September 22, 2022 • 22 mins
Her new book, Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club That Sparked Modern Feminism, tells about early-20th century women who were determined to change the world with their bold ideas and activism—and did!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Women's impact on their time and their circumstances is often
so hard to measure because it exists in these kind
of social spaces, it exists in these gaps in the archive,
and it was really a pleasure to go back and
find what these women had written to each other and
to read letters and memoirs that really bore out this
(00:27):
sense that Heterodoxy was, you know, a politically engaged space,
but also just a place where really lifelong friendships were forged.
That was the story in Joanna Scots talking about Heterodoxy,
a woman's Club that flourished in New York City starting
in nineteen twelve. She reveals its secrets in her new
(00:50):
book hotbed, Bohemian Greenwich Village and the secret club that
sparked modern feminism. I'm a land for dear and this
is Seneca's one hundred women to hear. We are bringing
you one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history
making women you need to hear. In hot bed, Joanna
(01:13):
Scots tells how heterodoxy brought together women with a passion
for ideas and activism and fostered not only feminism and suffrage,
but also other social movements like workers rights and racial justice.
Scotts is a literary critic and a cultural historian with
(01:34):
a focus on women in the early twentieth century. Her
previous book was the extra woman. How Marjorie Hellis led
a generation of women to live alone and like it.
Listen and learn why Joanna Scotts and the women of
Heterodoxy are amongst Seneca's one hundred women. To hear. I'm
(02:01):
speaking today with historian and author Joanna Scotts. Welcome, Joanne.
I'm still looking forward to our conversation. Thank you so
much for having me. I'm looking forward to it too well.
You've written a book about Heterodoxy, a secret club for
women in Greenwich Village in the nineteen tens. Tell us
about this club and why was it secret? So heterodoxy
(02:25):
was a social and a discussion club. There were lots
of these in Greenwich Village at the time. It was
a very um kind of active community of lots of
idealistic people, and what had made heterodoxy distinct was the
fact that it was only for women and the secrecy
(02:45):
had a couple of functions. I think the one that
the members remember was the idea that it was so
that they had space to doubt and disagree so that
if they were arguing, they wouldn't be stereotyped as Um,
disagreeable women, but that they would be able to kind
of argue in shape and change their opinions. I also
(03:09):
think that the club was quite a personal space for
a lot of the women. One of the members remembered
that the members thought that they covered the whole ground,
but really we discussed ourselves. So I think because there
was a lot of blending of the personal and the
political that really affected what they you know, what they
(03:30):
wanted to share, and the secrecy gave them freedom. So fascinating.
And did the club have impact? And wondering who some
of the very famous names associated with it were. Yeah,
it's Um, it's a it was a club for prominent women.
When it it was sort of an open secret. When
(03:51):
it started to be written about and written up, the
idea was often that a lot of the women were
already well known in their day. Um, not that many
of them have sort of continued to be sort of
popularly known, but some of the famous names include Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, who we know best now as a novelist.
(04:11):
She wrote the yellow wallpaper but she also was a
very prominent social theorist and economist and she's sort of
one of the bigger names. Um. Then a couple of
the other women that I write about a lot in
the book include Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was a young
organizer with the I W W, the industrial workers of
(04:33):
the world, and Rose Pastor stokes, who was also a
very prominent socialist activist, and they were sort of the
two most notorious figures in the club. There was also
a very creative side to the club. A lot of
artists and writers in the group, Susan Glass Bowl, who
was one of the main founders of the province town players,
(04:55):
the Avant Garde Theater Club. She was also a member
when she arrived in Greenwich Village. So it was a
real nexus of creativity and politics to be a fly
on the wall for those conversations. You describe the women
in the book as New Women. How were they different from,
let's call them the old women, the early suffragists and activists,
(05:19):
like names we know so well, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton and
Susan B Anthony. How were they different from each other?
So the club, it did include a range of ages.
It wasn't just a young women's Club, but certainly, I
know you're asking, you more about the sort of attitudes
and Um and approaches the new women. They were sort
(05:43):
of a social phenomenon. They were kind of discussed and
derided the way that millennials, you know, probably have have
also spent, you know, the last twenty years being being
talked about in this way new women, even in at
this time where we're not that new. But they sort
of wrapped presented women who had been highly educated were
(06:04):
advocating for their rights, but they did they were doing
so in a different way. They weren't embracing the idea
of kind of the the more Victorian approach of the
older suffragists who argued that women needed the vote because
women were sort of morally superior to men and they
(06:24):
were very wedded to the idea of sort of feminine decorum.
