Our final Handicraft Hour of 2021 will be held on Sunday, December 12 at 4pm Central Time. Fiona Maxwell (Director of Museum Operations and Communications at the Willard House and History PhD candidate at the University of Chicago) will share the festive and fanciful history of show window display, from The Wizard of Oz to The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Please RSVP for this free virtual program here. 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 program 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.