{Women's History Month} Rosie the Riveter
Kentuckian Rose Will Monroe served as a model for feminist icon Rosie the Riveter.
Everyone knows that Rosie the Riveter is one of the most iconic images of the 20th Century. Rosie was first a symbol for women called to work in America's factories during World War II, and later the rallying cry of all women seeking equal rights.
But did you know that Rosie the Riveter is a Kentucky girl?
Norman Rockwell's allegorical take on Rosie.
Rose Will Monroe
Rose Will Monroe was born in the tiny Pulaski County community of Bobtown in 1920. By the 1940s, she was a young widow with two daughters, living in the Detroit area. Rose was called not only by her patriotic duty but also by the very real need to support her family. Soon, she was building B-29 bombers at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory, a former Ford Motor factory.
Rose was chosen as the "face" of Rosie the Riveter for a promotional film about the purchase of war bonds, following the popularity of a song of the same name.
After the War, Rose continued to work hard, defy stereotypes, and follow her dreams. She challenged gender stereotypes by continuing to work in traditionally male-dominated fields. Over the years, she drove a cab and founded her own construction company. Rose also fulfilled a lifelong dream of learning to fly, earning her pilot's license in her 50s.
Like many other women of her era, Rose Will Monroe found her calling through necessity. Her "Can Do" attitude made her Rosie the Riveter.
Louisville Stoneware Bachelor Button
The venerable blue and white Stoneware pattern has appointed homes for decades!
I think it's safe to say that I probably don't have a lot in common with Mamie Eisenhower.
Politics can be fun!
But, it turns out that Mamie and I share an everyday china pattern, Louisville Stoneware's Bachelor Button. Well, I use it now, and Mrs. Eisenhower used it in the White House in the 1950s, back when the Derby City's venerable pottery house was still known by the name of a previous owner -- John B Taylor -- and the pattern was called Cornflower. There's something pretty fascinating about a pattern that is as fun and timeless now as it was in the Eisenhower era.
The Bachelor Button pattern, created by artist Edith Ellis, is the quintessential Louisville Stoneware pattern. It's a favorite for Louisville brides, and always makes a perfect present. It's clean, simple, and elegant. And you never have to worry that your pattern will be discontinued.
Here's to the Louisville-based dish pattern that has appointed homes from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to my far more modest St Matthews address!
A Bachelor Button mug in production, Louisville Stoneware.
Chocolate Pecan Pie with Maker's Mark
Celebrate Pi Day with Louisville's signature pie!
Derby Pie is, of course, a trademark of Louisville's Kern's Kitchen bakery. Every other restaurant, bakery, and home cook in the Bluegrass State has a different name for it: Pegasus Pie, May Day Pie, Run for the Roses Pie, etc. The idea remains. Chocolate chips and nuts. It's pretty delicious, whatever you call it.
I always opt for pecans rather than the traditional walnuts, simply because I prefer the flavor. I added a good healthy swig of Maker's Mark because, well, why wouldn't you? For time's sake, I use a pre-made pie crust, but I don't cut corners with the homemade whipped cream. Nobody ever seems to complain about the tradeoff.
Chocolate Pecan Pie with Maker's Mark:
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/4 cup bourbon
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips
- 3/4 cup pecans or 3/4 cup walnuts
- 9 inch unbaked pie shell
Combine ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir with fork and pour into pie shell. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until browned.
2016 Kentucky Derby Festival Pegasus Pin
The 2016 Pegasus Pin goes on sale today at Louisville-area banks, stores, and PARC parking garages. The Pegasus Pin costs $5 and provides admission to several Kentucky Derby Festival events, including Thunder Over Louisville, Kroger’s Fest-a-Ville on the Waterfront, U.S. Bank Kentucky Derby Festival Great BalloonFest, Great Balloon Glimmer, Great Balloon Glow, Great Balloon Race, Thorntons Great Bed Races, and Republic Bank Parade Preview Party. Each Pegasus Pin is eligible to win weekly prizes, as well!
This year's Pegasus Pin design commemorates the new Abraham Lincoln Bridge, and is sponsored by the new electronic RiverLink tolling system, which will operate on that Bridge connecting Louisville and Southern Indiana.
The Pegasus Pin program is such a great reminder that the Kentucky Derby is so much more than a horse race for those of us who live in Louisville. Everybody may not have the means or interest to attend Derby, but they may have the an opportunity to enjoy the fireworks of Thunder Over Louisville, the delicious food trucks of the Chow Wagon, or the beauty of the balloon glow. Derby Festival really does try to have something for everyone in Louisville, and the moderately-priced, highly collectable Pegasus Pin is the ticket to fun!
