At History Detectives, the Grand Rapids Public Library’s day-long offering of local history programming, Julia Bouwkamp and Jo Ellyn Clarey will report on how the charting of 19th-century local women’s candidacy for public office is upending conventional wisdom and offering surprises about dates, the numbers of races, and the identities of losers. This unique historical […]

At History Detectives, GGRWHC’s Ruth Van Stee will present African Americans in Early Grand Rapids—including, of course, more women’s history. From 1850 to 1920 African Americans here were a steady one percent of the city’s rapidly growing population. After an overview of this vibrant community as a whole, Van Stee will provide snapshots of individual business, […]

The last female owner of a Negro League baseball team will talk with former Grand Rapids Press columnist Jaye Beeler at Taste of Soul Sunday about playing softball at fifteen for Cook's Brown Dolls, a traveling team from Grand Rapids, and playing baseball with the Kansas City Monarchs against the Grand Rapids Black Sox. When […]

The historical charting of Grand Rapids women's runs for public office upends conventional wisdom and offers surprises about dates, the numbers of races, and the identities of women who participated in local politics beginning in 1887. Julia Bouwkamp and Jo Ellyn Clarey will report on how the national crowdsourcing project Her Hat Was in the […]

Open to the public on March 2!  During the twentieth century, women throughout the country took great strides toward equality and began abandoning their traditional roles, as well as restrictive fashions, in search of greater opportunity and comfortable clothing.  “Atmosphere of Distinction” displays how the emergence of the women’s rights movement impacted West Michigan fashion trends […]

Community Reading Projects Author Lecture with Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies! Door open at 6:00pm, book signing will follow the lecture.  Free and Open to the Public!

The annual reception immediately follows author Rebecca Traister's visit to Grand Rapids on March 13 discussing her book All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation. The GGRWHC will add to the conversation by complicating the relationship between singledom and progress for women. To Traister's examples we will add vivid anecdotes […]

 In 1901 Emma J. Cole published Grand Rapids Flora, a catalogue of plants growing without cultivation in the vicinity of Kent County. Enormous changes have taken place since those “horse and buggy” days, yet her book remains the most complete account of plants specific to our area. Who was this remarkable high school teacher, world traveller and Kent Scientific Institute botanist? […]

Author Sonya Bernard Hollins will update us on her research into the amazing life and mysteries of Merze Tate. An African American girl born in 1905 in rural Michigan, Tate graduated first in her class from Western Michigan University in 1927, earned a doctorate from Oxford University, worked for the State Department, and traveled around the […]

Join us at the Historical Society of Michigan's Local History Conference in Detroit! Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council board members Jo Ellyn Clarey and Ruth Stevens will lay out Michigan's history of local legislation initiatives and court decisions revealing the crucial role played by local school board elections as both a testing ground for […]