About Little Berks 2026

Schedule

• 6:00 p.m. Welcome Reception and Dinner — Capo Capo, the Marriott bar and restaurant (drop-in style)
• 9:00 p.m. Games & Social Time

• 8:00–9:30 a.m. Breakfast — Marriott V-VIII
• 9:45–11:00 a.m. Concurrent Panels — Marriott Ballroom IV
  1A The Politics of Care: Women, Medicine, and Reproductive Justice in Historical Perspective

  Moderator: Natalie Lira, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

  “Mother Knows Best: Mary Bickerdyke and Maternal Medical Authority in the Civil War Era” — Megan VanGorder, Governors State University

  This paper explores the professional legacy of Mary Ann Bickerdyke, a Civil War-era nurse who wielded maternal identity as a form of medical and moral authority, transforming perceptions of women’s professional roles in nineteenth-century America. Dubbed “Mother Bickerdyke” by Union soldiers, her caregiving extended far beyond battlefield nursing, encompassing resource mobilization, palliative care, and post-war advocacy for veterans. Through her work, Bickerdyke challenged traditional gender norms by merging domestic maternal practices with public health initiatives, navigating institutional barriers, and asserting her authority in male-dominated spaces. Using archival sources and digital paleography, the paper examines how Bickerdyke’s care strategies illuminated broader societal tensions around health, gender, and power during the transition from home-based medical care to professionalized medicine.

  “Building a Vital Community Health Service: Planned Parenthood in Maryland, 1957–1974” — Carole McCann, University of Maryland Baltimore

  This paper examines the development of Planned Parenthood of Maryland from a small volunteer-run clinic in the 1950s to a professionally staffed clinic by 1974. Supported by medical professionals, women volunteers, and African American and Jewish community leaders, the organization framed contraception as essential for both women’s health and community wellbeing. Drawing on archival records, the paper argues that the organization’s growth relied on building diverse civic coalitions and securing public funding. However, these strategies also linked the organization to racialized and elitist population control agendas that complicated reproductive autonomy for marginalized women.

  “Neglected Well-Being: Reconceptualizing the Well-Being of Black Mothers within the Child Welfare System” — Shanequewa L. Love, Northwestern University

  Using Black Feminist Thought, this paper examines the paradox of the child welfare system’s mission to strengthen families while marginalizing Black mothers. It reconceptualizes well-being through the experiences of Black mothers navigating the system and argues for more intersectional frameworks of care that recognize structural inequalities.
• 11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Concurrent Panels — Marriott Ballroom IV
  2A Recipes, Resistance, and Resilience: Women, Memory, and Well-Being across Historical Worlds

  Moderator: Traci Parker, University of California, Davis

  “Recipes on Parade Foreign Foods”: How Community Cookbooks Helped Officers’ Wives Clubs to Form and Sustain Military Family Communities — Christine Cook, Independent scholar and adjunct professor at the US Navy War College

  When the call went out for international recipes to include the Officers’ Wives Club (OWC) community cookbook in 1969, appropriately enough women submitted recipes from bases around the world. The most famous submission came from Pat Nixon, who, as the wife of the Commander-in-Chief, served as the honorary head of the many OWCs. Almost every Army post or Naval or Air Force base had its own OWC’s community cookbook at some point. How did the military Officers Wives Clubs use community cookbook writing to form communities that could sustain military families during the 1960s-1970s? Military OWCs used cookbooks to help build the military family community so they could sponsor events that supported everyone who lived on the military bases. These events helped forge relationships and networks that could sustain military families when their spouse or fathers were deployed to war. The cookbooks themselves reflected an international palate due soldiers and families that lived around the world.

  “Daughters of Massive Resistance and Integration: White Women, White Girls, and Memories of White Supremacy in Norfolk, Virginia” — Rebekah Toussaint, William & Mary

  This paper explores how white women remember the era of Massive Resistance and school integration in Norfolk, Virginia. Drawing on oral histories with women who attended Norfolk Public Schools during this period, the study examines tensions between lived experience, historical reality, and retrospective memory. It considers how narratives of white girlhood shape contemporary understandings of segregation, racial violence, and integration.

