The media is invited to attend a lecture by Professor Michelle Jolly, coordinator of the of the Sonoma County Women's Oral History Project at Sonoma State University, as she discusses the mission of the project and early findings at a lecture at noon on Thursday, March 15 in Salazar 2021.
The Sonoma County Women's Oral History Project is documenting the stories of women involved in the contemporary women's movement as it played out in Sonoma County from 1960 to the present.
The story of activists in Sonoma County is a reminder, says Jolly, that while the women's movement may have had a national impact, its grassroots were in towns and counties across the country who initiated the ideas and programs that fueled national trends.
The women who serve as the focus of this project were central figures of the women's movement in Sonoma County, helping to create and sustain woman-centered organizations, many of which continue to exist today.
For women in Sonoma County, as elsewhere, the personal was truly political, says Jolly. "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."
These included 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, Clairelight 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," Jolly says.
The Sonoma County Women's Oral 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.
History students have already interviewed Lynn Woolsey, Carole Domeikis, Sherri Hoefling, Cass Smith, Indigo Crone, Phyllis Onstad. Annie Murphy Springer, Nancy Morehead, Shira Hadditt, Patricia Robles-Mitten. J. J. Wilson, Raquel Rasor, Barbara Lesch-McCaffry, Mary Ruthsdotter, Laurel Holmstrom, Claire Sapir, Carolyn Metz, Kris Montgomery, Karen Petersen, Paula Hammet, Kay Trimberger, and Clarice Stasz as part of the project. Another 40 are planned this year.
For more information, contact associate professor Michelle Jolly at (707) 664-2461 or e-mail michelle.jolly@sonoma.edu.
