Women Who Dared, Series Two
Wednesdays, March 4, 11, and 18 | 1:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Bethany Congregational Church 556 N. Hope Avenue, Santa Barbara
VISTAS member price: $40; non-member price: $60
Coordinated by Laurie Guitteau
Last March we introduced a new series of VISTAS talks, titled “Women Who Dared,” intended to highlight women who ignored the traditions of their time and contributed significantly to their world, always against tremendous challenges. In this second series, another team of copresenters (Peggy Perhac, Suzanne Croft, Jill Breedon, Barbara Levi, Barbara Lindemann, and Kate Feldstein) will cover six such women. Victoria Woodhull Martin, the first woman to run for US president, in 1872, fought many of the same battles that women still fight today. Julia Morgan was one of the first female engineering majors at Berkeley, the first female graduate of École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and the first licensed woman architect in California. Mary Anning was an 18th-century English fossil collector whose findings contributed to knowledge of prehistoric life. Lise Meitner rose to prominence among European physicists and was on the verge of her biggest discovery—nuclear fission—when, as a Jew, she was forced to flee Nazi Germany. Margaret Sanger was a nurse who devoted her life to making contraceptives available to all women. Katharine Dexter McCormick, in the 1890s, became the second woman to attend MIT. She went on to be an advocate for women’s rights and for those with mental illness.