Read on for a partial listing of events in October--then check our online calendar for more: http://www.ggrwhc.org/upcomingevents.php

LAST CHANCE to keep an eye on

Grand Rapids Women at GLHC

We've been telling you about GVSU's Great Lakes History Conference on October 7-8. Now it's here. While it may be too late to register for the onsite lunch, come down to the Eberhard Center Saturday at 10:15am for "Activist Educators among Grand Rapids' Progressive Era Women." Jayson Otto's paper will be

Taking up the slack.

drawn from his thesis on civic agriculture and the institution of farmers' markets in Progressive Era Grand Rapids. Mary Doerr's paper will be drawn from her new history of Bay View and the educational aspirations that underwrote the community. Marcie Beck's paper will focus on a Grand Rapids powerhouse who had one foot in the world of the public schools and the other in the broader civic education efforts of the Progressive Era: Josephine Ahnefeldt Goss.

Then at 3:30pm, the Grand Rapids Historical Commission's Diana Barrett will present a paper drawing on a piece of school architecture history in Grand Rapids: "Nineteenth-Century School Technology: The "Outhouse" Comes 'In House.'" Barrett's work on the local situation illustrates broader technological problems being faced around the country during a modernizing and reforming period. Get fuller information on our website: www.ggrwhc.org. 

NEXT CHANCE to keep an eye on

Grand Rapids Women with GRHS

LATER CHANCE to keep an eye on

 Grand Rapids Women with GRPL

At the Grand Rapids Public Library on October 26th at 7:00pm, hear from the author of a new book about Grand Rapids' Dorothy Woodruff Hillman (1887-1979): Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West. Executive editor of the New Yorker and also Hillman's granddaughter, Dorothy Wickenden has constructed an exhilarating western saga of two privileged young women from the East who boarded a train to teach in the mountains of Colorado in 1916. Based on their recently discovered letters home, the book also tells the story of Hillman's later adventurous life in Grand Rapids. (http://books.simonandschuster.com/Nothing-Daunted/Dorothy-Wickenden/9781439176580)

If you miss Dorothy Wickenden at the GRPL, she will speak on Thursday, October 27th, at the Women's City Club at 11:00 am. The charge to nonmembers is $4. Reserve for lunch at the Club afterwards for $15.00 (www.womenscityclubgr.org/).

END THE MONTH celebrating the

Michigan Women's Hall of Fame Inductions

Reserve now to celebrate the honor to Valeria Lipczynski, Grand Rapids' Queen of the Poles. Sponsored by the Michigan Women's Studies Association's Historical Center & Hall of Fame, the induction dinner and ceremony will be held at the Kellogg Conference Center in East Lansing on Thursday, October 27^th. See our website for more information, and reserve online at http://www.michiganwomenshalloffame.org/pages/awards_dinner.htm.

A tireless advocate for Polish-Americans, Valeria Lipczynski (1846-1930) served as tutor, translator, social worker, and nurse for numerous Grand Rapids immigrants and helped found many

Valeria Lipczynski

organizations, including the Wiarus Society, the first Polish institution in West Michigan, and three Catholic churches (St. Mary's, St. Adalbert's, and St. Isidore's). Her Society of Polish Ladies became in 1899 the first women's organization admitted to the Polish National Alliance, and by 1905 Lipczynski had become the first woman elected to its board of directors. Many contemporary groups, both local and national, can trace their roots to Valeria Lipczynski's organizational and leadership skills.

Read more about Lipczynski and the celebratory evening in Terri Finch Hamilton's article for the Grand Rapids Press: MLive webpage