2003 JOINT CONFERENCE
of the
Rural Women’s Studies Association (RWSA)
and the
Mountain/Plains and Western Regions of the
Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM)
Co-hosted
by
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
and New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Rural Women’s Studies Association
http://www.uncp.edu/rwsa/
The RWSA is an international association for the advancement
and promotion of farm and rural women’s gender studies in historical perspective.
The Association encourages research, promotes existing and forthcoming
scholarship, and works to establish and maintain links with contemporary farm
and rural women’s organizations. The RWSA aims to encourage scholars from
different disciplinary backgrounds and countries to communicate about their
research and all other activities that are supportive to the Association's
goals.
The association is an outgrowth of the Conferences
on Rural Farm Women in Historical Perspective.
This conference has taken place about every third year since the first
conference in 1984. RWSA was formally
founded in 1997 and organized in 2000. The
2003 conference marks a return to the location of the first conference in
Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums
http://www.alhfam.org
ALHFAM is the museum organization for those involved
in living historical farms, agricultural museums, outdoor museums of history
and folklife and those museums–large and small–that use "living history"
programming. Since its founding in 1970, ALHFAM has been at the forefront
of the growth and professionalization of the use of living history in museum
programs.
ALHFAM is
an international organization of people who bring history to life. ALHFAM
enables its members to make history a valuable part of the lives of museum
visitors. It achieves this purpose through the exchange and sharing of ideas,
information, tools and experiences centered around accurate, active, participatory,
object-based historical interpretation.
This joint conference with RWSA will be the 2003 regional
meetings for the Mountain-Plains and Western regions of ALHFAM.
To become a member of ALHFAM or RWSA,
see the membership information pages on their respective
web sites.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20
5:30 – 8:00pm Registration F&RH Museum Lobby
Shuttle vans
will circulate between the hotels
and the N.M. Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum throughout the evening
5:30 – 7:00pm Opening Reception F&RH Museum
Hors d’ Oeuvres, the ALHFAM “Smoked, Pickled, and Salted” selections,
and beverages
co-sponsored by
Stahmann Farms
Featuring these exhibits at the New Mexico Farm &
Ranch Heritage Museum …
“Generations” – the Museum’s permanent
exhibit which features biographical examples of the people of New Mexico and
this region over its 3,000-year history
“La Casa Colonial” – built around a recreation of an
early nineteenth-century home of a Santa Fe trader, the exhibit also features
interpretation about El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the trade and transportation
route from Mexico City to Nuevo Mexico
“Inside Story on the Roadside View” –
interpretation on the contemporary agriculture of the Lower Rio Grande Valley
in southern New Mexico
“Making a Hand: Ranch Children of the
21st Century” – a photographic exhibit by Gene Peach
“Agricultural Images of the Tularosa
Basin and Sacramento Mountains, 1893-1917” – historic photographs of agriculture
and rural life
7:00 – 8:30pm Plenary Session F&RH Museum Theater
Scholars, museum professionals, and the audience will discuss cultural partnerships that preserve and interpret stories about
rural women, their lives, and how they are presented
today in museums and scholarship.
Liza Dale, Museum Victoria (Australia)
Susan McLeod, Chippewa Valley Museum
Maurine McMillan, Harvey House Museum
Jane Pederson, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
and other panelists
to be announced
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21
Breakfast on your own
9:00am – 5:00pm Registration Corbett Center
Shuttle vans will circulate all day between the hotels
and Corbett Center at New Mexico State University
9:00 – 9:30am Opening Coffee Corbett Center
9:30 – 11:30am Session 1 Corbett
Center
Session 1A — Producer, Consumer,
or Contributor? Rural Women’s Work and Identity in the American
West, 1843-2003
Chair/Comment: Anne B. W. Effland, Economic Research Service, USDA
“Fashioning Women
and Men on the Frontier: Ideology and Reality in Nineteenth-Century Oregon.” Cynthia D. Culver, University of California,
Los Angeles
“‘It Was Time
for Work to Begin’: Arizona Ranch Women’s Labor Identities and Environmental
Ethics, 1900-1940.” Michelle K. Berry, University of Arizona
“Changes and
Challenges: Farm and Ranch Women in the Postwar American West.” Sandy
Schackel, Boise State University
“Pacific Northwest
Farm Women: A Gendered Perspective on Regional Agricultural History.” Sue
Armitage, Washington State University, and Corky Bush, Montana State University
Session 1B — Roundtable:
Women in Southern New Mexico Agriculture: Meeting the Challenge of the Global
Marketplace
Chair: Celina Roberts, New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
Emma Jean Cervantes, Cervantes Enterprises, La Mesa, N.M.
