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Presentation examines role of women abolitionists

February 23, 2004

SPRINGFIELD - Stacey Robertson, director of Women’s Studies at Bradley University, will present “Fighting for Freedom: Midwestern Women Abolitionists” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 8, in Brookens Auditorium on campus at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Presented in observance of International Women’s Day, the program is free and open to the public.

A reception will immediately follow in UIS’ Public Affairs Center restaurant and is also free and open to the public.

“Fighting for Freedom” addresses the exciting and turbulent role that women played in all aspects of the American antislavery movement of the 19th century, from the Underground Railroad to antislavery political parties. Risking social ostracism and often violent opposition, women abolitionists challenged their communities to embrace liberty and, in the process, began to re-evaluate their own lives as well.

In addition to her duties in women’s studies, Robertson is also a member of the history faculty at Bradley. She received a Ph.D. in history with an emphasis in women’s history and the antislavery movement from the University of California at Santa Barbara and has received numerous fellowships and teaching awards.

Her appearance at UIS is made possible in part by an award from the Illinois Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois General Assembly, and is a program of the Road Scholar Program of the IHC Speakers Bureau. UIS sponsors are the Women’s Studies program, Women’s Center, Women’s Issues Caucus, Capital Scholars, and History program.

For more information, contact Deborah McGregor, UIS associate professor of History and Women’s Studies, at (217) 206-7439.