Press Release #1

News Release
For Women's History Month Exhibit and Program, March - May 1998

University of Oregon Library and the Center for the Study of Women in Society Celebrate Women's History Month

Celebrating Women's History Month in March, the University of Oregon Library and the Center for the Study of Women in Society announce the opening of an exhibit focused on women's publishing in Oregon. Entitled "Feminist Voices and Visions", and located in the lobby of Knight Library, the exhibit is actually two related exhibits in one: one exhibit is about Abigail Scott Duniway, Oregon's tireless campaigner for women's suffrage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the other exhibit is about Calyx, a journal of feminist art and literature founded in Oregon in 1976 and published in Corvallis. Both exhibits are based on original documents housed in Special Collections, Knight Library. The exhibits open on March 9 and will run through May 29.

Both exhibits highlight feminist writing and publishing in Oregon. Duniway helped shape national women's politics as editor of the New Northwest, the feminist newspaper which drew national attention to women's issues on the Pacific Slope. Through her writings, Duniway campaigned for laws allowing wives to conduct business without their husbands' presence, and she worked tirelessly for statutes allowing married women to keep their own wages, manage their property, and bequeath it to whomever they chose. But she is best remembered for her leadership in the national struggle for suffrage and for her forty years of organizing to secure equal suffrage in Oregon, culminating in a narrow victory in 1912 when Oregon became the seventh state to approve votes for women. Governor Oswald West asked Duniway to write the Woman Suffrage Proclamation, making suffrage for women in Oregon law. A highlight of the exhibit is the original proclamation written by Duniway, on loan from the Oregon State Archives.

CALYX: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women was founded in 1976 by Margarita Donnelly, Barbara Baldwin, Meredith Jenkins, and Elizabeth McLagan. An award-winning journal, Calyx prides itself on its insistence on aesthetics, diversity, and literary quality. Published twice a year, the journal is easily recognizable by its beautiful and stunning cover art, and applauded for its outstanding literary quality. In a 1992 interview, Donnelly says of Calyx, "...we are rebalancing the imbalance that's been out there for so long. In our culture, there is still a lot of inequality. Our commitment is to developing voices that aren't often heard." The word calyx refers to the outer covering of the flower, which falls away as it blooms. In its more than 20 years of existence, helped along by knowledgeable and committed volunteers, it has provided an opportunity for over 2,000 women's voices to bloom in its poetry, prose, art, and book reviews.

A reception to mark the opening of the exhibit is scheduled for Monday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Knight Library's Browsing Room. The public is invited to attend. Margarita Donnelly, Director of CALYX, will be the featured speaker, and Ursula K. Le Guin will read one of her poems about Calyx. For more information, please contact Linda Long, 346-1906 or Colleen Bell, 346-1817.