On Saturday, May 11th we welcomed our new members into the Pi Lambda Sigma chapter of Beta Phi Mu and enjoyed an inspiring talk by our featured speaker, Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner.
Feminist pioneer Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner is a nationally
recognized lecturer, author and story-teller of woman’s rights
history. One of the first women to receive a doctorate in the
United States for work in women’s studies (UC Santa Cruz), and
a founder of one of the country’s first college women’s studies
programs (CSU Sacramento), Dr. Wagner has taught women’s
history for forty-eight years. She currently serves as adjunct
faculty in the University Honors Program, Syracuse University
and St. John Fisher’s Executive Leadership Program.
The theme of Dr. Wagner’s work has been telling the untold
stories. Her Women’s Suffrage Anthology (Penguin Classics,
2019) unfolds a new intersectional look at the 19th century
woman’s rights movement. She Who Holds the Sky: Matilda
Joslyn Gage (Sky Carrier Press, 2003) reveals a suffragist written
out of history because of her stand against the religious right over
100 years ago (the woman Gloria Steinem describes as “ahead of
the women who were ahead of their time”) while Wagner’s
Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early
American Feminists (Native Voices, 2001) documents the
surprisingly unrecognized authority of native women, which
inspired the suffrage movement.
Copies of Dr. Wagner’s books were available for sale and
autographing.