Letter from the President

Dear Members and Friends of WWHP —

It’s that time of year again.  As March approaches, our memberships in WWHP will be  ending.  Time to renew! For our friends, consider becoming members and supporting the work of WWHP.  Since WWHP is an all-volunteer organization, membership support is a major source of our income. For that reason, the Steering Committee has found it necessary to raise the fee schedule to keep up with the times and the needs of WWHP, but — we have kept the increase modest.  There are two ways to renew/join. Either fill in the form at the back of this newsletter and send it in with your check or renew/join online at www.wwhp.org/support-wwhp.  (And consider upping your membership category. I certainly am.)

Since 1994, WWHP has been a driving force in the cultural and educational life of Central Massachusetts.  We are proud of our many efforts:

• The Oral History Project, which collects women’s stories, the more than 300 recordings and transcripts of which have the honor to be archived in the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America of Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University;
• The Lending Library, a collection of books available for loan to WWHP members;
• The one-woman play, Yours for Humanity—Abby (co-authored by Carolyn Howe, Ph.D. and Karen Board Moran, M.Ed. and performed by the remarkable Lynne McKenney Lydick);
• Events, such as the annual Women in Print (celebrating local women writers), the annual women’s history-themed bus trip, Abby’s Birthday Party, and many other events, including, of course, the 2000 production of Angels and Infidels by Louisa Burns-Bisogno, a dramatization of the 1850 first National Woman’s Rights Convention in Worcester;
• Mechanics Hall Women’s Portraits—WWHP started the movement to have portraits of distinguished women of Central Massachusetts take their proper place in the collection of portraits in the Great Hall.

Your membership in WWHP will provide you a role in the future accomplishments of the organization. For instance, we are in the process of planning a commemoration in 2020 of the centennial celebration of the passage of the 19th Amendment which enabled women (or as some will point out “white women”) to vote.  

Recent events have, in the view of some, challenged the status of women in our society.    So, be part of this historic moment and part of the future.  Run to the computer and go to www.wwhp.org/support-wwhp to renew/join by Paypal or credit card. Thank you!

We remember our past ... to better shape our future.
See you at the future!                                                                                            

Yours,
Ann Marie Shea, Ph.D., President