Talbots + O, The Oprah Magazine Collection for Dress for Success
Have you seen the O, the Oprah Magazine Collection for Talbots?
It's full of some of the cutest spring pieces I've seen all season, and it supports a great cause!
This exclusive capsule collection features 7 limited-edition pieces that will be available through April 3, with 30% of the net proceeds benefitting Dress for Success, the international not-for-profit organization which, since 1997, has expanded to almost 150 cities in 20 countries and has helped more than 850,000 women work towards self-sufficiency. Dress for Success provides a network of professional attire, support, and development tools to help women thrive in the workplace. Dress for Success provides suiting, job training, and career skills for impoverished women. Think about how hard it can often be to land a job interview; just imagine if you couldn't afford the right clothing to ace the interview. Dress for Success is an amazing organization that empowers women to turn their lives around, and this Talbots collection can help!
I simply love this kelly green polka-dot cardigan; it's definitely on my spring wish list, along with the navy drawstring pants. My mom has her eye on the floral pencil skirt.
Tomorrow, Saturday, March 5, all Talbots stores across the country will hold “Spring Style Shopping Parties,” where women nationwide can shop at 25% off (excluding the capsule collection), enjoy refreshments, and make donations to Dress for Success. Nearly new office-appropriate attire will be accepted at any Talbots locations from March 3 to March 6, while monetary donations will be accepted at the register of each store through April 3. I hope to see y'all out and about at one of the Louisville events tomorrow!
Learn more about Local DFS Affiliates:
Shop Talbots stores in and near Kentucky:
- Louisville: The Forum Shops (194 N. Hurstborne) and The Paddock Shops (4200 Summit Plaza Drive)
- Lexington: Fayette Mall (3615 Nicholasville Rd)
- Bowling Green: 1770 Scottsville Rd
- Paducah: 2929 James Sanders Blvd.
- Evansville IN: 800 North Green River Road
- Cincinnati OH: Rookwood Commons (2669 Edmondson Road) and Kenwood Towne Centre (7875 Montgomery Road)
- Barboursville WV: Huntington Mall (1 Mall Road)
- Nashville TN: Village Green Shopping Center (4119 Hillsboro Road) and Opry Mills Mall (270 Opry Mills Drive)
- Johnson City TN: Peerless Center (2509 North Roan Street)
- Knoxville TN: Melrose Place (5614 Kingston Pike) and The Pinnacle at Turkey Creek (11315 Parkside Dr)
Shop the Collection
My Father, The Pornographer by Chris Offutt
Chris Offutt's memoir recalls a complex and troubled childhood.
{Trigger warning: the book reviewed in this post contains many passages of a highly adult nature. The book includes depictions of sexual violence and molestation.}
Today is World Book Day, an event organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. In a weird way, it seems that this is the right occasion to review the latest memoir by Kentucky's King of Grit Lit, Chris Offutt.
It goes without saying that a book entitled "My Father, the Pornographer" isn't a work for everyone. At times, I wasn't even sure it was for me, and I rather love Mr. Offutt's writing. This memoir is, as one would expect, gritty and often ugly. It's also a surprisingly funny, delicate, and beautiful tribute to a complex, weak, and ultimately flawed father.
Chris Offutt, the Rowan County native, author, and sometime television screenwriter, has never shied away from ugly subjects. When he returned to his childhood home in the tiny Eastern Kentucky town of Haldeman to sort through the personal effects of his father Andrew, he found himself -- an Iowa Writers' Workshop-trained professor of English at Ole Miss -- facing the literal body of work his father had produced: over 400 pornographic novels.
Mr. Offutt in his father's office. Image via The New York Times.
Mr. Offutt creates a fascinating world for his reader: a spot-on depiction of Kentucky life, from his mother's working-class Irish Catholic early life in Lexington to the family's prosperous years when Andrew owned two insurance agencies and owned the only Mercedes-Benz in Rowan County. The Offutts were always outsiders. Of his Appalachian childhood, Mr. Offutt writes:
My experience was similar to the children of career diplomats from the colonial era -- we lived in the big house, we had extra money, we mingled with the locals but never fit in. We even spoke a different language, what my father called 'the Queen's English' instead of the grammatically incorrect dialect of the hill. Other kids learned to hunt and fish; I learned to speak properly.
