The Worcester Women’s Oral History Project aims to record, collect, and share the personal and historical memories of women throughout the broader Worcester community.
The project focuses on the four areas that characterized the focus and spirit of the National Woman’s Rights Convention held in Worcester in 1850: Work, Education, Health, and Politics. These four themes still resonate strongly with today’s Central Mass women, who continue to make history in their everyday lives.
Work
Ann M. Jenkins Owner, Annie’s Clark Brunch, Main Street
“Work” is a value-laden term that has changed drastically over time, particularly in relation to women’s daily lives. Despite a legacy of opinions to the contrary, WWHP views women’s work as inherently valuable, whether taking place in the formal structure of paid employment or the private realm of home and family. We seek to understand each woman’s work on her own terms in her own words.
Education
Kristin Waters Worcester State College, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies
We are interested in understanding how women and girls in Worcester have experienced learning, both through formal institutions and through life experiences and relationships. This theme includes women and girls’ experiences within, and access to, schools and higher education, as well as other avenues to knowledge and skills.
Health
Mary Aleksiewicz Vice President of Nursing, Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital
This topic focuses on the ways women negotiate their physical and emotional well-being both in their personal and family lives and in relation to the public institutions that make up our health care system. It seeks to learn about how women view, care for, and project their bodies and minds introspectively and in relation to the outside world.
Politics/Community Involvement
Barbara Haller Worcester City Council Member, District 4
In addition to a traditional focus on the public realm of governance and power structures, this theme should also reflect a feminist understanding of “the personal as political.” We are interested in women’s opinions, values, and activities as they relate to a broad sphere of social relations.