Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/203490
Sarasota News Leader November 1, 2013 Page 68 HISTORIAN TO REVEAL SECRETS OF FLORIDA'S 'FORGOTTEN WOMEN' "Do you know anything about Julia Tuttle, Mahulda Carrier, Carrie Abbe, Rose Wilson or Victoria Brandon?" asks a news release from the Historical Society of Sarasota County. "Probably not," the release continues, "but you should." These women, along with the more familiar Marie Selby, Bertha Palmer, Mabel Ringling, Zora Neale Hurston and Harriet Beecher Stowe, will be the focus of "a lively and informative presentation by Sarasota-based Florida historian Hope Black, who aims to uncover the lives and achievements of women who made their way to Florida between 1842 and 1918 and had a huge impact on the growth and development of this state," the release adds. Black's presentation, Florida Women: Familiar and Forgotten, will take place on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. in the Crocker Memorial Church, located at 1260 12th St. (Pioneer Park) in Sarasota. Members of the Historical Society of Sarasota County will be admitted free; for the general public, the cost is $10. Black will give an illustrated presentation and then conduct a question-and-answer session "about the extraordinary and diverse group of women who came to Florida in the 19th and 20th centuries and made significant changes in the culture and landscape of the state," the release notes. Hope Black/Contributed photo member of the Historical Society of Sarasota County as well as a former board member, it adds. "These women whom I have come to know and greatly admire came from different backgrounds with varying degrees of resources, education, voracity and goals," said Black in the release. "Some came to Florida with an inheritance and a dream to fulfill, while others were single women with an unstoppable passion for activism. Some women came as children, the daughters of women who dutifully followed their homesteading husbands." She continues in the release, "But, all but one of these courageous women shared one common bond: They sacrificed creature comforts in an ordered society to brave a wild frontier plagued by roving animals, insects and reptiles and prejudices unique to the South." For more information about Black's presentation, contact Linda Garcia at the Historical A native of Rochester, NY, Black received her master's degree in liberal arts from the Society, 364-9076; or Marsha Fottler at University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. 371-8593. "She wrote her thesis on Bertha Honore Palmer and has concentrated her research through the years on people who have been important in the evolution of the Sunshine State," the release points out. Black is a frequent speaker on Florida history and a