Women authors read at event promoting education of girls

POTSDAM — Women's words filled the St. Lawrence County Arts Council on Saturday, as bookworms read passages and poems from their favorite authors in the name of advancing girls' education.

The American Association of University Women's "Leaders and Readers" event attracted 30 attentive listeners and raised money and awareness for the St. Lawrence County chapter's educational foundation.

The group is compiling 50 young adult and children's books about women's achievements that will be donated to the Potsdam Public Library.

"Our community really does like to read, and our community really does like to learn and better themselves," library Director Patricia W. Musante said.

She told the audience the world had come a long way from the time when Melvil Dewey, he of decimal system fame, refused to employ female librarians.

Reading from one of the books AAUW has donated to the library, Mrs. Musante described Dr. Mary Edwards Walker from Oswego, the first female surgeon in the U.S. Army. Dr. Walker served during the Civil War and is still the only woman to whom Congress has awarded the Medal of Honor.

Branch President Lisa M. Wilson, who is also an associate professor of English and communications at SUNY Potsdam, read a selection by Pierrepont Manor author Marietta Holley.

The 1872 chapter was called "Allegory on Women's Right," and described the reaction of Ms. Holley's fictional spokeswoman, Samantha Allen, to her husband's claim that women couldn't vote because it would be "too wearin' for the fair sex." Audience members laughed as the author reasoned that if a woman could handle farm work, she could vote.

Town Supervisor Marie C. Regan, who is a retired professor of American literature at Canton College, the predecessor to SUNY Canton, led a spirited reading of her favorite poems.

She started with Anne Bradstreet, the first woman to be published in Colonial America.

"She tries to emulate the male poets of the time, but every once in a while you get a glimmer of how she really feels. But, then in the last stanza she goes back to being a Puritan lady and says she didn't really mean it," Mrs. Regan said.

The supervisor also read several poems by Emily Dickinson, which she said were "like Kodak pictures of emotion."