Washington Women Featured in Humanities Council Lecture Series

Ed. Note. In celebrating the twentieth anni­versary of the National Endowment for the Humanities, this past year we have published articles on different aspects of the Endowment and its contributions to history and the hu­manities. This is the penultimate of the cele­bratory series, though we will continue to publish items of interest to historians.

I had just recently completed research on two Washington women and submit­ted my findings for publication when I encountered a brochure from the Washington Commission for the Hu­manities that invited scholars to partici­pate in a remarkable public program. Entitled, “The Inquiring Mind: A Fo­rum in the Humanities,” the series promised to provide an opportunity for scholars to share their work with com­munity audiences throughout the state. Until I read that brochure, I had not even considered taking the information I had uncovered about May Arkwright Hutton {1860-1915) or Mary Richard­son Walker (1811-1897) beyond the academic journals that were about to pub­lish my findings.

The careers of May Hutton and Mary Walker had already proved to be splen­did vehicles for instructing my history classes, since their biographies permit­ted me to introduce in a highly person­alized fashion some of the main themes of the American experience. “The In­quiring Mind” speakers program, how­ever, held out the exciting prospect of reaching an even wider audience in Washington, and so I sought to become a part of it.

To participate as a scholar/speaker, I had to submit proposals for as many as three, one-hour presentations to the Washington Commission for the Hu­manities, a state program of the NEH. My submission had to explain why these presentations would be of interest to the general community and give examples of ways in which I would engage audi­ences in the topic of the proposed dis­cussion.

The easy part of this application proc­ess was my subject matter. The biogra­phies of Hutton and Walker address important aspects of the history of the state and some universal themes as well. Hutton, for example, left two former husbands behind in Ohio to journey to Washington’s gold mines in 1883. There she met and married a railroad conductor who had resided in her boarding house, and the two together made a fortune in the extraction indus­try. She used her new wealth and social position to lead the struggle for wom­en’s suffrage in the state and in 1910 had the pleasure of seeing the franchise extended to Washington’s adult female population. Two years later, Hutton became the first woman nominated to at­tend a national convention of the Democratic Party.

Less spectacular but equally engaging was the career of Mary Richardson Walker. Convinced that she should min­ister to the western tribes, Richardson approached her church’s missionary board for their sanction of her pro­posed journey to Washington. They re­jected her appeals, arguing that she needed to proceed on her work in the company of a man engaged in the same calling. Promptly thereafter, she met and married Mr. Walker and in 1838 moved with him to distant Washington. There she reared eight children, minis­tered to the tribes, and kept a careful account of forty-seven years of these activities in a diary. Such had been the substance of my publications and now I worked to convert this research into public programs for the citizens of the state.

I was fortunate to have been one of the scholars chosen to participate in the Commission’s “Inquiring Mind” series and for the past two years have been traveling around the state presenting my research in a lecture/discussion for­mat to various community groups. Both presentations selected by the WCH ex­amine the lives of nineteenth-century women using Hutton and Walker as archetypes. Slides accompany the pre­sentations so that audiences not only hear about these remarkable people but see images of them as well. At the con­clusion of both presentations, I would always engage my audiences in exten­sive discussion.

The subjects proved to be attractive to a wide variety of community groups including Granges, women’s clubs, ser­vice organizations, historical societies, community colleges, and even genea­logical groups. Often they would have a particular interest, asking: “How can diaries be used to enhance our under­standing of the past? What was the reality of life for a pioneer woman, what were her dreams, and how did they conflict with reality? Prior to making my presentation to these organizations, I would inquire about my audience and what their interests might be.

It might seem that giving the same two presentations at least once or twice a month for two years would be tedious, but this has not been the case. Because each community group has been differ­ent in age, composition, and function, my presentations have varied accord­ingly. As I experimented with differing ways of sharing my findings to these diverse audiences, I often found myself thinking about the topics in new ways. Furthermore, audience questions them­selves suggest fresh avenues of research and I have found their perceptions of my work to be most stimulating.

My tenure as a speaker in “The In­quiring Mind” series is now nearly over. Beyond introducing me to small towns and community groups that I might never otherwise have met, the program has inspired my research and convinced me that the public has an active interest in history and often displays more basic knowledge of the subject than the aver­age college student. They are impressed by historians’ work and, based on my experiences as part of this program, even grateful when we undertake to share our results with them.