This Women’s History Month, Celebrate PA!

It should come as no surprise to hear that the work of Pennsylvania women reverberates through our collective history and continues to shape the world we live in today. March is Women’s History Month, and I invite everyone to celebrate some of our state’s iconic citizens with an engaging biography. Here are some highlights from LAMP’s collection:

Philadelphian Marian Anderson was an opera singer, who brought her mezzo soprano voice to audiences around the world. In 1939, Anderson, who was African American, was barred from performing for an integrated audience in the Constitutional Hall in Washington D.C by the Daughters of the American Revolution. As a result, the concert was moved to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where Anderson performed for a crowd of 75,000 people. The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault (DB 70880) explores Anderson’s life, and how the concert helped to shape the civil rights movement in America.

Younger readers can explore this same historic moment with the title When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson (DB 56453) by Pam Ryan. A video excerpt from a longer documentary about the performance can also be found here: Lincoln Memorial Concert | Voice of Freedom | American Experience | PBS

Born in Allegheny city in 1894, dancer and choreographer Martha Graham transformed the field of dance. Graham’s modern choreography was driven by inner emotion, with dancers contorting geometrically throughout the performance. For a deeper exploration of Martha Graham’s life, check out Errand into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham by Deborah Jowitt (DB 120389).

We often expect changemakers to be rooted in action, but it was Rachel Carson’s honed observation skills that led her to write her groundbreaking environmentalist work Silent Spring (BR 11887, DB 20184). Carson spent her formative years in Springdale, PA, on a farmstead.

The recent biographical exploration, On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson by William Souder (DB 75895), examines Carson’s formative years, as well as the impact her writing had upon the modern environmentalist movement.

For more engaging biographies exploring trailblazing Pennsylvania women, reach out to our Reader Advisors at 1-800-242-0586. Happy Women’s History Month!