Sally Rovirosa, Stahmann Farms, San Miguel, N.M.
Paulina Salopek, New Mexico Agricultural Leadership Board,
Las Cruces, N.M.
Session 1C — Roundtable: Community Organizing by Women
in the Colonias of Doña Ana County, New Mexico
Facilitators/Chairs: Christine Eber, New
Mexico State University
Megan Snedden, Colonias Development Council
Rebecca Dohlinow, University of California, Berkeley
Participants:
Residents of the colonia communities of Chaparral, Las Palmeras, and Salem,
N.M.: Angela Armendaríz,
Carmen Espinoza, Rosa Ruíz, and Blanca González
Session 1D — Farm Wives, Farmers’
Daughters, and Women Farmers: Images of Agricultural Women in Nineteenth-
and Twentieth-Century Literature
Chair/Comment: Thomas Bailey, Western Michigan University
“Tilling the
Narrative Soil: Josephine Johnson’s Now in November.” Janet
Galligani Casey, Skidmore College (N.Y.)
“The Agrarian
Myth’s New Yeoman: The Female Farmer in Contemporary American Fiction.” Kristin
Van Tassel, University of Kansas
“A Fine Lady
Farmer: Victorian Farm Women, Perceptions and Perspectives.” Karen Sayer, Trinity
and All Saints College, University of Leeds
Session 1E — Government and
Civil Encounters
Chair/Comment: Kriste Lindenmeyer, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
“Drug Use by
Structural Economic Factors in Frontier Areas.” Lisa A. Adler, Frontier
Education Center
“‘Indignation
Must Be Tempered With Pity’: Infanticide and the Meaning of Social Responsibility
in Late Nineteenth-Century Maine.” Mazie Hough, University
of Maine
“‘Keep Down the
Taxes and Increase the Death Rate’: The Women’s Institute and Medical Inspection
of Rural Schools in Early Twentieth-Century Ontario.” Margaret Kechnie,
Thorneloe College, Laurentian University
“Village Women
in Civil Society from an Armenian Perspective.” Svetlana Aslanyan,
National Academy of Sciences (Armenia)
Session 1F — Someone
Else's Words: Written Evidence as the Foundation of Interpreting Rural Women
and Daily Life
Chair: To be announced
Steve Miller, ALHFAM President, Landis Valley Museum
Debra Reid, Eastern Illinois University
Session 1G — Anatomy of a Character:
Chautauqua and Character Construction for Living History
Chair: Mick Woodcock, Sharlot Hall Museum
“Sharlot Mabridth
Hall.” Jody Drake, Blue Rose Theater, Sharlot Hall Museum
“Timely and Timeless:
Some Adventures of Sharlot M. Hall.” Juti A. Winchester,
Buffalo Bill Historical Center
“Character Sketch:
Creating a Living History Persona.” Maryanne Andrus, Buffalo
Bill Historical Center
11:30am – 1:00p Lunch
RWSA members – Lunch on your own at area establishments
(see list in conference packets)
ALHFAM members – Deli lunch at Corbett Center, with a presidential address
by Steve Miller, ALHFAM president, and regional meetings -- Register in advance --
1:00 – 2:30pm Session 2 Corbett
Center
Session 2A — Performance:
“A Desert Scrapbook”
Linda Dufurrena, Photographer, Denio, Nev.
Carol Dufurrena, Geologist/Rancher, Denio, Nev.
Linda Hussa, Writer/Rancher, Cedarville, Calif.
Sophie Sheppard, Painter/Writer, Lake City, Calif.
