Off the Shelf—Summer 2009
Words Worth a Second Look
Nonfiction
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
By Kirstin Downey
(Nan A.Talese)
Before
there was Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice there was Frances Perkins
(MHC 1902), secretary of labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first
woman to hold a cabinet position, Perkins initiated sweeping changes to
labor laws including the eight-hour workday, Social Security, and
child-labor laws. In this biography, new light is shed on a
largely forgotten figure who was integral to the formation of theNew
Deal.
Kirstin Downey is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist at the Washington Post.
Lessons From Freedom Summer: Ordinary PeopleBuilding Extraordinary Movements
By Kathy Emery, Linda Reid Gold, and Sylvia Braselmann
(Common Courage Press)
In
this book, Emery outlines the impact of the 1964 “freedom schools” in
Mississippi that opened on back porches and in churches in 1964 to teach
confidence, voter literacy, and political organization to
African American citizens long denied all three. It also serves as a case
study illustrating thee lements crucial to the success of a social
movement that can inform present-day activists.
Kathy Emery ’77
was a highschool teacher for sixteen years, coauthored Why is Corporate
America Bashing Our Schools, and is executive director of the San
Francisco Freedom School.
Movi
ng Beyond Racism: Memories, Transformations, and the Start of NewConversations
Edited by Heather PowersAlbanesi and Carole AnnCamp
(White River Press)
Susan
Daniels ’79 and Ivy Tillman ’83 are included in this collection of
twenty-one personal essays regarding race relations and racism in the
twenty-first century. In descriptions of events and memories, the
authors provide personal accounts of their experiences with racism, and
the realities that many Americans of color still face.
Susan
Daniels ’79 is an executive recruiter for Deerfield Associates, an
executive search firm in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Ivy Tillman FP ’83 is
a technical support and repair consultant at the MHC library. (More)
