In honor of Women's History Month, The OE is pleased to feature the scholarship of OE author, Editorial Board member, and biographer of Esther Pohl Lovejoy, Dr. Kimberly Jensen.

"And now we come to the mooted question of Woman’s Sphere. It is delightfully entertaining to listen to a gentleman anti-suffragist – especially if he happens to be a Doctor of Divinity – rhapsodize upon Woman’s Sphere. The woman that he conjures up is a poetic creation of the imagination. How she does rock the cradle! It’s a wonder her baby doesn’t die of sea-sickness! She never washes dishes or peals [sic] potatoes, or feeds the chickens, or goes to market or engages in any gross and material occupation. She just rocks the cradle from morning until night! That is her strong suit. It is her one manifestation of life! She is a woman of one instinct – one idea – one possibility – and it is easy to believe any Right Reverend Doctor of Divinity who predicts that such a creature will forsake that over-worked cradle on the first opportunity and rush to the polls with a ballot in her hand and vote and vote and vote and do nothing else for the rest of her life but vote."

Esther Pohl Lovejoy, Speech to the Milwaukie Grange, Oregon, 1912

Women’s Resistance in Early Twentieth Century Oregon

From direct action to court action, women in Oregon used a variety of tactics to protest the state, and the status quo, in the early twentieth century. Women from diverse backgrounds protested as individuals and as members of political and labor organizations, seeking both personal freedom and justice for collective groups. They faced incarceration, harassment, and even physical violence as they worked to demand change. As historian Kimberly Jensen will demonstrate, their stories are important pieces of larger histories of citizenship, civil liberties, and dissent. Presented by Dr. Kimberly Jensen at the Oregon Historical Society on Sunday, April 14, 2019.