For more about New Mexico’s
museums
and cultural attractions,
visit
http://www.nmculture.org
Session 2B — Time Traveling
Through New Mexico History: First Person Interpretation and Experienced History
Chair: Marsha Weisiger, New Mexico State University
“Time Traveling
as an Educational Tool.” Jon Hunner, New Mexico State University
“Creating a Teachers’
Manual for Spanish Colonial Time Traveling.” Leslie Bergloff, New
Mexico State University
Students in the Public History Program, New Mexico State University
Session 2C — Performance:
“Men Will Fite Outside”: Wyoming’s Caroline Lockhart: Ranching, Writing, and
Stirring Up Trouble
Melanie Francis, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming
Session 2D — Film:
To Stay and To Leave, about two young sisters living in a small Mediterranean
village
Deniz Altay, Bilkent University (Turkey)
Ash Tanrikulu, Bilkent University (Turkey)
Hatice Karaca, Bilkent University (Turkey)
Session 2E — Lowly Laundry
Sprinkler: A Look Back at Changes in Cottage Industry and Material Culture
Due to Technological Innovation
Deborah Bigness, Lubbock, Tex.
Session 2F — Heirloom Seeds
and Gardens: Living Artifacts for Living History
Brock Cheney, Littleton Historical Museum
Session 2G — Monuments and
Mourning Traditions: A Western Woman’s Response
Nancy Niero, Fairmount Heritage Foundation
2:30 – 3:00pm
Afternoon Break Corbett Center
3:00 – 5:00pm Session 3 Corbett
Center
Session 3A — Agitation, Activism,
and Americanization: The “Ordinary” Lives of Three Rural Wisconsin Women
Chair/Comment:
Genevieve McBride, University of
Wisconsin, Milwaukee
“Rural Girl Power!
Or, How Nineteenth-Century Frontier Feminist Clara Bewick Colby Set
the Stage for Twenty-first-Century Feminist Activism.”
Kristin Mapel-Bloomberg, Hamline University
“From Potosi
to the Philippines: The Rural Borders of Ethel Thomas Herold.” Theresa Kaminski,
University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
“Juliet H. Severance
and the Roots of Rural Women’s Political Activism.” Joanne E. Passet,
Indiana University East
Session 3B — Roundtable:
Women’s Roles in Preserving Community and Livelihood in Northern New Mexico
Chair: Lois Stanford, New Mexico State University
Carla Gomez, founder of Tapetes del Lana, Las Vegas, N.M.
Molly Manzanares, co-founder of Los Ojos Handweavers (Tierra
Wools), Los Ojos, N.M.
Kay Matthews, co-founder of La Jicarita, El Valle, N.M.
Felicity Fonseca, co-founder of Embudo Valley Community Support
Agriculture, Dixon, N.M.
Session 3C — Roundtable:
Native American Women at Work in Their Communities
Chair: Jeanette Haynes, New Mexico State University
Laurie Arnold, Arizona State University
Charlotte Bradley, Zuni Pueblo, N.M.
Jennifer Nez Denetdale, School of American Research and University
of New Mexico
Sandy Frazier, Cheyenne-Eagle Butte School (S.D.)
Vivian Hattie, Zuni Pueblo, N.M.
Terry Reynolds, New Mexico State University Museum
Session 3D — Women in the Great
Depression
Chair/Comment:
Katherine Jellison, Ohio University
“‘I Like to Hoe
My Own Row’: A Western Farm Woman and Her Work during the Great Depression.”
