Institution

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the Shenandoah Valley region.

<p>Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon (August 2, 1890–November 24, 1979) grew up in a Quaker Community in Clarke County and attended a Quaker school in nearby Loudoun County before graduating from Swarthmore College in 1913. While a student she began taking part in woman suffrage events and in 1917 she went to work as a field organizer for the National American Woman Suffrage Association in New York and South Dakota. Late in 1918 the association sent Pidgeon to Virginia to assist with the Equal Suffrage League's campaign to gather tens of thousands of signatures in support of a woman suffrage amendment to the U. S. Constitution. An energetic and capable canvasser, Pidgeon enrolled supporters in the northern counties where she had grown up, in eastern Virginia, and in southwestern part of the state until 1920.</p><p><br /></p><p>In anticipation of ratification, the Equal Suffrage League created citizenship schools in cooperation with the University of Virginia's Extension Bureau and named Pidgeon as state director. She directed the schools, which were held around the state to educate women about voting and public policy, until 1926. She was particularly interested in government efficiency and earned a master's degree in political science from the university in 1924. She joined the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor in 1928, directing its influential research division and the economic studies section. Pidgeon wrote or co-wrote about 30 reports on women in various workplace settings out of the almost 200 official reports issued by the Woman's Bureau before she retired in 1956.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

Clarke County native and woman suffrage activist Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon was a member of the Hopewell Monthly Meeting in neighboring Frederick County.

Photograph of Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon courtesy of Bryn Mawr College.

Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon

<div>Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is one of the premier historians writing on the American South and the Civil War. Her seminal book <i>Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War</i> (1996) won many honors, including the Society of American Historians' Francis Parkman Prize, and <i>This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War</i> (2008) was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. Her scholarship and leadership in higher education have been recognized by numerous academic honors, leadership positions in major American historical organizations, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the American Philosophical Society.</div><div><br></div><div>Faust was born in New York City and raised in Clarke County in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Her historical awareness developed early. As a nine-year-old girl living in Virginia during the campaign of Massive Resistance to school integration, she wrote a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower calling for the end of segregation. Her commitment to social justice continued at college when she participated in Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War organizing and events. She received an MA and PhD in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania.</div><div><br></div><div>Faust's devotion to teaching and higher education is just as strong as her record of scholarship. She won several teaching awards during twenty-five years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where she directed the Women's Studies Program. She served as the first dean of the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and transformed the former college into a multidisciplinary center for advanced scholarship. In 2007 Faust became the twenty-eighth president of Harvard University, the first woman to hold that position in the institution's history.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Historian Drew Gilpin Faust grew up in this vicinity at her family's Lakeville Farm estate on the Shenandoah River.

Photograph of Drew Gilpin Faust, courtesy of Harvard University.

Drew Gilpin Faust

<div>Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Joann Hess Grayson (born 1948) received a doctorate in clinical psychology at Washington University, in Saint Louis, Missouri. In 1976 she joined the faculty of Madison College (James Madison University after 1977). Focusing on issues of child abuse and neglect and family violence, Grayson received a grant in 1980 to establish the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County Family Support Center. She also founded First Step, a shelter for abused women, and helped set up a fund for foster children with special needs.</div><div><br></div><div>A nationally recognized expert in her field, Grayson has edited and published the <i>Virginia Child Protection Newsletter</i> since 1981. She has also written more than eighty articles and book chapters. From 1983 to 1993, Grayson sat on the Governor's Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, for four years as its chair. In 2001 she testified before a congressional committee to lobby for reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to continue funding prevention efforts, research, and training for mental health professionals. &nbsp;As an educator Grayson emphasizes learning through service. She established the psychology department's field placement program, through which hundreds of students have contributed thousands of service hours to the Harrisonburg community under her supervision. Recognized for her achievements, she received one of Virginia's Outstanding Faculty Awards in 2004 and in 2006 was named Virginia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Her dedication to teaching incorporates sharing the history of child advocacy with younger students, including Amy D. Garrett's fourth-grade class at Island Creek Elementary School, in Alexandria, which nominated Grayson as one of the Virginia Women in History for 2009.</div><div><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

A clinical psychologist who practices in Harrisonburg and teaches at James Madison University, Joann Hess Grayson is an advocate for abused and neglected children.

Photograph of Joann Grayson, courtesy of James Madison University.

Joann Hess Grayson

<div>Even though Patricia Buckley Moss (born May 20, 1933) was born in New York City and now divides her time between homes in Florida and Virginia, much of her art is rooted in the Shenandoah Valley. The rural scenery, along with the serenity, work ethos, and traditional pursuits of the Amish and Mennonite communities, had a profound effect on Moss when she moved to Waynesboro with her family in 1964. The modest lifestyle of the Valley inhabitants soon began to appear in her paintings and drawings.</div><div><br></div><div>Moss has dyslexia, which made grade school a struggle for her. Later, in high school, her artistic abilities were recognized and nourished, and in 1951 she received a scholarship to New York's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. By late in the 1960s Moss began marketing her work. The P. Buckley Moss Museum opened in Waynesboro in 1989, and today galleries nationwide carry her works, including a new gallery in Waynesboro.</div><div><br></div><div>Moss has been generous with her earnings and focused on child-related charities. In 1985 she helped famine-struck African countries through a Mennonite African relief fund. Since then her generosity has expanded, especially in her efforts to help children with learning disabilities. Collectors of Moss's works established the P. Buckley Moss Society in 1987 to promote her charitable ideals, and the P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education, founded in 1995, supports the arts in educational programs, with a focus on children with special needs. In 1988 journalist Charles Kuralt described Moss as "The People's Artist," a compliment she considers the greatest that could be bestowed on her.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Artist and longtime Waynesboro resident P. Buckley Moss draws inspiration from the people and scenery of the Shenandoah Valley and opened a new gallery here in 2014.

