Records of women’s work

YOU CAN WATCH ONLINE THE AMERICAN EPHEMERA SOCIETY’S CONFERENCE HELD ONLINE IN MARCH 2021. Go to this link. There is a rather simple guide to find your way between talks.

There is some fabulous ephemera and informed commentary on all types of ephemera – the theme drew on the 2020 anniversary of North American women’s suffrage; my favourite was Lisa Baskin’s talk about ephemera evidencing western women’s work. The introduction advises:

The notion that women have not worked outside their homes except in the traditional roles assigned to them, such as teaching or nursing, is challenged by the physical evidence that exists chronicling the breadth of their participation in vocations that we assume were closed to them. Often documented by a single ephemeral bit of evidence, we now understand that women participated in myriad vocations and made significant contributions throughout the centuries.

Brooklyn-born Lisa Baskin is a political activist, collector, book dealer and antiquarian. She jokes that she collected in the cradle. The product of her efforts, a comprehensive collection documenting the political and social history of working women from the fifteenth century to the Spanish Civil War, is now part of the David M. Rubenstein Library at Duke University.

You can also work your way through her collection which is the subject of a book and online exhibition marking her donation to Duke University in North Carolina. Go to this link. Take one minute to look it is great – I have jumped in midway in the 1800s. Below embroiderer’s record book.