Trey and I:
Sarah Josepha Hale should be on a t-shirt. If she's already on a t-shirt, someone should get that for me for a present. Of course she's got some problems--everybody does, and when you're a feminist scholar studying folks, those problems become apparent. But she was an incredibly influential woman in the 19th century, and it's because of her that Thanksgiving is a national holiday.
For 25 years, she wrote letters to the Presidents. She was like, "Listen, y'all, July 4 is a great holiday, but it's the only one we've got. You know that it would help our national unity if we had one more, at a different time of year, that has symbolic connection to the founding of our country and all that." She said, "You know that everybody loves turkey, and people need an excuse to eat a ridiculous amount of pie. So come on."
Because she was the editor of Godey's Ladies Book, a magazine that was so famous that it makes famous things today look puny by comparison, people paid some attention to her. And in 1863, Abraham Lincoln was like, "Dude, that SJH has a good idea. This Civil War's got everybody down, and pumpkin consumption is on the decline. The sweet potato lobby has been pushing for more support. So what the hell: let's make Thanksgiving a national holiday, on the fourth Thursday of November every year."
And here we are: celebrating Thanksgiving, but most of us not offering the tiniest thought to the woman who made it happen, Sarah Josepha Hale. Just about every year I draw people's attention to her, and yet I haven't generated the kind of viral attention that SJH needs. So tell your dining companions about her. She got us all a day off and a patriotic opportunity to eat pecan pie (and celebrate the eugenic efforts to rid the country of its indigenous population, but we'll put that aside for the moment).
Hurray, Sarah Josepha Hale!
This morning Uncle Trey, Maybelle, and I are heading to Tennessee to spend the holiday with Nonni, Poppi, Uncle Aaron, and Aunt Mary. Biffle is staying here. He needs a break, some true down time. I might have been suspicious of this, but two weeks ago I was at the National Women's Studies Association Conference for five days--five days alone in a big, luxurious hotel room. Alone. It felt like an amazing retreat. So I endorse Biffle having a retreat of his own. Plus, holidays are often a weird combination of excitement and dread, connection and tension, happiness and serious depression (as was the case for me last Christmas). If Biffle wants to sit this one out, right on.
Yesterday I bought nine books.
I came to Oakland with six books. I read two on the plane, and wanted to be sure I had options for what to read here, and on the way home. Plus, I needed books to help me complete my presentation, which is this afternoon.
That means that when I pack tomorrow to leave, I'll have to somehow fit fifteen books into my suitcase.
I'm not allowed to buy any books today.
(I wrote the title that way to show that I'm in the know. I just recently learned about all the hashtag business.)
I'm at the National Women's Studies Association's 35th conference this weekend, in Oakland, CA. I feel a bit like an extravert at this conference, because I get to hang out with my cool, funky, super-smart feminist friends from around the continent, and I just get in the habit of talking and talking and talking.
Because of the time zone shift, though, I get tired really early. Last night Patricia Hill Collins gave what I'm sure was an excellent keynote address, but she started at 7:45pm. Which to my body meant 10:45. And you all know that I tend to go to bed by 10, so I couldn't really process what she was saying. I'll get her new book, though, and then maybe I'll have things to say about her.
At lunchtime I was wide awake. Just before lunch I'd been up in my room, pondering a chapter in my book project, and thinking about eugenics. Disability studies scholars use the term "eugenics" quite often, particularly when talking about prenatal testing and termination of pregnancies, but I find it troubling given the conversations I've had with women who've terminated their pregnancies. Their stories aren't stories of "we need a better baby." Their stories are about feeling that they can't bring a person into the world when that person will suffer and not have the life they want their child to have.
So I sat down at the lunch table next to a person, and asked her what she studies. "The history of science," she said. "Particularly eugenics."
Hark! What a perfect coincidence. So I asked her questions and wrote down her answers. I'm going to be quoting her in my talk on Saturday. She agreed with me that this whole line of questioning is incredibly complicated (the thesis statement for my book), but she made a compelling argument that decisions people are making today about which children to have do seem quite similar to the Progressive Era eugenics she studies. She said that eugenics becomes a kind of cultural context, so people are voluntarily making decisions that fit within a eugenic context. It's not that the individuals are eugenicist--they aren't Nazis--but they are part of a context that's shaping the choices available to them.
Her name is Susan Rensing, and she knows who I am because she teaches my stuff in her classes. She doesn't teach Girl Zines--that would be too obvious. Instead, she teaches my Motherlode essay and one of my favorite blog posts, "Reasons why feminism is a good prerequisite for having a child with Down syndrome." I think it's awesome that her students are discussing these pieces! I would love to be part of the conversations. Susan, you should Skype me in.
Also, I learned from Susan's colleague Christie Launius that Susan's students think we look alike. So let me say to any of Susan's students who are reading the blog: she has a much funkier haircut than I have now.
We had an excellent Halloween this year. Maybelle still didn't accept any candy while trick or treating, which was a bummer for her chocolate-loving parents, but she enthusiastically enjoyed just about every aspect of the holiday.
She was Mary Poppins this year. It's a movie she adores (in fact, she's watching it right now, as I type this blog post), and one of the benefits is that it's a good enough movie that it's only now becoming horribly irritating to Biffle and me.
Biffle found all the different parts of her costume at thrift stores around town, and altered them in various ways so that they worked to create a really solid Mary Poppins look. You can't see it in the picture here, but he went so far as to do some elaborate painting on the handle of her umbrella so that it looked like Mary Poppins' parrot handle. Maybelle loved, loved, loved her costume (in fact, she's wearing the Mary Poppins hat right now, as she watches the movie).
Her school did a parade on campus as they do every Halloween. It's such a neat tradition--folks come out of their offices and wave at the kids as they walk down the street from their school to the center of campus. Then at the center of campus--the Cistern--the kids run around, leap into the air as if they're Mary Poppins, and get pictures taken.
Check it out--a podcast! This is the talk I gave at the Unitarian Church in August. I just listened to it--it's pretty good.
