Calloway County Public Library and Murray State University’s Department of History celebrate Women’s History Month

MURRAY, Ky. — The Calloway County Public Library and the Murray State University Department of History will continue their joint lecture series on Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m., when Dr. Christine Lindner, associate professor of history, will present “The History of the National Organization for Women: 60 Years of Feminist Organizing” in the library’s Community Room B. All are welcome to attend. 

To celebrate March as Women’s History Month and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Organization for Women (NOW) —June 1966— Lindner will discuss the founders of the NOW movement, including Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray, and the major issues that NOW sought to address. This will be done by historically contextualizing the founding of NOW, its aims and goals within the dynamic environment of 1960s United States and international feminism. The presentation will also consider some of the challenges NOW faced (and continues to face), with particular consideration on its work for the Equal Rights Amendment. The presentation will also explore the history of NOW in western Kentucky, illuminating the local history of feminism in the region as part of the national movement.

The event is free, but donations of travel size personal hygiene products (body wash/soap, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner and deodorant) as well as menstrual products will be collected for distribution through Murray State’s Oakley Student Resource Center and West KY NOW’s Pad the Pantries campaign. 

Lindner is an associate professor of history at Murray State University. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Gordon College (U.S.), a master’s degree in women’s studies with a concentration on the Middle East from Durham University (UK), and her Ph.D. in Middle East history from the University of Edinburgh (UK). Her research focuses on women and the family in the early Protestant community in Ottoman Syria, as well as American women’s assertion of feminism through transnational activism in the Middle East. Since moving to Murray, she has conducted research on local history, including movements for racial and gender justice. She has been a member of the West KY chapter of the National Organization for Women since 2017, and currently serves as the chapter president.

For more information on the event, contact the Calloway County Public Library at contactccpl@callowaycountylibrary.org or 270-753-2288.