Photograph of Patricia Buckley Moss, courtesy of P. Buckley Moss. 

P. Buckley Moss

<div>Acclaimed artist Mary Elizabeth Nottingham Day (November 29, 1907–April 2, 1956) grew up in Culpeper, which often figured in her paintings. After graduating from Randolph-Macon Woman's College (later Randolph College) in 1928, she studied for three years at the Art Students League and received two fellowships for further study in Europe. Elizabeth Nottingham, as she was known professionally throughout her life, first exhibited in New York galleries in 1929 and continued to show her work regularly in New York and Virginia. One critic wrote that "her palette could 'sing' or 'moan' in her unceasing quest to portray the moods of Virginia's countryside."</div><div><br></div><div>Returning to Virginia early in the 1930s, Nottingham received a commission to paint a series of historical panels for a Winchester school. In 1936 she became director of the Big Stone Gap Federal Art Gallery and later that year became director of the Lynchburg Federal Art Gallery, supervising the development of exhibitions as well as classes in painting, composition, interior and costume design, and hand crafts. Nottingham served as assistant state art supervisor of the Works Projects Administration's extension service in 1940–1941. She married artist Horace Talmage Day in 1941, and the couple joined the faculty at Mary Baldwin College, where they directed the art department. Committed to bringing art to rural areas of the state, Elizabeth Nottingham Day served as a board member and as president of the Virginia Art Alliance and sat on the State Art Commission from 1950 until 1956.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Acclaimed Virginia artist Elizabeth Nottingham Day lived at the Woodward Apartments when she and her husband moved to Staunton to direct the art department at Mary Baldwin College.

Photograph of Elizabeth Nottingham Day, courtesy of Horace Talmage Day Jr.

Mary Elizabeth Nottingham Day

<p>Growing up in Staunton, Fannie Stratton Bayly King (September 27, 1864–January 13, 1951) attended the academically rigorous Augusta Female Seminary. She became active in many community improvement projects and organizations, supporting public health work and serving as president of the local branch of the Co-Operative Education Association that worked to improve public education. She helped found the Staunton Civic Club in 1911 and served as president of the Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs, an organization that frustrated her when it refused to endorse voting rights for women.</p><p><br /></p><p>King believed strongly in woman suffrage and was elected president of the Staunton Equal Suffrage League in 1913. The league distributed literature, encouraged public suffrage debates, and wrote legislators and congressmen. King arranged for prominent suffrage speakers to visit Staunton and she also spoke to local groups. After her speech to the Working Men's Fraternal Association, she later recalled that her "male relatives and friends crossed the street or dodged into stores to keep from speaking to such a bold bad woman!!!" King withdrew from her work after her only child died in 1917, but after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified she participated in the founding of the League of Women Voters and served on the Children's Code Commission, which recommended numerous legislative reforms passed by the General Assembly.</p><p><br /></p><p>A supporter of public libraries for most of her life, King donated her house, Kalorama, to the city for use as the public library, and continued to live there in an upstairs apartment until her death.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

Fannie Bayly King advocated educational and public health reforms in Staunton and Augusta County, served as president of the Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs, and was president of the Staunton Equal Suffrage League. She lived at Kalorama, which she later donated to the city for use as a public library and currently houses a private school.

Photograph of Fannie King courtesy of Staunton Public Library.

Fannie Bayly King

<div>Christine Herter Kendall (August 25, 1890–June 22, 1981) was born into a musical and artistic family that regularly hosted evenings of chamber music and Sunday afternoon organ concerts in their New York City home. She studied art in New York and Paris before enrolling at Yale University where she earned a BA in 1915. She received the National Arts Club's John G. Agar Prize for one of her paintings in 1922. At Yale she studied with portraitist William Sergeant Kendall, whom she married. The couple moved to Bath County, Virginia, purchased a 114-acre estate, and built their home, Garth Newel, where they hosted small concerts, and continued to paint and exhibit their work.</div><div><br></div><div>After her husband's death in 1938, Kendall remained active in the local arts community. She cofounded the Bath County Regional Art Show in 1964. In 1973 Kendall and members of the Rowe String Quartet established the Garth Newel Music Center for the study and performance of chamber music.</div><div><br></div><div>She bequeathed her home to the music center, which provides the only residential program in Virginia for the study and performance of chamber music. Today, the Garth Newel Music Center offers more than sixty concerts a year as well as an annual Virginia Blues and Jazz Festival. It is also the home of the Allegheny Mountain String Project, a music education program, and the Young Artists Fellowship Program, an intensive four-week chamber music study and performance experience for string players and pianists.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Lee Elliott and Michael Wildasin, Garth Newel Music Center, Hot Springs.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

An accomplished artist and musician, Christine Herter Kendall cofounded the Garth Newel Music Center at the site of her home in Bath County.

Photograph of Christine Herter Kendall, courtesy of Garth Newell Music Center, Bath County, Virginia.

Entries on This Tour

Virginia Women in History - Shenandoah Valley Region

Description

Share