Cristine G. Bye, University of Calgary
“Making Do: Iowa
Farm Women’s Coping Through Creative Homemaking, 1930-1933.” Lisa L. Ossian, Southwestern
Community College (Iowa)
“The Camera Work
of Opal Childs Glover: Southern Black Faces within the Frame, 1928-1936.” Tonnia L. Anderson,
Oklahoma State University
Session 3E — Rural Lives Across
Cultures
Chair/Comment:
Janet M. Tanski, New Mexico State
University
“‘We Run the
Farm!’: A Case Study of Rural Women in Sugar Management in Eighteenth-Century
Jamaica.” John F. Campbell, University of the West Indies
“Overlapping
of Gender, Class, and Race in Rural New Mexico.” Maria Rodriguez, Instituto
Nacional de Antropologíae (Mexico)
“Algunos Resultados
Sobre la Relacion Mujer-Formas Organizativas Agropecuaria en Cuba.” Miriam García Aguiar,
Niurka Pérez Rojas, University of Havana
“Threads from
the Gossiping Looms: Acadian Women Facing Modernity in Nineteenth-Century
Maritime Canada.” Judith Rygiel, Carleton University (Ottawa)
Session 3F — The
Secret Lives of Log Cabins: Helpful Hints for Documenting and Decorating Original
and Reconstructed Structures
Chair: Mick Woodcock, Sharlot Hall Museum
Henry A. Crawford, Museum of Texas Tech University
Derrick Birdsall, Farmers Branch Historical Park
Session 3G — Living History
Interpretation
Chair: Deborah Bigness, Lubbock, Tex.
“Is that a Real
Baby? Children in Living History Programs.” Gwen Watson, History
a la Carte
“Challenges of
Living History Interpretation at an Historic Site.” Staff and Friends
of Fort Selden State Monument
5:30 – 7:00pm Evening Reception Las Cruces Cultural Complex
Shuttle vans will transport participants from the Corbett Center to the
Las Cruces Cultural Complex and back to the hotels between 5:00 and 7:30pm.
Exhibits and
hors d’oeuvres (featuring “A Taste of the Southwest”) will be at two museums
in the Las Cruces Cultural Complex.
Exhibits at the Branigan Cultural Center …
“Dirty Work/Fancy Work” – artifacts and photographs
examining the daily tasks of women, from cooking and cleaning to embroidery
and quilting.
“Pie Town Woman: Photographs by Russell Lee
and Joan Myers” – photographs and recollections of Pie Town, N.M., homesteader
Doris Caudill and her family.
Exhibits at the Museum of Fine Art & Culture …
“Tauna Cole and Suzanne Kane: Paintings & Ceramics”
“Stories Untold: Pioneer Jewish Women”
– an artistic combination of digital technology with historic photos of traditional
quilt patterns to illustrate and honor the personal accounts of pioneer Jewish
women who settled in the West, 1865-1915.
“Wish You Were Here” — A Juried Exhibition
of Handmade “Postcard” Art – all entries are being mailed to the museum by
U.S. and Chihuahuan (Mexico) artists [part of “For the Love of Art Month”]
Late Evening Supper on your own
For those individuals interested in driving out to
the world-famous Chope’s restaurant in La Mesa for supper, there will be a
sign-up list at registration Thursday evening and Friday morning. The restaurant is very small and does not take
reservations, but they will try to accommodate a small group.
Visit http://www.newmexico.org for tourism information
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22
Breakfast on your own
All Day/Evening Shuttle vans will run between the hotels, the Corbett Center (8am–1pm
only) and the F&RH Museum.
8:30 – 10:30am Session 4 Corbett
Center
Session 4A — Preserving Rural
Women’s Lives: Women’s Texts and New Directions in Rural Women’s History
Chair/Comment:
Debbie Miller, Minnesota Historical
Society
“Friendly Neighbors,
Porkettes, and Radio Homemakers: Preserving the History of Iowa’s Rural Women.”
