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NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2008
'Breaking Barriers'
Chicago--The Working Women's History Project (WWHP) and the Chicago chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) held a program at the end of September on "Breaking Barriers: Women and Health."
Leading off the program was current Scholar-in-Residence at the Newberry Library, Adele Hast, who gave us snippets from Women Building Chicago: 1790-1990, the book she co-edited with Rima Schulz. We learned of Dr. Mary Harris Thompson who founded her own hospital to serve the wives and widows of Civil War veterans when other hospitals would not accept women patients; and Dr. Alice Hamilton, the first woman to teach at Harvard in 1919, and who was a pioneer in toxicology. Isabella Garnett and Elizabeth Hill worked in Evanston, Ill., to give opportunities to African-American women, Garnett and her husband founded Community Hospital to serve African Americans who were denied admittance at other hospitals.
The second half of the program was on groundbreaking medicine of today. Helen Ramirez-Odell, RN, chair of the National CLUW Health and Wellness Committee showed a video, "Say Something" by Tamika Felder, diagnosed with cervical cancer at age 25. This powerful work also featured singer-songwriter and survivor of cervical cancer, Christine Baise.
During the discussion session Hast recommended Petticoat Surgeon for additional reading, and Ramirez-Odell answered questions on the controversy of mandatory vaccines for cervical cancer which only protect against two of the many viruses that can infect the cervix and is being aggressively promoted by the drug manufacturer for use in girls and young women.
--Sue
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