Views Returns January 23 with Christopher Evans 📖
Our next Views program of the season will feature historian Christopher Evans in conversation about his upcoming book, Do Everything: The Biography of Frances Willard. His book, to be published by Oxford University Press later this year, will be the first new Willard biography in over 35 years. Evans is Professor of the History of Christianity at Boston University, and his book pays particular attention to Willard’s religious convictions and how they shaped her life.
Evans has written books, articles, and essays, and has lectured widely. His books include The Kingdom is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Eerdmans, 2004), Liberalism without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition (Baylor University Press, 2010), and The Social Gospel in American Religion, a History (New York University Press, 2017).
The Views series highlights new research and writing in women’s history. This season features conversations with scholars exploring the theme Women, Faith, and Activism. For generations of women, their faith was a key source of personal exploration and reform motivation. What does that mean today – and what understanding can we gain by examining this in the past?
RSVP here for Sunday, January 23 at 4pm Central Time. A Zoom link will be sent shortly before the event to everyone who registers.
Extra, Extra, Read All About It! 🗞️
Our first Handicraft Hour of 2022 will explore children’s homemade newspapers. By writing and editing family, club, and school papers, nineteenth-century young people (including Frances Willard) honed skills in leadership, collaboration, and self-expression that laid the groundwork for their future public-facing work. Participants of all ages are encouraged to attend this free virtual program!
RSVP here for Sunday, January 30 at 4pm Central Time. A Zoom link will be sent shortly before the event to everyone who registers.
Handicraft Hours are part of the Arts at the Willard House series, which explores the connections between women’s creativity, community building, and social change.
Truth Telling: Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells
An Award Winning History Project of the Frances Willard House Museum and Archives
In the 1890s, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union President Frances Willard and journalist and activist Ida B. Wells fought a war of words in the international press over Willard’s lack of public support for Wells’ anti-lynching campaign. Wells called Willard’s moral leadership into question and demanded that Willard and the WCTU join her anti-lynching campaign. Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU eventually passed resolutions opposing lynching, but Willard’s language and actions complicate her legacy.
Truth Telling: Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells is a community history project that explores this conflict. The project includes a digital exhibit of original archival sources, community conversations, and public programs. The goal of the project is to uncover the full truth of the conflict, and explore its many meanings and ramifications for our world today. To visit the website, click here.
In 2020, the Truth Telling project received Honorable Mention for Outstanding Public History Project from the National Council on Public History. To view the online award ceremony video click below.