Your Tennessee State Museum is presenting two very special women-oriented programs in mid-August that you can experience in person or virtually. The museum is located adjacent to downtown Nashville at the corner of Jefferson Street and Rosa L. Parks. Ample free parking is included and there is no admission charge.
Music for Seniors: A Vote of Her Own is on Wednesday, August 16, 2023, from 11:00 a.m. until 12 Noon. Singer/songwriters Candace Corrigan and Janne Henshaw, accompanied by additional cast members, will present songs and stories from their latest collaboration, A Vote of Her Own. This dynamic new musical tells the story of winning the vote for American women. The full presentation premiered at Knoxville’s Bijou theatre in August 2022, and is now being presented as part of the TSM Music for Seniors free daytime concert series.
Set in Nashville, the musical takes place in the hot, humid summer of 1920 and tells the true story of the dramatic encounters of legislators, pro-suffragists and anti-suffragists as they battle over the critical vote needed to ensure national women’s suffrage. This powerful and engaging show includes 11 original songs, 4 vintage songs, impassioned speeches, passion, intrigue and humor.
The next day, Thursday, August 17, Lunch and Learn: Young Women’s Education in Tennessee will run from 12:00 Noon until 1:00 p.m., presented by Julia Doyle, in-person in the Museum’s Digital Learning Center It will also be livestreamed on the Museum’s website at TNMuseum.org/Videos. This program will explore the educational facilities and opportunities of young women in 19th-century Tennessee through a survey of samplers from the State Museum’s collections.
In the 19th century, the establishment of female academies and seminaries throughout Tennessee reflected the increasing access to education for women. Samplers were common educational tools, used both as memory and teaching aids as well as a way to develop a girl’s needlework skills. Through the study of material objects, information on the education of young women in Tennessee — either at a female academy or at home — can be revealed by studying the works produced by these students.
Samplers have a long history as a practical form of decorative art. Samplers were embroidered textiles produced by women, particularly young girls as part of their education. They often feature the alphabet or numbers and could be taught by a female relative, teacher, or at an academy. As samplers often feature the maker’s name and date of completion, as well as references to their location, the makers are often identifiable, and thus serve as historic records of these girls’ early lives. Historians have been able to make connections between certain teachers, students, and schools in a region by identifying similar stitching styles and motifs within the samplers.
Julia Doyle is a dress and textile historian in Nashville, TN. She is the curator of textiles at the Tennessee State Museum, where her work focuses on the cataloging and collecting of textiles in the museum’s collection. Her work also focuses on developing new exhibitions and interpreting the textiles for display. Julia received her Master of Letters in Dress and Textile Histories from the University of Glasgow. She received her undergraduate degrees in History and Art History from Mount Holyoke College.
