The League of Women Voters celebrated “Herstory as History” recently, during a Women’s History Month Luncheon that took a look back at the women who have changed the course of women’s rights.
Keynote speaker Dr. Natalie Naylor, professor emerita at Hofstra University and president of the Nassau County Historical Society, spoke on notable women in Long Island history, including Sarah Baldwin Barnum, Elisabeth Freeman and Cornelia Clinch Stewart.
She noted that when she would teach history classes at Hofstra, many students were unable to name important female figures, however, could easily list off their male counterparts.
“It’s obvious the history we’ve learned in school has literally been ‘his story.’ Women have virtually been invisible in most history books,” Naylor said. “We need to write women back into history. We need to remember change didn’t come without the struggle of those who came before us. Let us, as Abigail Adams urged her husband John, ‘remember the ladies’ and remember herstory.”
Not only did the March 18 event honor the women of the past, it also celebrated several extraordinary women. Honorees included Laura Curran, Nassau’s first female county executive, Town of Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen, Nassau County Clerk Maureen O’Connell and Nassau County District Court Judge Andrea Phoenix.
The honorees were presented with certificates from the League of Women Voters, as well as Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth.
Read Long Island Weekly‘s interview with president of the Nassau County Historical Society Natalie Naylor: Presiding Over Nassau’s History
https://liweekly.wpengine.com/presiding-over-nassaus-history/
