Lecture: Gender, Culture and Politics at the Chicago World's Fair
Speaker:
Wayne Wiegand
28 Mar 2012
7:00 PM
Sun Room, Memorial Union
Among the most popular attractions at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair was the Woman's Building, an exhibit hall filled with the products of women's labor, including a library of more than 8,000 volumes of writing by women. Wayne Wiegand will discuss his new co-authored publication, Right Here I See My Own Books, which situates the Woman's Building Library in its historical context. He examines the significance of this effort to assemble a comprehensive library of women's texts, touching on such topics as the women's movement, literary culture, racial politics, and the professionalization of librarianship. Wayne Wiegand is the F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus at Florida State University.
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This lecture was made possible in part by the generosity of F. Wendell Miller, who left his entire estate jointly to Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. Mr. Miller, who died in 1995 at age 97, was born in Altoona, Illinois, grew up in Rockwell City, graduated from Grinnell College and Harvard Law School and practiced law in Des Moines and Chicago before returning to Rockwell City to manage his family's farm holdings and to practice law. His will helped to establish the F. Wendell Miller Trust, the annual earnings on which, in part, helped to support this activity.