VCU to hold 2nd annual Crenshaw Lecture

By Mike Porter

Virginia Commonwealth University’s 2nd Annual Crenshaw Lecture will focus on the contributions of Virginia women in politics in the early days of the United States.

Cynthia A. Kierner, Ph.D., professor of history at George Mason University, will deliver a lecture  titled “Virginia Women and the Politics of the Early Republic: The Strange Case of Martha Jefferson Randolph” on Friday, Nov. 19, from noon until 1 p.m., at the Scott House, 909 W. Franklin St. The lecture is free and open to the public.  

The Crenshaw lecture series was established in 2009 during VCU’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL.) The ESL led the movement in Virginia for women's suffrage for 10 years and became the Virginia League of Women Voters in 1920 after women won the right to vote.

The ESL's first meeting took place on Nov. 20, 1909 at 919 W. Franklin St., the home of Anne Clay Crenshaw and her family. Crenshaw House now contains VCU’s Center for Public Policy and Ph.D. program in Public Policy and Administration.

Kierner is a specialist in the fields of early America, women and gender, and early southern history. She is the author or editor of six books and many articles and is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and past president of the Southern Association for Women Historians.  

Her research has received support from the American Historical Association, the Virginia Historical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  

Kierner is completing two major projects.  One, a biography titled A Perfect Temper: The Life and Times of Martha Jefferson Randolph, will be published in 2011 by the University of North Carolina Press. The other, a coauthored book on Virginia women’s history, will be published by the Library of Virginia. Her next big research project will involve the history of leisure in America from the colonial period through the Civil War era.