Kären M. Mason, Iowa Women’s Archives, University of Iowa
“‘Despite All
That Medical Skill and Loving Hands Could Do’: Gender and Care of the Dying
in Montana and Alberta, 1900-1960.” Dawn Dorothy Nickel, University of Alberta
“Dissecting the
Rural Medical Crisis: Reading Difference from Women’s Diaries.” Jennifer Gunn, University
of Minnesota
Session 4B — Roundtable:
Rural and Urban Mothering in Texas: San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley
Chair/Comment:
Barbara Steinson, DePauw University
Mónica Jean Alaniz, University of Texas at San Antonio
Elizabeth Marie Arevalo, University of Texas at San Antonio
Audree Hernandez, University of Texas at San Antonio
Henrietta Lynn Munoz, University of Texas at San Antonio
Linda Solis, University of Texas at San Antonio
Session 4C — Roundtable:
Colonias and Campesinas: The Law and the Land
 |
Chair: Nancy Baker, New Mexico State University
Diana Bustamante, Colonias Development Council
Rebecca Dolhinow, University of California, Berkeley
Guadalupe T. Luna, Northern Illinois University
Olga Pedroza, Southern New Mexico Legal Services
Chair/Comment:
Debra Reid, Eastern Illinois University
“Friendly Relations:
The 1936 Meeting of International Country Women.” Linda M. Ambrose,
Laurentian University (Ontario)
“Alberta Women’s
Institutes: Using Social Networks and Self-Help Initiatives to Create Community.”
Mae Deans, Government
of Alberta, and Evelyn Ellerman, Athabasca University (Edmonton)
“The Women’s
Agricultural Network of Maine: A Strategy for Empowerment of Entrepreneurial
Success.” Vivianne J. Holmes, University of Maine Cooperative
Extension; Heather Thomson, Women’s Agricultural Network Volunteer
Session 4E — Women in the West
Chair/Comment:
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State
University
“Water, Gender,
and Class: Women’s Cultural Societies in Irrigated Settlement Towns, 1870-1920.”
Laura Woodworth-Ney, Idaho State University
“Pioneer Women
Settlers in Western Oklahoma, 1892-1920.”
Glenna L. Huls, Camden
County College (N.J.)
“My Dear Friend
Kennicott: Rural Women Write to an Illinois Nurseryman.” Cheryl
Lyon-Jenness, Western Michigan University
9:00a – 12:00n ALHFAM Workshops I F&RH Museum
Sponsored by the Western and Mountain-
*** Workshops will take place outside – wear appropriate clothing ***
Workshop IA — Cast Iron Cooking
--Limited to 15 people, Register in Advance--
Dave Harkness and Robert Hart, N.M. Farm & Ranch Heritage
Museum
Explore cast iron and steel cookware and its historic uses
during New Mexico’s colonial and territorial eras, along with discussions
of period foods and storage, wrought-iron tools, enamelware, and chuckwagons. This hands-on interactive class encourages
participants to assist in preparation and cooking of foods on comals, grills,
skillets, and dutch ovens. Workshop
will conclude with feasting on the morning’s fare of tortillas, Johnny cakes,
dutch oven biscuits, carnitas and peppers, frijoles, chile colorado, and cowboy
coffee. Includes workbook developed
for the Museum’s Foodways Program.
Workshop IB — Nineteenth-Century
Laundry
--Limited to 20 people, Register in Advance--
Staff from Sharlot Hall Museum
Take part in a working discussion and demonstration of how
laundry was done in the late 19th century.
Topics will include lye soap making, washing equipment and techniques,
starching, and irons and ironing. Period
attire is encouraged, but not required.
11:00a – 1:00p Session 5 Corbett
Center
Session 5A — Rural Women in
Memoir
Chair/Comment:
Melissa Walker, Converse College
“Patchwork: Four
Generations of Rural Women Memoirists.” Barney Nelson, Sul Ross
State University
“Mujeres Vaqueras:
Curating the Memoirs of Rural Hispanic Women.” John Klingemann, Museum
of the Big Bend
“Minnie Bailey,
1868-1962: Professional Woman Born in a Log Cabin.” Tom Bailey, Western
Michigan University
Session 5B — The Women on U.S.
