Women's Oral History Project on Women's Movement in Sonoma County Starts at SSU

SSU history professor Michelle Jolly is directing the Sonoma County Women’s Oral History Project to record and archive the stories of women and men involved in the contemporary women’s movement in Sonoma County in preparation for sharing those stories with a variety of audiences in and beyond Sonoma County. Sonoma County is well known as the place where National Women’s History Month and the National Women’s History Project had their origins.

Sonoma County also has been home to a wide range of woman-centered and feminist organizations since the 1960s. Although histories of the contemporary women’s movement in the United States tend to focus on the national story, the story of activists in the women’s movement in Sonoma County reminds us that while the movement may have had a national impact, it was the grassroots activists in towns and counties across the country who initiated the ideas and the programs that fueled national trends. During the 2006-2007 academic year, students from Sonoma State University will interview women for this project and help create a presentation for an event that will be part of the Faculty Arts and Lecture Series at Sonoma State University in September 2007.

For women in Sonoma County, as elsewhere, the personal was truly political. Women in classrooms, kitchens, and county offices shared their concerns and their ideas with one another and began to create woman-centered—and women’s history centered—organizations, including the National Women’s History Project, Women’s History Week, the Sitting Room, the Women’s Studies program at Sonoma State University, Women’s Voices, North Light Bookstore, Las Mujeres Unidas, and the Displaced Homemakers Project, among others.

Although a few sporadic attempts have been made over the years to collect the stories of the women who were involved in the women’s movement in Sonoma County, no systematic effort has been made to collect, analyze, and tell their stories. Now, many of the activists who were deeply involved in the creation of Sonoma County’s many woman-centered organizations are aging, moving away, and dying. Because many of these women are in their sixties and seventies, the time to hear them tell their stories is now.

The Sonoma County Women’s History Project is the brainchild of Mary Ruthsdotter, co-founder and former Projects Director of the National Women’s History Project. It is funded by grants from the California Council for the Humanities’ California Story Fund and by the School of Social Sciences at SSU.

For further information, contact Michelle Jolly at 4-2461.