****SOLD OUT****
Due to the directed health measure, we have sold out of the limited space for the event.
The year 2020 is the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Celebrate by joining us for a special screening of UNLADYLIKE 2020: Nebraska Trailblazers and their National Counterparts. This screening features four short films, part of a new online series on PBS’s flagship biography series American Masters.
Begin your evening by engaging with the national award-winning exhibit Votes for Women: the Nebraska Suffrage Story at the Nebraska History Museum. Don’t miss the original portrait of Grace Abbott by artist Amelie Chabannes that will be featured in one of the films. The screening will kick off with remarks by Lincoln leaders and close with a Q & A with series creator, producer, and director Charlotte Mangin.
Due to the pandemic, we ask that you please bring your own lawn chairs.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. See the exhibit, enjoy food from the various food trucks, and art expressions from Lincoln youth groups.
6:45 pm Opening Remarks
7:15 p.m. Screening followed by a Q&A with creator, producer and director Charlotte Mangin
This event is free but registration is required. Recommended for 10 years and older. Space is limited.
UNLADYLIKE2020 is an innovative multimedia series featuring diverse and little-known American heroines from the early years of feminism, and the women who now follow in their footsteps, in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Presenting history in a bold new way, the rich biographies of 26 women who broke barriers in male-dominated fields at the turn of the 20th century, such as science, business, politics, journalism, sports, and the arts, are brought back to life through rare archival imagery, captivating original artwork and animation, and interviews with historians, descendants and accomplished women of today who reflect upon the influence of these pioneers. Read more at www.unladylike2020.com
Unladylike2020 Susan La Flesche Picotte
Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915) grew up on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska at a time when the U.S. government was forcing American Indian tribes onto reservations, and mandating their assimilation into white society. Her parents encouraged her pursuit of an Anglo-American formal education, and Picotte graduated from Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1889, becoming the first Native American female physician. She returned to the Omaha reservation and, after a brief period working as a doctor for the Office of Indian Affairs, spent her career making house calls on foot and horse-drawn buggy across its 20,000 acres. Alcoholism was becoming a widespread problem on the Omaha Reservation, and Picotte was active in the Temperance Movement, campaigning publicly against drinking and unscrupulous white liquor dealers. In 1913, Picotte fulfilled her lifelong dream of founding a community hospital on the Omaha reservation. Interviewees: biographer Joe Starita, author of A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America’s First Indian Doctor; Renée Sans Souci, Omaha tribal elder; Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and the first woman to lead the Indian Health Service, appointed by President Obama in 2009.
Unladylike2020 Grace Abbott
Grace Abbott (1878-1939) was born in Grand Island, Nebraska to activist parents who worked for the Underground Railroad and the women’s suffrage movement in the Midwest. After attending the University of Nebraska, Abbott and her sister Edith moved to Chicago to become residents of Hull House, a settlement house founded in 1889 by social reformer Jane Addams. Living side by side with poor immigrant residents of the community, Abbott became an influential advocate for immigrant rights, and served as director of the Immigrants’ Protective League. As chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau in the Department of Labor from 1921 to 1934, Abbot was the highest ranked woman in the U.S. government, where she led the fight to end child labor, which was common in factories and mills, and introduced groundbreaking programs for maternal and infant care. She helped draft America’s Social Security Act in 1935, and was voted by Good Housekeeping magazine as one of “America’s Twelve Greatest Women.” Interviewees: scholar John Sorensen, Director of the Abbott Sisters Project and editor of A Sister’s Memories: The Life and Work of Grace Abbott from the Writings of Her Sister, Edith Abbott; Cristina Jiménez, immigrant rights activist, co-founder and executive director of United We Dream.
Unladylike2020 Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong (1905-1961), born in Los Angeles to second generation Chinese Americans, was the first Asian American female movie star. Her long and varied career spanned silent and sound film, stage, radio, and television, in an era when Chinese protagonists in Hollywood movies were typically performed by white actors in yellow face. The first woman to buck this trend, Wong starred in classics such as The Toll of the Sea (1922) at age 17, Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad (1924), and Shanghai Express (1932) in which her sexually charged scenes with Marlene Dietrich fed rumors about a lesbian relationship. Wong left Hollywood for Europe in the late 1920s, frustrated by the stereotypical roles in which she was often typecast — as either a victim known as a ‘lotus blossom’ or as a ‘lady dragon’ victimizer. Her career was also limited by American anti-miscegenation laws, which prevented her from sharing an on-screen kiss with any person of another race. Interviewees: historian Shirley Jennifer Lim, Associate Professor of History at SUNY Stony Brook and author of Anna May Wong: Performing the Modern; actor and Tony Award-Winning Producer, Jenna Ushkowitz, best known for her role as Tina Cohen-Chang in Glee.
Unladylike2020 Mary Church Terrell
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954), daughter of former slaves and one of the first African American women to earn both a Bachelor and a Master’s degree, became known as a national leader for civil rights and women’s suffrage. Her activism was sparked in 1892 when one of her childhood friends was lynched by white business owners in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Terrell joined the anti-lynching movement and the suffrage movement as a passionate writer and educator, and focused her life’s work on racial uplift — the belief that blacks would end racial discrimination and advance themselves through education, work, and community activism. In 1896, she helped found the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), coined the organization’s motto, “Lifting As We Climb,” and served as its president from 1896 to 1901. She was also a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. From 1895 to 1911, Terrell served on the Washington, D.C. school board, the first black woman to serve on a board of education in the United States. She led the movement to integrate public facilities in D.C., organizing some of the first sit-ins at segregated restaurants at age 86, and instigating the groundbreaking 1953 court case District of Columbia v. J.R. Thompsons Co. Inc., which outlawed discrimination. Interviewees: historian Treva Lindsey, Associate Professor Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University, and author of Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington D.C.; activist, educator, and writer Brittany Packnett Cunningham, NBC News Contributor and Co-Host of “Pod Save the People.”
Major funding for UNLADYLIKE2020 is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. Support is also provided by the the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Wyncote Foundation, California Humanities, HumanitiesDC, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, Made in New York: Women Film, TV, & Theater Fund, the Harnisch Foundation, Humanities Nebraska, Humanities Montana, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with New York State Council on the Arts, South Dakota Humanities, Virginia Humanities, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Utah Humanities, Ohio Humanities, South Carolina Humanities, Humanities New York, and JetBlue Foundation, Awesome Without Borders and IFP. Any views expressed in this series do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or other supporters.
