Volume 39, number 3
November 2017
Grand River Times The Newsletter of the Grand Rapids Historical Society Inside this issue: Cover Story: November program Letter from our President page 2 The Caskey-Jones Adoption page 4 Women Go To War Exhibit page 5 Happening in History page 6 Photo Sleuth page 7 Search: Grand Rapids Historical Society
Next program: After the
November program, the Grand Rapids Historical Society’s next program will be on January 18, 2018 at the Grand Rapids Public Library. Chris Reader will be speaking about: Charles Garfield: A Fascinating Citizen.
The Second Line of Defense: Grand Rapids Women and the Great War PRESENTED BY: Melissa Fox Thursday, November 9, 2017, 7:00 p.m. Her title honoring a new book examining World War I’s “surprising impact on women and, in turn, women’s impact on the war,” Melissa Fox’s presentation will introduce the second line of defense in Grand Rapids a hundred years ago. Local and academic historians are only beginning to tell the stories of American women as citizens during the largest wartime mobilization of a young country, dispelling myths that women led lives only in their homes. When invited in because of military needs, diverse groups of women made contributions to the nation that ranged far beyond the war and their traditional gender roles. In the same way that a century ago Grand Rapids women tailored their knowledge and talents to suit the war effort, local women’s historians are currently learning how their own work on the reform movements of community foremothers needs to be extended and reinvested in the larger context. When American women were granted a federal mandate by the Council of National Defense, when the government established the CND’s Woman’s Committee in Washington, woman’s committees were also formed on state and local levels all over the nation. That this history has been so long neglected remains astonishing. Continued on page 3
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