Happy Thanksgiving, Titans! Did you know that Sarah Josepha Buella Hale was a leading force behind the creation of Thanksgiving as a national American holiday? Prior to her campaign, it had been primarily celebrated in New England, with each state celebrating it on a different day. Her advocacy for the national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. She wrote letters to five US presidents (Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, and Lincoln) with the final letter to Lincoln convincing him to support legislation establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863. The new holiday was considered a unifying day after the stress of the American Civil War.

Hale is also the author of the famous nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” From the book cover: “Since this nursery rhyme first appeared in 1830, children have loved it.  When Tomie dePaola discovered that Hale had been born near his New Hampshire home, he knew he wanted to illustrate this perennial favorite.

DePaola uses his signature folk art style and sets the poem in a traditional 19th century New England setting.  The result is an endearing interpretation of the little lamb that followed Mary to school and how the teacher handled it.

Back in print after fifteen years and in a board book format for the first time, Mary Had a Little Lamb will be cherished for generations of children to come.”

Considered one of the most prolific female spies of the 20th century, as a triple agent for Communists in China, India, and the Soviet Union, Agnes Smedley was an American journalist and writer well known for her semi-autobiographical work, Daughter of Earth.

Agnes Smedley, author of Daughter of Earth, worked in and wrote about China from 1928 to 1941. These 18 pieces featured in  Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution —all out of print and most unavailable even in public libraries—are based on interviews with revolutionary women. They include descriptions of the massacre of feminists in the Canton commune, of the silk workers of Canton whose solidarity earns them the charge of lesbianism, and of Mother Tsai, a 60-year-old peasant who leads village women in smashing an opium den.

Want to learn all about the first African-American woman to graduate from IWU? Check out The Ames Library Archives and Special Collections blog post on Jospehine M. Jackson.

“The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.”

– Zora Neale Hurston

This Theme Thursday celebrates the accomplishements and life of civil rights activist Zora Neale Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston was an American novelist, short story write, folklorist, and anthropologist. Of her novels and published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. 

Her works remained rather obscure during her life and for several years after her death, for a number of cultural and political reasons. Many early readers and critics objected to Hurston’s use of dialect, but more recently critics have praised her use of idiomatic speech.

From the book cover: “One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.”

Fifty years after women like Dame Jane Goodall and Gloria Steinem started chipping away at the glass ceiling, their influence remains palpable, especially in a world where we still debate women’s rights. This Theme Thursday celebrates the work of Jane Goodall, a famous primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and all-around awesome woman. Dame Goodall continues to study and write about primate behavior. She founded the Gombe Stream Research Center in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, and the Jane Goodall Institute for Wild Life Research, Education, and Conservation to provide ongoing support for field research on wild chimpanzees. She is the author of many books, including two autobiographies in letters, Africa in My Blood and Beyond Innocence. Today Dr. Goodall spends much of her time lecturing, sharing her message of hope for the future, and encouraging young people to make a difference in their world.

In the Shadow of Man is one of Goodall’s early books. From the book cover: “World-renowned primatologist, conservationist, and humanitarian Dr. Jane Goodall’s account of her life among the wild chimpanzees of Gombe is one of the most enthralling stories of animal behavior ever written. Her adventure began when the famous anthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey suggested that a long-term study of chimpanzees in the wild might shed light on the behavior of our closest living relatives. Accompanied by only her mother and her African assistants, she set up camp in the remote Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanzania. For months the project seemed hopeless; out in the forest from dawn until dark, she had but fleeting glimpses of frightened animals. But gradually she won their trust and was able to record previously unknown behavior, such as the use—and even the making— of tools, until then believed to be an exclusive skill of man. As she came to know the chimps as individuals, she began to understand their complicated social hierarchy and observed many extraordinary behaviors, which have forever changed our understanding of the profound connection between humans and chimpanzees.