In honor of America’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year, the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum is proud to present Melissa Gentry.
Gentry will offer her program in Crawfordsville at 7 p.m. Sept. 10 in the Carriage House Interpretive Center at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum.
This program will highlight the contributions toward the cause of women’s suffrage (and that of temperance) of Zerelda Wallace, her granddaughter, Zerelda Wallace Grover, and a few other suffragists from Crawfordsville. It will feature stories of how these women were connected to key figures in the national women’s franchise movement.
Gentry is the supervisor of the Paul W. Stout Map Collection at Ball State University Libraries, providing cartographic sessions and programs for the campus and community. She curates special exhibits and creates custom maps for the library collection and open education resources for distance-learning students and classroom projects. She is a member of the League of Women Voters and serves on the board of the Delaware County Historical Society.
Gentry has presented programs at the Indiana Association of Historians, the National Council on Public History, the In Her Own Right Symposium with the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, the Indiana Historical Bureau, the Indiana League of Women Voters Annual Meeting, and the Midwestern History Conference.
In 2019, she was selected as a speaker for the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial, and she created a set of story maps related to the history of the battle for the ballot in the state. She is included in the Library of Congress’ Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission database of scholars and attended the opening reception for the Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote exhibition opening reception in June 2019 in Washington, D.C. This past winter, Ms. Gentry appeared on the “Her March to Democracy” podcast from the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites.
This presentation is free and open to the public and the Carriage House is ADA accessible, seating is limited and reservations are strongly suggested.
For more information visit online at www.ben-hur.com or call Thomas Meeks at 765-362-5769 or email tmeeks@ben-hur.com.