When young Chris needed braces, his father determined that the best way to pay for orthodontic work and write porn full-time. (You know, as one does...) andrew j. offutt (as he styled his signature) would go on to write several works of science fiction and fantasy that gained a cult following, while his pornographer alter-ego John Cleve produced adult fiction under a variety of pseudonyms. (Offutt Sr. had separate wardrobes and working habits when he adopted the Cleve persona.) Chris Offutt and his siblings grew up in a fascinating and terrifying world of family vacations to Sci-Fi Conventions, verbal abuse, and swinging '70s values; it's hard to imagine these events taking place in an insular rural Kentucky town that was looked down upon by the "city folk" of Morehead.
And yet, this memoir works so well because Mr. Offutt's depiction of rural Kentucky is stunning in its authenticity and clarity. If you can get past the dirty parts and the scary parts, it's easily the most spot-on description of Eastern Kentucky that I've read in the past decade. It's a hillbilly version of Pat Conroy's The Death of Santini without the apologies or the flowery language. It's an unflinching portrayal of a really screwed up childhood. And it's the best book about Kentucky I've read in a damned long time.
Alice Lloyd College
Statue of Alice Geddes Lloyd
This post originally appeared on HerKentucky in November 2011. In honor of Women's History Month, I thought I'd re-share the impact that Mrs. Lloyd had on my family and my hometown.
The history of Alice Lloyd College sounds a whole lot like a heartwarming story made custom-made for ABC Family or the Hallmark Channel. A turn-of-the-century Boston Brahmin debutante turned newspaperwoman leaves her opulent New England life to found a school in the heart of Appalachia. She and her husband are soon estranged -- he moves back to the city -- but she remains in the mountains to further her mission. Soon, a determined young Wellesley aluma hears of the experiment and moves to Kentucky from her upstate New York home to serve the area. Their tenacity and "society connections" lead to a sustainable donor network, allowing for a free education for all. A century later, hundreds of Kentuckians owe their educational and professional success to these great ladies.
My great-grandmother, Rilda Slone Watson, in an ALC uniform.
While this may be the stuff TV movies are made of, it's also the very real basis for countless educational opportunities in my hometown. Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, Radcliffe alumna, proto-feminist and editor/publisher of the Cambridge Press, moved to Knott County, Kentucky in 1915, with the goal of improving social and economic conditions. Along with Miss June Buchanan, Mrs. Lloyd soon founded a school in the Caney Creek area, which would become Alice Lloyd College.
Mrs. Lloyd's impact was felt in every corner of the tiny mountain community; the town itself was even re-namedfor the Browning poem "Pippa Passes", in a nod to both Mrs. Lloyd's literary leanings and an influential set of early donors. Her commitment to staid Yankee values shine through even upon a visit to the modern campus. The strict dress and moral code(no cosmetics or heeled shoes, no "consorting" with members of the opposite sex, sailor-style skirt-and-blouse uniforms for all women) of years past may have relaxed significantly, but Purpose Road and the If Guest Cottage (named, of course, for Kipling's ode to perseverance) serve as constant reminders of a sterner era.
My own family's history is so intertwined with the history of ALC that it's impossible for me to separate one story from the other. My paternal great-grandmother,
Rilda Slone Watson, grew up on Caney Creek,one of eight children. Most of the college's original buildings were designed and built by her brother, John Commodore Slone. Her sister, Alice Slone, went on to found a nearby school on the ALC donor-funding model. My great-grandmother herself worked for the college, assisting Miss Buchanan and manning the Exchange, dispersing the estate items that donors bequeathed to the university. (By all accounts, her office was a treasure trove.)
Rilda and Miss June
Over the years, Mrs. Lloyd's legacy has shaped my family's destiny in countless ways. By all accounts, the extended clan were a bookish, artistic lot, but the education and opportunities afforded by Mrs. Lloyd'sCaney Creek schools were truly remarkable for the time and place. My grandfather, an Appalachian teenager during the Great Depression, spent two summers in Massachusetts working on cranberry bogs and seeing the sites, due to a "work-study" arrangement Mrs. Lloyd set up for local kids. My great-great-aunt earned a B.A. from Ohio State in 1932. In the 1930s, a trip to Lexington from Caney Creek took at least a full day. I can't imagine the physical rigors of traveling to Columbus or Boston, and I certainly know that those doors would not have been opened without the influence of Mrs. Lloyd and Miss June. (Although my grandfather, a hardcore Literature teacher in his own right, contended to his dying day that Mrs. Lloyd was an unduly rigorous second grade teacher.)
The ALC campus has adapted to the twenty-first century, and many of the buildings of my childhood have made way for modern campus life. Still, the school remains a charming testament to Mrs. Lloyd's vision. You can learn more about the early days of Caney Creek Community Center here. And if y'all will excuse me, I've got a screenplay to write.