These were women, the new women with women who were
willing to be out in public unaccompanied. They wanted to
March and be visible. Um. One of the most famous
women at the time who was in the club was
a young activist called Anez Mill Holland, who tragically died
(06:48):
very young, but she was a real celebrity, one of
the first suffragists to be photographed, to be asked about
her fashion choices, you know, to be really a kind
of a I word for this modern, looking, forward thinking,
kind of new generation of activists. Interesting. And how was
(07:09):
the women's feminism of these women tied to other social
movements of the early nineteen hundreds? If it was tied,
it certainly was the the women. So the group was
meeting in Greenwich Village which at the time, in the
nineteen tens, was really this epicenter of activism in all
(07:32):
different arenas. A lot of the women were very involved
in the Labor movement and the socialist activism of the time.
So the I w w the wobbles were really a
very prominent force in Um in labor activism and left
wing politics at the time. The group was also pretty
(07:55):
closely involved with the INN double a C P, which
was founded in n nine in the village. And heterodoxy
is unusual for social clubs of this era in that
it wasn't entirely segregated. It had one African American member
who was the wife Grace Neil Johnson. She was the
(08:16):
wife of James Weldon Johnson, who was an extremely accomplished
activist and a very prominent figure and she was invited
to join the club a little later in its founding.
So there was very close ties between heterodoxy and sort
of really any socially progressive movement in New York and
(08:38):
and on the national stage. Suffrage was went without saying,
but it was definitely a group of women who believe
that the vote was just the beginning. And were these
feminists that you mentioned? You mentioned some of the names.
I'm wondering, as you tipped off their names. Many of
them perhaps the more sleep forgotten or overlooked, but can
(09:02):
you tell us a little bit about some of them? Absolutely,
um it was one of the pleasures and the challenges
of researching this book that I kept thinking that this
roster of women, which was around about a hundred women
over the course of the club's existence, surely there would
be some who were just, you know, sort of forgotten
(09:23):
and just showed up a two occasional meetings but didn't
really leave a mark on history. But that really wasn't
the case. Sort of everybody that I researched had sort
of multiple interests. There were women who were acclaimed and
esteemed writers at the time. One of the women who
sort of forgotten now but deserves some rehabilitation is Katherine Anthony,
(09:49):
who was a feminist biographer. She wrote biographies of Prominent
Women Like Elizabeth the first and Mary Antoinette and these
kind of Catherine the great I believe, in she sort
of approached that with a distinctive feminist Lens Um, so
the idea of women recovering and white writing about other
women's lives. That was something that was was happening in
(10:12):
this group. The founder of the Heterodoxy, who I who
I should mentioned, was a woman named Marie Jenny how
she was a suffragist and a feminist who will pulled
the club together after she arrived in New York. She
was already in her early forties at the time. She
wasn't herself a kind of young activist, but she was
(10:32):
very connected to the city politics and the suffrage movement
and she was a really creative thinker and it had
an extraordinary gift, it seems, for bringing people together and
facilitating and fostering friendship. She's remembered with enormous affection by
all the women in the club and one of the
things that I really wanted to do in the book
(10:53):
was think about how history remembers and doesn't remember women
and the ways that women's impact on their time and
their circumstances is often so hard to measure because it
exists in these kind of social spaces, it exists in
these gaps in the archive, and it was really a
pleasure to go back and find what these women had
(11:15):
written to each other and to read letters and memoirs
that really bore out this sense that Heterodoxy was, you know,
a politically engaged space, but also just a place where
really lifelong friendships were forged and they were women who
were really leaders in their times in terms of what
(11:36):
the future would bring. And yet I think it's not
just certainly the case of these women, but so many
throughout history who have not gotten the acknowledgment for their achievements.
Hopefully that's changing now and books like yours really do
spot like them. I wanted also to give a little
shout out to one of my subjects, Crystal Eastman, and
(12:00):
who is a really important figure who has been very
much historically overshadowed by her younger brother Max, who was
a very, you know, prominent figure in left wing politics
and outlived her by by many decades. But she, crystal,
was a CO founder of the A C L U Um.
She was involved in labor organizing, she was involved in
(12:23):
suffrage and she was extremely prominent locally and nationally in
the peace movement and the opposition to World War One.
That time, that period was really of fractious one for
the club. There were women who believed that the United
States should enter the war. There were many others who
believed that it was a destructive and suicidal endeavor and
(12:45):
that women's it was really women's job to oppose it
with all their force. And so she's just got so
many pieces of her biography and such a such an
extraordinary impact in these different areas. And he had a
wonderful biography was written about her, I think now three
years ago. And so finally people of women like that
(13:08):
are are coming out of the shadows and getting the
attention that they deserve. And I hope there are so
many other subjects. If anyone is looking for a wonderful
woman to write a biography about, please come and look
at my look at my book, because there's so many
women still with stories to tell. Yeah, so many trailblazers
that we really need to know more about and and
(13:30):
take for granted in terms of what they've done to
pave the way Senecas one hundred women to hear. We'll
be back after the short break. Well, let's talk a
(13:52):
little bit about you, Joanna. What was euro upbringing like,
and let's set you on the path that you're on
being in his story and where you always curious about
what happened in the past? Well, as you can probably tell,
I'm not a native New Yorker. Um, I was raised
in London and I was always you know, where sort
(14:13):
of the history and presence of history just in this
sort of built environment of London is. It's everywhere, and
so I was curious. But, Um, I think when I
went to I went to Cambridge for my undergraduate education
and there it's really striking the weight of history and
the and the lack of women in it. Um, my
(14:33):
college is celebrating fifty years of admitting women this year
and my college was founded in fourteen forty one. So
it's really you know, those kinds of moments really bring
home to you how recent women's inclusion and women's involvement
has has been in sort of national just access to history,
(14:54):
and so I've really felt I kind of have come
to history through literature. I studied literature and was always
just interested in both in books themselves but in the
circumstances of their production and the women writers who were
just not there on the syllabus or not there in
the libraries, and I have really sort of in the
(15:14):
last few years, devoted myself to trying to explore and
uncover those neglected stories. So wonderful to hear you helped
a plan and launched the Center for Women's history at
the New York historical society. So you've been keeping at
this interest of yours. What is so special about the center?
(15:36):
Tell us about it. So the center opened in twenty
seventeen and it was the first dedicated center of women's
history within the walls of a major museum. And our
our goal was really too just to have us a
permanent space that put women's experiences at the center of
(15:56):
the story instead of having them be something that as
an afterthought or a temporary conclusion, just for, you know,
one month of the year. And the space of the center,
the physical space includes a gallery with rotating exhibitions, but
there's also the center really serves as this kind of
hub of scholarship. Um, it's really a place where anyone
(16:20):
interested in the history of women in New York can come,
can find research support, can find community, and we've also
worked very hard to expand the curriculum for younger students
to try to make sure that school children are growing
up with the awareness that women are just are always
in the picture, are always part of the story, and
(16:42):
I think that that work is really vital to helping
to sort of change those narratives and understanding that just
because you haven't heard of somebody that they didn't have
an impact and that their story isn't worth telling. Um,
the people that we've heard of are such a very
small a small group, and also such a uh, you
know that that group is very selective, and so it's
(17:04):
very important, I think, to me too, just kind of
try to widen, you know, widen those stories and introduce
visitors and students to all the wonderful women and women's
stories that they just haven't heard indeed. And and so
wonderful that finally the center exists at the New York
(17:24):
historical society, and how fitting that it does. I might
add as an historian. Certainly you're aware of some of
the issues of the past, that we're confronting some similar
issues today. And I I wonder, given that sense of
history telling us about today and tomorrow, what makes you optimistic? Well,
(17:46):
what gives you hope for the future? Well, I certainly
think that the sense of the sense that there is history,
that there are issues in history that are are still
fighting over today. That in itself doesn't inspire a great
deal of optimism. It can feel like you're exhausting, that
(18:08):
we haven't moved further forward and moved beyond these kinds
of arguments. But I do think we're in a moment
where understanding the importance of history, the politics of history,
I think those those are becoming very obvious. Um and
I think to a new, younger generation of students are
(18:30):
growing up knowing that, AH, perhaps the stories they're being
told and not the full story. Um and I think
that there's you know, there's more access than ever to
information and if if we can find ways to filter
it and sort of help help people find kind of
(18:50):
what's true, I mean that's a that's a very big challenge.
But I do think there's an interest in questioning what
what we're being taught, and I hope that that leads,
you know, leads everyone, as young people but really everyone,
leads them to think, think about why you haven't been
(19:11):
told a certain story. What what is the you know,
if you are hearing about a particular argument or theory
or personality for the first time, ah, what's that about?
You know, where do these who's in charge of the
kind of telling us what the stories are? It feels
like a moment where history is being seen for its
(19:34):
really for its vitality, but also for its Um for
its gaps and oversights, Um and I hope that that brings,
you know, a new set of readers too to discover
what what academics are doing and what what popular writers
are trying to do to just kind of show how
(19:56):
history is relevant today. And I do think the days
of is re being seen as some kind of dusty,
irrelevant story, I think those days are definitely behind us.
So I hope that students are inspired to study and
pursue history and realize how vibrant and how relevant it is. Well,
you've certainly inspired us today, and I know I'm speaking
(20:17):
for so many of our listeners and thanks to your book,
we are able to better understand the achievements of these
great women in the early nineteen hundreds and what they
mean to our own history. So, Joanna Scotts, thank you
so much for being with us. Thank you so much.
(20:39):
How wonderful to shine a light on those almost forgotten
women who made such a difference. Here are three things
I took from that conversation. First, it's always fascinating to
hear how the women's suffrage movement evolved over time. The
women in the Heterdoxy were so called new women. They
(21:01):
rejected earlier notions of how women should behave in public.
They were willing to make themselves seen and heard and
to march for their rights. Second, heterodoxy reminds us that
human rights don't exist in isolation. The club's members were
involved in issues like labor rights, racial justice and the
(21:25):
international peace movement. Finally, as Joanna Scotts tells us, these
feminists drew strength from the connections they made in Heterodoxy.
Through the club and its intense discussions, they forged lifelong friendships.
(21:45):
Tune in next time to hear about our next featured
woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's on women
to hear. Seneca's one hundred women to hear is a
collaboration between the Seneca Women podcast network and I heart video,
with support from founding partner P and have a great day,
(22:08):
m HM.
Women's impact on their time and their circumstances is often
so hard to measure because it exists in these kind
of social spaces, it exists in these gaps in the archive,
and it was really a pleasure to go back and
find what these women had written to each other and
to read letters and memoirs that really bore out this
(00:27):
sense that Heterodoxy was, you know, a politically engaged space,
but also just a place where really lifelong friendships were forged.
That was the story in Joanna Scots talking about Heterodoxy,
a woman's Club that flourished in New York City starting
in nineteen twelve. She reveals its secrets in her new
(00:50):
book hotbed, Bohemian Greenwich Village and the secret club that
sparked modern feminism. I'm a land for dear and this
is Seneca's one hundred women to hear. We are bringing
you one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history
making women you need to hear. In hot bed, Joanna
(01:13):
Scots tells how heterodoxy brought together women with a passion
for ideas and activism and fostered not only feminism and suffrage,
but also other social movements like workers rights and racial justice.
Scotts is a literary critic and a cultural historian with
(01:34):
a focus on women in the early twentieth century. Her
previous book was the extra woman. How Marjorie Hellis led
a generation of women to live alone and like it.
Listen and learn why Joanna Scotts and the women of
Heterodoxy are amongst Seneca's one hundred women. To hear. I'm
(02:01):
speaking today with historian and author Joanna Scotts. Welcome, Joanne.
I'm still looking forward to our conversation. Thank you so
much for having me. I'm looking forward to it too well.
You've written a book about Heterodoxy, a secret club for
women in Greenwich Village in the nineteen tens. Tell us
about this club and why was it secret? So heterodoxy
(02:25):
was a social and a discussion club. There were lots
of these in Greenwich Village at the time. It was
a very um kind of active community of lots of
idealistic people, and what had made heterodoxy distinct was the
fact that it was only for women and the secrecy
(02:45):
had a couple of functions. I think the one that
the members remember was the idea that it was so
that they had space to doubt and disagree so that
if they were arguing, they wouldn't be stereotyped as Um,
disagreeable women, but that they would be able to kind
of argue in shape and change their opinions. I also
(03:09):
think that the club was quite a personal space for
a lot of the women. One of the members remembered
that the members thought that they covered the whole ground,
but really we discussed ourselves. So I think because there
was a lot of blending of the personal and the
political that really affected what they you know, what they
(03:30):
wanted to share, and the secrecy gave them freedom. So fascinating.
And did the club have impact? And wondering who some
of the very famous names associated with it were. Yeah,
it's Um, it's a it was a club for prominent women.
When it it was sort of an open secret. When
(03:51):
it started to be written about and written up, the
idea was often that a lot of the women were
already well known in their day. Um, not that many
of them have sort of continued to be sort of
popularly known, but some of the famous names include Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, who we know best now as a novelist.
(04:11):
She wrote the yellow wallpaper but she also was a
very prominent social theorist and economist and she's sort of
one of the bigger names. Um. Then a couple of
the other women that I write about a lot in
the book include Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was a young
organizer with the I W W, the industrial workers of
(04:33):
the world, and Rose Pastor stokes, who was also a
very prominent socialist activist, and they were sort of the
two most notorious figures in the club. There was also
a very creative side to the club. A lot of
artists and writers in the group, Susan Glass Bowl, who
was one of the main founders of the province town players,
(04:55):
the Avant Garde Theater Club. She was also a member
when she arrived in Greenwich Village. So it was a
real nexus of creativity and politics to be a fly
on the wall for those conversations. You describe the women
in the book as New Women. How were they different from,
let's call them the old women, the early suffragists and activists,
(05:19):
like names we know so well, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton and
Susan B Anthony. How were they different from each other?
So the club, it did include a range of ages.
It wasn't just a young women's Club, but certainly, I
know you're asking, you more about the sort of attitudes
and Um and approaches the new women. They were sort
(05:43):
of a social phenomenon. They were kind of discussed and
derided the way that millennials, you know, probably have have
also spent, you know, the last twenty years being being
talked about in this way new women, even in at
this time where we're not that new. But they sort
of wrapped presented women who had been highly educated were
(06:04):
advocating for their rights, but they did they were doing
so in a different way. They weren't embracing the idea
of kind of the the more Victorian approach of the
older suffragists who argued that women needed the vote because
women were sort of morally superior to men and they
(06:24):
were very wedded to the idea of sort of feminine decorum.
These were women, the new women with women who were
willing to be out in public unaccompanied. They wanted to
March and be visible. Um. One of the most famous
women at the time who was in the club was
a young activist called Anez Mill Holland, who tragically died
(06:48):
very young, but she was a real celebrity, one of
the first suffragists to be photographed, to be asked about
her fashion choices, you know, to be really a kind
of a I word for this modern, looking, forward thinking,
kind of new generation of activists. Interesting. And how was
(07:09):
the women's feminism of these women tied to other social
movements of the early nineteen hundreds? If it was tied,
it certainly was the the women. So the group was
meeting in Greenwich Village which at the time, in the
nineteen tens, was really this epicenter of activism in all
(07:32):
different arenas. A lot of the women were very involved
in the Labor movement and the socialist activism of the time.
So the I w w the wobbles were really a
very prominent force in Um in labor activism and left
wing politics at the time. The group was also pretty
(07:55):
closely involved with the INN double a C P, which
was founded in n nine in the village. And heterodoxy
is unusual for social clubs of this era in that
it wasn't entirely segregated. It had one African American member
who was the wife Grace Neil Johnson. She was the
(08:16):
wife of James Weldon Johnson, who was an extremely accomplished
activist and a very prominent figure and she was invited
to join the club a little later in its founding.
So there was very close ties between heterodoxy and sort
of really any socially progressive movement in New York and
(08:38):
and on the national stage. Suffrage was went without saying,
but it was definitely a group of women who believe
that the vote was just the beginning. And were these
feminists that you mentioned? You mentioned some of the names.