Farms Research Initiative, 1980 and 2001
Carolyn Sachs, Pennsylvania State University
Amy Trauger, Pennsylvania State University
Anne B. W. Effland, Economic Research Service, USDA
Session 5C — Roundtable:
Staying Put, Moving On: Rural Women and Migration
Chair: Joan Jensen, New Mexico State University
Christine Eber, New Mexico State University
Cynthia Bejarano, New Mexico State University
Corbett Center
New Mexico
State University
Session 5D — Rural Women and
Changing Economies
Chair: Jeanette Keith, Bloomsburg University
“Beyond Subsistence:
Hispanas Cultivate Culture and Self in Northern New Mexico.” Melissa T. Salazar,
New Mexico State Records Center and Archives
“The Social and
Economic Situation of Rural Women in Ukraine.” Ganna Gerasymenko,
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
“Women, Sustainable
Farming, and Homeplace: Intersections of Making-Do and Making Social Change.” Tes Thraves, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
Session 5E — Women Activists,
Past and Present
Chair/Comment:
LuAnn Jones, East Carolina University
“‘You Can Do
It, You Can Do It’: Helen Peck, A Life of Work, Leadership, and Encouragement
in the Grange.” Jacquelyn Lowman, Michigan State University
“Women and Agriculture:
The Future and the Technology.” Jean Braeshear Nichols, Nichols Farms
“Voices from
American Farm Women.” Cynthia Vagnetti, Washington, D.C.
12:30 – 4:30pm Cervantes Chile and Vinegar Factories Tour
*** Limited to 50 people – Register
in Advance***
Spend the afternoon on a van tour into the heart of the pecan
orchards and chile fields of the Mesilla Valley. Participants will visit and have a guided tour
of two factories in the Cervantes Enterprises operation. The company is one of New Mexico’s leading
agribusinesses, under the long-time leadership of the “First Lady of Chile
Production,” Emma Jean Cervantes. One
factory is a chile pepper-processing facility, while the second is a vinegar
factory. (Vinegar is an ingredient
with chile products in hot sauces.)
Vans will leave from the Museum at 12:30 (for participants
in morning activities there) and the Corbett Center at 1:00 (for participants
attending Session 5 presentations). A
box lunch and drink is included in the tour; it will be picked up at Corbett
Center to eat during the half-hour drive to the factories. Half of the group will be at each factory,
then trade. As time permits, the tour
will also stop at the Country Store of Stahmann Farms, one of the world’s
largest pecan and pecan-product makers.
Lunch On your own at the Museum or other establishments
1:00 – 5:00pm An Afternoon at the New Mexico Farm &
The Bazaar – members of rural women’s cooperatives from the Southwest
will be on hand to display and sell the items they produce, as well as to
demonstrate and discuss how they are made and marketed.
Film Series – showing in the Museum theater will be films or documentaries
related to rural women. See final
program for list of films and times.
Museum Demonstrations
– enjoy the daily demonstrations
and programs offered by the Museum, including blacksmithing, foodways, and
milking the cows. See final program
and the activities list at the Museum the day of the event for more information
on specific demonstrations and times.
1:30 – 4:30pm ALHFAM Workshops II F&RH Museum
Sponsored by the Western and Mountain-
*** Parts of both workshops will take place outside – wear appropriate clothing ***
Workshop IIA — New Mexico Hornos
--Limited to 15 people, Register in Advance--
Dave Harkness, N.M. Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
Covering the historic development of earthen ovens and their
introduction into New Mexico. Includes
discussion of how to make an horno (native materials, tools, and methods),
the “physics of horno cooking,” and how to incorporate it into programs and
demonstrations using traditional and non-traditional foods. Participants will work with traditional adobe
materials and tools and make and bake bread. Includes workbook developed for the Museum’s Foodways Program.
The
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, Las Cruces
Workshop IIB — Dairying and
Cheese-Making of the Southwest
--Limited to 15 people, Register in Advance--
Debra Reid, Eastern Illinois University; an owner/operator
of a New Mexico dairy; and the Dairy Cows of the New Mexico Farm & Ranch
Heritage Museum
An introduction to the complexities of a daily routine that
many romanticize—milking cows, making cottage cheese, skimming and separating
milk, and butter making. The workshop
will combine historic and contemporary overviews of dairies and milking goats
and cattle in New Mexico with hands-on exercises and demonstrations. Planned activities include separating cream
(mechanically and by hand), churning butter, making cottage cheese (squeaky
curds), and viewing the Museum’s daily milking demonstration in the Dairy
Barn.
5:00 – 6:30pm RWSA Business Meeting F&RH Museum Theater
Triennial business meeting to appoint co-chairs, select next
conference location, and conduct association business.
