Athearn Lecture Series

33rd Athearn Lecture 12/6/2023 

Download a copy of the event flyer

The Department of History at CU Boulder, in partnership with the Center for Humanities and the Arts, presents the 33rd Athearn Lecture in the History of the American West. This year’s lecture will be by Dr. Cathleen Cahill, a Professor of History at Penn State University, author of  Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

Wednesday, December 6, 2023 / 5:30 PM / Norlin Library, M459* (Center for British and Irish Studies Multipurpose Room), Reception to Follow

1720 Pleasant Street, Boulder, Colorado

Dr. Cathleen Cahill

Penn State University

“'Is New Mexico Going to Line Up with Texas?'  Women, Race, and Voting Rights in the Era of the Nineteenth Amendment"

 

Both before and after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the political experiences of women differed dramatically based on their citizenship, which was closely intertwined with their racial and ethnic identities. Although often overlooked in historical discussions about women's voting after 1920, the American West - where Native, Black, Latina, Asian American, and Anglo women all engaged in suffrage activism - is an important region in which to contemplate the diversity of women's political participation. With a particular focus on New Mexico, this lecture explores how the intersections of religion, language, citizenship, and marital status all impacted women’s efforts to cast ballots, run for office, and shape politics in the era of the Nineteenth Amendment. 

 Email: (Paul.Sutter@colorado.edu)for information on this free public event

*The CBIS Room is located on the fifth floor of Norlin Library. It is wheelchair-accessible from the west entrance of Norlin library via elevator to the 5th floor. ADA restroom access is available on the 3rd floor, SE corner. Visitors should  check with campus parking for availability. Lot 380, north of Norlin Library, is available for metered parking after 5:00pm Monday-Friday and on weekends.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Cathleen Cahill is Walter L. Ferree & Helen P. Ferree Professor in Middle-American History; and Acting Director, George & Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University. She is a social historian who explores the everyday experiences of ordinary people, primarily women. She focuses on women’s working and political lives, asking how identities such as race, nationality, class, and age have shaped them. She is also interested in the connections generated by women’s movements for work, play, and politics, and how mapping those movements reveal women in surprising and unexpected places. Her first book, Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869–1932 (University of North Carolina Press, 2011), won the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award and was a finalist for the David J. Weber and Bill Clements Book Prize.  She serves as steering committee chair for the Coalition for Western Women’s History and is a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era and the University of North Carolina Press’ Gender and American Culture Series.

Publications:

Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869–1932 (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) https://uncpress.org/book/9781469606811/federal-fathers-and-mothers/

Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). https://uncpress.org/book/9781469666129/recasting-the-vote/

Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization, co-edited with Kent Blansett and Andrew Needham, University of Oklahoma Press (2022). https://www.oupress.com/9780806176635/indian-cities/

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The l

ate Dr. Robert G. Athearn (1914–1983) was a professor of Western History at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1947 until his retirement in 1982. An extraordinarily productive scholar, his publications included Westward the Briton (1953), Union Pacific Country (1971) The Coloradans (1976), The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad: Rebel of the Rockies (1977), The Mythic West in Twentieth Century America (1986), and William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West (reprint 1995).

Professor Athearn was one of the founders, as well as past president, of the Western History Association. Additionally, during his career held numerous positions on historical committees, academic societies, and editorial boards. His impact as a teacher was equally great. He instructed thousands of undergraduate students over the years, and trained a score of contemporary Western historians in the profession he loved. As part of his legacy, Professor Athearn endowed a lectureship in the History Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder to be held on topics in Western history. We continue to host the Athearn Lecture Series, and encourage you to join us at the next Athearn Lecture.