I'm wondering, as you tipped off their names. Many of
them perhaps the more sleep forgotten or overlooked, but can
(09:02):
you tell us a little bit about some of them? Absolutely,
um it was one of the pleasures and the challenges
of researching this book that I kept thinking that this
roster of women, which was around about a hundred women
over the course of the club's existence, surely there would
be some who were just, you know, sort of forgotten
(09:23):
and just showed up a two occasional meetings but didn't
really leave a mark on history. But that really wasn't
the case. Sort of everybody that I researched had sort
of multiple interests. There were women who were acclaimed and
esteemed writers at the time. One of the women who
sort of forgotten now but deserves some rehabilitation is Katherine Anthony,
(09:49):
who was a feminist biographer. She wrote biographies of Prominent
Women Like Elizabeth the first and Mary Antoinette and these
kind of Catherine the great I believe, in she sort
of approached that with a distinctive feminist Lens Um, so
the idea of women recovering and white writing about other
women's lives. That was something that was was happening in
(10:12):
this group. The founder of the Heterodoxy, who I who
I should mentioned, was a woman named Marie Jenny how
she was a suffragist and a feminist who will pulled
the club together after she arrived in New York. She
was already in her early forties at the time. She
wasn't herself a kind of young activist, but she was
(10:32):
very connected to the city politics and the suffrage movement
and she was a really creative thinker and it had
an extraordinary gift, it seems, for bringing people together and
facilitating and fostering friendship. She's remembered with enormous affection by
all the women in the club and one of the
things that I really wanted to do in the book
(10:53):
was think about how history remembers and doesn't remember women
and the ways that women's impact on their time and
their circumstances is often so hard to measure because it
exists in these kind of social spaces, it exists in
these gaps in the archive, and it was really a
pleasure to go back and find what these women had
(11:15):
written to each other and to read letters and memoirs
that really bore out this sense that Heterodoxy was, you know,
a politically engaged space, but also just a place where
really lifelong friendships were forged and they were women who
were really leaders in their times in terms of what
(11:36):
the future would bring. And yet I think it's not
just certainly the case of these women, but so many
throughout history who have not gotten the acknowledgment for their achievements.
Hopefully that's changing now and books like yours really do
spot like them. I wanted also to give a little
shout out to one of my subjects, Crystal Eastman, and
(12:00):
who is a really important figure who has been very
much historically overshadowed by her younger brother Max, who was
a very, you know, prominent figure in left wing politics
and outlived her by by many decades. But she, crystal,
was a CO founder of the A C L U Um.
She was involved in labor organizing, she was involved in
(12:23):
suffrage and she was extremely prominent locally and nationally in
the peace movement and the opposition to World War One.
That time, that period was really of fractious one for
the club. There were women who believed that the United
States should enter the war. There were many others who
believed that it was a destructive and suicidal endeavor and
(12:45):
that women's it was really women's job to oppose it
with all their force. And so she's just got so
many pieces of her biography and such a such an
extraordinary impact in these different areas. And he had a
wonderful biography was written about her, I think now three
years ago. And so finally people of women like that
(13:08):
are are coming out of the shadows and getting the
attention that they deserve. And I hope there are so
many other subjects. If anyone is looking for a wonderful
woman to write a biography about, please come and look
at my look at my book, because there's so many
women still with stories to tell. Yeah, so many trailblazers
that we really need to know more about and and
(13:30):
take for granted in terms of what they've done to
pave the way Senecas one hundred women to hear. We'll
be back after the short break. Well, let's talk a
(13:52):
little bit about you, Joanna. What was euro upbringing like,
and let's set you on the path that you're on
being in his story and where you always curious about
what happened in the past? Well, as you can probably tell,
I'm not a native New Yorker. Um, I was raised
in London and I was always you know, where sort
(14:13):
of the history and presence of history just in this
sort of built environment of London is. It's everywhere, and
so I was curious. But, Um, I think when I
went to I went to Cambridge for my undergraduate education
and there it's really striking the weight of history and
the and the lack of women in it. Um, my
(14:33):
college is celebrating fifty years of admitting women this year
and my college was founded in fourteen forty one. So
it's really you know, those kinds of moments really bring
home to you how recent women's inclusion and women's involvement
has has been in sort of national just access to history,
(14:54):
and so I've really felt I kind of have come
to history through literature. I studied literature and was always
just interested in both in books themselves but in the
circumstances of their production and the women writers who were
just not there on the syllabus or not there in
the libraries, and I have really sort of in the
(15:14):
last few years, devoted myself to trying to explore and
uncover those neglected stories. So wonderful to hear you helped
a plan and launched the Center for Women's history at
the New York historical society. So you've been keeping at
this interest of yours. What is so special about the center?
