansas in the African American Imaginary: A Rhetoric of Place,” examines placemaking in the published work of African American Arkansans and in memoirs and fiction depicting coming of age in Arkansas. Her research is particularly concerned with how marginalized Arkansans shape public perception of Arkansas as both a real and imagined place.
“Charlie May Simon: Uncovering the Lost Voice of an Arkansas Author” with Aleshia O’Neal
March 15
Aleshia O’Neal is an English professor at York College in York, Nebraska. She became interested in Charlie May Simon while working on her doctorate in Heritage Studies at Arkansas State University, and her research for her dissertation took her to four archival collections that housed the diaries, correspondence, photographs and official documents of this writer whose literary career spanned four decades.
“Arkansas Aprons: Food Power and Women in Arkansas, 1857 to 1891” with Robyn Spears
March 29
As a doctoral student of history, Robyn Spears researches nineteenth-century women’s history, food history and medicine at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
For more information and to sign up for these free sessions, visit the CALS website and follow along on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest.