Monroe's Cahill heading to Britain to speak on suffrage

Scottish-born and educated Bernadette Cahill, formerly of the Monroe Public Radio show “Memories,” is returning home to Britain to help commemorate the hundred years since British women won the right to vote. She will speak Saturday at a commemorative conference in Cambridge University and on Feb. 6 in a town that headquartered a suffragette campaign in Scotland for years, exactly 100 years to the day that the parliamentary bill which recognized the principle of votes for women became law. Then on Feb. 8 Cahill will speak in the Smith Museum and Art Gallery in Stirling, close to where the massive sword of “Braveheart” (William Wallace) is kept. 

British women won equal voting rights with men in 1928, after a struggle of 61 years. American women won the right to vote with ratification of the 19th Amendment in August 1920, after a struggle of 72 years.

Cahill is married to Monroe native Ronald E. Davis, director of Vicksburg Municipal Airport. She is the author of “Alice Paul, the National Woman’s Party and the Right to Vote: The First Civil Rights Struggle of the 20th Century” and “Arkansas Women and the Right to Vote: The Little Rock Campaigns.” She is currently completing her third history of women’s struggle to win the right to vote in the United States, focusing on American women’s campaigns for female suffrage 150 years ago during Reconstruction. Her original research into women’s work for the right to vote 100 years ago in Vicksburg is not yet published.

LSU Press
Using the concept of dance as a lens for examining Carnival balls, Jennifer Atkins writes about the historical rituals of Mardi Gras and offers readers insight on unique traditions not seen by the public in “New Orleans Carnival Balls: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920.” Atkins is a professor at Florida State’s School of Dance. Atkins signs “New Orleans Carnival Balls” at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Garden District Book Shop of New Orleans.

LSU Press has published “Speaking French in Louisiana, 1720-1955: Linguistic Practices of the Catholic Church” by Sylvie DuBois, the Gabrielle Muir Professor of French Studies at LSU, director of the LSU Center for French and Francophone Studies and author of three books; Malcolm Richardson, Dr. J. F. Taylor Professor of English at LSU and author of “Middle Class Writing in Late Medieval London,” among other works; and Emilie Gagnet Leumas, director of Archives and Records for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and author of “Managing Diocesan Archives and Records: A Guide for Bishops, Chancellors and Archivists and Roots of Faith: History of the Diocese of Baton Rouge.”

UNO Lab Prize

The University of New Orleans Publishing Lab is looking to publish a novel or short story collection in a contest open to all authors, regardless of publishing history. Manuscripts are accepted from now until Aug. 15 with an $18 submission fee. The selected manuscript will be promoted by UNO’s Publishing Lab, an institute that seeks to bring innovative publicity and broad distribution to authors. For more information, visit www.unopress.org/lab.

Free ebooks

Good news for e-readers this week. Best-selling New Orleans author Erica Spindler offers “The Final Seven,” the first book in her “Lightkeepers” paranormal thriller series, as a free download on Monday. The one-day-only sale gives readers an introduction to her series before the third “Lightkeepers” book arrives on Feb. 13. A bundle of books one and two of Colleen Mooney’s “Go Cup Chronicles” series is also free to download Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 3-4. Mooney is a native of New Orleans and the organizer of the city’s Sisters in Crime chapter.

Festival of Words

The Festival of Words hosts an evening of history and an open mic beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Chicory’s Coffee & Café in Grand Coteau. Maureen J. Chicoine will discuss her ongoing research of enslaved persons who lived and worked at the Sacred Heart Convent in Grand Coteau from 1821-1865, and their descendants. The Society of the Sacred Heart, a religious community of women, has a long history in Grand Coteau since they founded the Convent of the Sacred Heart in 1821. Their school for girls has been in continuous operation since then and now partners with Berchmans Academy to serve boys. From 1821 until 1865 the Convent, like many Catholic institutions in the South, was a slave owner. As part of the bicentennial celebration of the arrival of the Society of the Sacred Heart in North America the Society formed a committee to study the history of enslaved people in the Southern houses with the greatest number at the Convent in Grand Coteau and St. Michael’s school in Convent, Louisiana. Wednesday’s oral history presentation will be videotaped and placed in the Cajun and Creole Archives at the Center for Louisiana Studies collection. For more information, call Patrice Melnick at (337) 254-9695 or email festivalwords@gmail.com.

Book events

Mia Borders discusses and signs her book, “Hey! So I'm A Baby,” with original artwork by Nancy Wolfe Kimberly, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. today at Garden District Book Shop of New Orleans. Also at the store this week is Mark C. Stevens signing “Cooking With Spices: 100 Recipes for Blends, Marinades, and Sauces” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jennifer Atkins signing “New Orleans Carnival Balls: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920” at 6 p.m. Wednesday and Howard Philips Smith signing “Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans” at 6 p.m. Thursday.

 

Alex PoeticSoul Johnson

Megan Holt, chief executive officer for Words & Music: A Literary Feast in New Orleans, and executive director for One Book One New Orleans, will make a presentation about the Spanish classic Don Quixote, at 7 p.m. Monday at the East Bank Regional Library, Metairie. This seminar is the first session in a series in which participants read Don Quixote throughout 2018 and discuss it one Monday per month.

Spoken word artist, author and poetry educator Alex “PoeticSoul” Johnson will offer a workshop on the art of self-expression for ages 9 and up at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the East Regional Library of Lafayette.

Al Kennedy, author of “Chief of Chiefs, Robert Nathaniel Lee and the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans, 1915-2001,” will discuss his book at 7 p.m. Thursday at the East Bank Regional Library, Metairie. Lee, known as Chief Robbe, was the first and only person to be named “chief of chiefs” by the Mardi Gras Indians Council.

Chere Coen is the author of several Louisiana non-fiction books and the “Viola Valentine” Louisiana paranormal mystery series under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.

In honor Women's History Month: Bernadette Cahill celebrates our right to vote, UL offers symposium

            Bernadette Cahill of Richland Parish has published two books on women’s struggle to obtain the vote, a right that has only been in existence since 1920.

             “This is a drum I beat all the time ... it’s less than a century since women won the right to vote (they weren’t given it) and their campaign was 72 years long from the first call for woman suffrage in 1848,” Cahill wrote me by email. “When I became a U.S. citizen in September, 2012, I was very aware that my right to vote that came with my new citizenship was due to the work of the women I was writing of then in my two books. When I think of it, it makes me feel very humble.”

            Cahill’s books are “Alice Paul, the National Woman’s Party and the Vote: the First Civil Rights Struggle of the 20th Century” and “Arkansas Women and the Vote: The LittleRock Campaigns 1868-1920.”

The “Alice Paul” book, a story of the national campaigns, examines the pioneering non-violent votes for women campaign from 1913-1920 based in Washington, D.C., while the Arkansas book tells the same story from the local perspective of Little Rock. The campaign for votes for women resulted in the largest enfranchisement of citizens of the United States — 26.5 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1920. The anniversary of the 19th Amendment passage approaches in 2020. 

            Cahill was producer and the host of the former KEDM radio show “Memories” at UL-Monroe, she was a classical music host when KEDM was launched and has been an occasional contributor on women’s history to the Richland Beacon-News. Cahill has made many presentations about votes for women, including one at the Clinton School of Public Service in 2012 when the 19th Amendment document on display at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. Her talk is available to watch here.
            She is currently researching and writing about the women’s campaign for equal rights, specifically the vote, from 1776 to 1876, with special focus on Reconstruction, when women were excluded from the equality established for men then by Congress and national reformers. She also often produces specialized articles on women’s history and writes each summer about historic themes and travel for “High Country Magazine” in Boone, NC. 

Women’s History Month

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Center for Louisiana Studies observes Women’s History Month with LA Femme/Women of Louisiana: A Symposium on Wednesday at the Paul and LuLu Hilliard University Art Museum’s A. Hays Town Building. The free day-long symposium­­ culminates with an evening book launch of “Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume Two,” co-edited by Mary Farmer Kaiser, dean of the ULL Graduate School and published by the University of Georgia Press.

The program includes sessions on the state of women’s studies in Louisiana, health accessibility and disparity, intimate partner violence, campus culture and gender issues and a discussion of defining women and inclusivity. A Brown Bag Lunch Talk with Dr. Janet Allured will focus on her forthcoming book, “Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women’s Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950-1997.” Speakers are drawn from the university community, including faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the community.

To reserve your seat and see the full program, visit http://lafemmesymposium.eventbrite.com/ The Brown Bag Lunch Talk requires separate registration and payment for lunch. For more information, visit http://louisianastudies.louisiana.edu/, email clspresents@louisiana.edu or call (337) 482-6027.

Cheré Dastugue Coen is the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She also writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.