(15:36):
Tell us about it. So the center opened in twenty
seventeen and it was the first dedicated center of women's
history within the walls of a major museum. And our
our goal was really too just to have us a
permanent space that put women's experiences at the center of
(15:56):
the story instead of having them be something that as
an afterthought or a temporary conclusion, just for, you know,
one month of the year. And the space of the center,
the physical space includes a gallery with rotating exhibitions, but
there's also the center really serves as this kind of
hub of scholarship. Um, it's really a place where anyone
(16:20):
interested in the history of women in New York can come,
can find research support, can find community, and we've also
worked very hard to expand the curriculum for younger students
to try to make sure that school children are growing
up with the awareness that women are just are always
in the picture, are always part of the story, and
(16:42):
I think that that work is really vital to helping
to sort of change those narratives and understanding that just
because you haven't heard of somebody that they didn't have
an impact and that their story isn't worth telling. Um,
the people that we've heard of are such a very
small a small group, and also such a uh, you
know that that group is very selective, and so it's
(17:04):
very important, I think, to me too, just kind of
try to widen, you know, widen those stories and introduce
visitors and students to all the wonderful women and women's
stories that they just haven't heard indeed. And and so
wonderful that finally the center exists at the New York
(17:24):
historical society, and how fitting that it does. I might
add as an historian. Certainly you're aware of some of
the issues of the past, that we're confronting some similar
issues today. And I I wonder, given that sense of
history telling us about today and tomorrow, what makes you optimistic? Well,
(17:46):
what gives you hope for the future? Well, I certainly
think that the sense of the sense that there is history,
that there are issues in history that are are still
fighting over today. That in itself doesn't inspire a great
deal of optimism. It can feel like you're exhausting, that
(18:08):
we haven't moved further forward and moved beyond these kinds
of arguments. But I do think we're in a moment
where understanding the importance of history, the politics of history,
I think those those are becoming very obvious. Um and
I think to a new, younger generation of students are
(18:30):
growing up knowing that, AH, perhaps the stories they're being
told and not the full story. Um and I think
that there's you know, there's more access than ever to
information and if if we can find ways to filter
it and sort of help help people find kind of
(18:50):
what's true, I mean that's a that's a very big challenge.
But I do think there's an interest in questioning what
what we're being taught, and I hope that that leads,
you know, leads everyone, as young people but really everyone,
leads them to think, think about why you haven't been
(19:11):
told a certain story. What what is the you know,
if you are hearing about a particular argument or theory
or personality for the first time, ah, what's that about?
You know, where do these who's in charge of the
kind of telling us what the stories are? It feels
like a moment where history is being seen for its
(19:34):
really for its vitality, but also for its Um for
its gaps and oversights, Um and I hope that that brings,
you know, a new set of readers too to discover
what what academics are doing and what what popular writers
are trying to do to just kind of show how
(19:56):
history is relevant today. And I do think the days
of is re being seen as some kind of dusty,
irrelevant story, I think those days are definitely behind us.
So I hope that students are inspired to study and
pursue history and realize how vibrant and how relevant it is. Well,
you've certainly inspired us today, and I know I'm speaking
(20:17):
for so many of our listeners and thanks to your book,
we are able to better understand the achievements of these
great women in the early nineteen hundreds and what they
mean to our own history. So, Joanna Scotts, thank you
so much for being with us. Thank you so much.
(20:39):
How wonderful to shine a light on those almost forgotten
women who made such a difference. Here are three things
I took from that conversation. First, it's always fascinating to
hear how the women's suffrage movement evolved over time. The
women in the Heterdoxy were so called new women. They
(21:01):
rejected earlier notions of how women should behave in public.
They were willing to make themselves seen and heard and
to march for their rights. Second, heterodoxy reminds us that
human rights don't exist in isolation. The club's members were
involved in issues like labor rights, racial justice and the
(21:25):
international peace movement. Finally, as Joanna Scotts tells us, these
feminists drew strength from the connections they made in Heterodoxy.
Through the club and its intense discussions, they forged lifelong friendships.
(21:45):
Tune in next time to hear about our next featured
woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's on women
to hear. Seneca's one hundred women to hear is a
collaboration between the Seneca Women podcast network and I heart video,
with support from founding partner P and have a great day,
(22:08):
m HM.
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