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The Rice Thresher
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by Elizabeth Decker Thresher staff
Celia Morris and Blanche Wiesen Cook spoke at "Women, Politics and Power," a talk sponsored by the Sociology Department in Sewall 301 Wednesday. Morris is the author of several books, including a biography of 19th-century women's rights advocate Fanny Wright, a book about campaigning with former Texas Governor Ann Richards and California senator Diane Feinstein, and a book about sexual harassment. Her memoir, Finding Celia's Place, was published last month. The autobiography has received critical acclaim for its hard-hitting and brutally honest narrative style. She has also married and divorced two well-known men - writer Willie Morris, a former editor of Harper's, and liberal former Texas Congressman Bob Eckhardt. Cook is the author of several books, most recently a two-volume series on Eleanor Roosevelt. She has won numerous literary awards and is currently a professor of history and women's studies at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Sociology Department Chair Chandler Davidson introduced Morris and Cook to an audience of over 100. He praised them both as "first rate scholars and wonderful writers." Morris began the talk with an account of her childhood in West University Place during the Depression, citing the anti-Roosevelt mindset of the neighborhood. Partly out of childhood rebellion, Morris said she developed a fascination with Eleanor Roosevelt. "Here was a woman whose horizons were so much bigger than the ones of the people I knew, and that mattered to me," Morris said. Knowing what Roosevelt achieved helped Morris realize that she wished for a life beyond that which was expected of her as a Southern belle. "In a nutshell, it's the story of somebody who grew up with a life that seemed blessed, and has gradually, through quite a lot of Sturm und Drang, moved to a life that really is blessed," Morris said. Morris said her own intellectual development stemmed from the discovery of powerful women in U.S. history, including Fanny Wright, the subject of her first book. An early advocate for equality between men and women, Wright ignited Morris' interest. "I started getting very interested in the way men, who controlled the media, responded to women in power," Morris said. It was her book, Fanny Wright: Rebel In America, that took her to Claremont Graduate Institute to lecture, and it was at Claremont that Morris and Cook met for the first time and began a close friendship. Both are grateful for having met that day at Claremont, even if it was a lucky accident for Cook to have been at Morris's lecture. Cook said meeting Morris was only one of many accidents that shaped her life. "I feel my whole life has been an accident," Cook said. "The good thing about accidents is to just have them and go with them, and you never know what's going to happen." One of Cook's accidents was tackling the project of writing a biography of Dwight Eisenhower. Although she originally had little interest in the project, her agent told her she should not refuse the offer. During her research on Eisenhower, Cook realized that her true interests were rooted in political history. "I'm very interested in power," Cook said. This interest eventually led her to study Eleanor Roosevelt. "Eleanor really cared about people in want and need and trouble, people on the margin," Cook said. Roosevelt's identification and empathy with so many marginalized people amazed Cook, especially because Roosevelt's empathy shaped the political agenda of her time in ways still being discussed. Cook said one example is the history of public housing in the United States, pioneered by Roosevelt in Appalachia, and how the issue of public housing is still the subject of debates. "All these issues are still on the table," Cook said. She also noted how health, education and Social Security, all issues originally dis-cussed by Roosevelt, are still pressing problems in the United States today. Cook also discussed today's political scene and the need for further progress on issues that Roosevelt brought up 60 years ago. "This is arguably the meanest moment in the 20th century," Cook said, although the nation as a whole is in a period of great prosperity. "It is really the first time that the one-third of the nation that is ill-clothed, ill-housed and basically suffering is just off the screen. And this is really just a great tragedy, in my opinion," she said. Hanszen College senior Laura Sullivan, who attended the lecture, said she responded positively to what Cook and Morris had to say. "It's encouraging, I think, for women thinking about going into politics or becoming involved as leaders," Sullivan said.
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