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By The Hill Staff
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Posted: 10/08/03 12:00 AM [ET] |
You probably already know something about Abigail Adams, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Sandra Day O’Connor. But what about Western pioneer Evelyn Cameron, newswoman Mary Katherine Goddard and Anna Jarvis, inventor of Mother’s Day?
In her new picture book, delightfully illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, Lynne Cheney — herself a well-known American woman — introduces us to a host of U.S. female notables, from A to Z.
Appropriately enough, “A” is for Adams, the country’s second first lady, who in one of her many letters to husband John wrote, “I desire you would remember the ladies.” The page depicts a montage of scenes from Adams’ life — sheltering soldiers, weaving cloth, supporting female education — with a sentence or two of text accompanying each.
Cheney picks up the first lady theme again at “F,” which includes drawings of every first lady from Martha Washington to Laura Bush — each drawn on or next to a teacup or pitcher. Also on the page is a quip from Barbara Bush at the Wellesley College commencement in 1990: “Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president’s spouse. I wish him well!”
Cheney — a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a former chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the country’s second lady, as the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney — has written or co-written several books, including America: A Patriotic Primer, also illustrated by Glasser.
Some letters illustrate the lives of individual women, and others depict a concept.
For example, “E” is for educators, including Mary McLeod Bethune, whose school for African American girls eventually became Bethune-Cookman College; Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher; and Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke College. And “P” is for performers — here, the book opens up into a colorful double-page spread that shows women entertainers from Mary Martin (in Peter Pan costume) to Mary Tyler Moore (tossing her beret) to Aretha Franklin (belting out a song).
The letters end, of course, with “Z” — in this case, for Babe Didrikson Zaharias and other female sports legends (tennis’ Althea Gibson, soccer’s Mia Hamm and gymnastics’ Mary Lou Retton among them). For further reading, Cheney has included an appendix with biographical information on the women listed in the book and other historical tidbits.
Pick this book up for historically minded children of your acquaintance, and if you read over their shoulders, you’ll doubtless learn something yourself.
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