  “Queen Luise in Pyrmont: Queenship, Politics, and Well-Being during the Napoleonic Wars” — Samantha Sproviero, Temple University

  This paper examines the relationship between queenship and wellbeing through Queen Luise of Prussia’s 1806 visit to the spa town of Pyrmont. Despite being sent to recover from a nervous crisis, Luise remained engaged in political discussions critical to Prussia’s foreign policy. The study analyzes spa culture in early nineteenth-century Europe and explores how royal women negotiated bodily health, political duty, and the performative nature of monarchy.
• 12:30–2:30 p.m. Lunch (on your own—see local restaurant guide)
• 2:45–4:00 p.m. Berks Committees or Waterways to Freedom Walking Tour (self-guided) Article and Prize Committee Guideline Revisions (Marriott V-VIII): Led by Katrina Gulliver Building Berks Campus Chapters (James III): Led by Audra Jennings Strategic Plan and Public History Engagement (Marriott Ballroom IV): Led by Traci Parker
• 6:00 p.m. Reception — Rooftop Terrace/Pool Deck
• 7:00–9:00 p.m. Dinner — Rooftop Terrace/Pool Deck
• 9:00 p.m. Games & Social Time

• 8:30–9:30 a.m. Breakfast — Marriott V-VIII
• 9:45–11:00 a.m. Concurrent Panels — Marriott Ballroom IV
  3A Archiving Feminism: Women, Memory, and Movement Building

  Moderator: Katrina Gulliver, Foundation for Economic Education

  “Women Interwove a Trans-local History of Hwa Nan College in the Early Twentieth Century” — Shu Wan, University at Buffalo, New York

  This paper examines the transnational networks that shaped the development of Hwa Nan College in Fuzhou, China. It traces the collaborative educational efforts of women missionaries from Iowa and Chinese students who later studied at colleges in Iowa. Through case studies of three graduates, the study highlights how these women promoted Chinese culture in the United States while strengthening educational institutions in China upon their return.

  “Reclaiming Clio, Restoring the Forgotten to the Narrative, Challenging the Field’s Standard Origin Story” — Jennifer Banning Tomás, Piedmont Virginia Community College

  This paper will discuss the archival research and aha moments that led the speaker to write a book challenging the commonplace claim that there was no field of women’s history in the United States before the 1970s and second wave feminism generated a demand for it. This research enabled her to restore a largely forgotten generation of midcentury feminist historians and archivists to a well-deserved central place in the field’s origin story. These women’s strategies and struggles within the ivory tower set precedents, built important institutions, feminist history networks, and a stable foundation for the field upon which the next generation of feminist historians stood and continued to build. The paper will suggest why this is an important corrective and why their stories should matter to us in 2026.

  “‘F-Stopping the Revolution’: Bettye Lane, News Photography and Feminism, 1969–1990” — Carol Quirke, SUNY Old Westbury

  This paper examines the work of photojournalist Bettye Lane, whose photography documented key moments in the women’s movement. Drawing on archival collections, the study analyzes how Lane’s images helped build a feminist counter-public through movement publications and visual documentation of activism, offering a more intersectional record of feminist history.
• 11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Concurrent Panels — Marriott Ballroom IV
  4A Sold Down the River: Digital Histories of the Domestic Slave Trade

  Moderator: Audra Jennings, Western Kentucky University

  “Sold Down the River: Digital Histories of the Domestic Slave Trade” — Stephanie Richmond, Norfolk State University

  Norfolk, Virginia was a major port in the domestic slave trade to New Orleans and other Deep South port cities. Between 1800 and 1860, over 20,000 enslaved men, women and children were loaded onto ships just a few hundred feet from the hotel where the Little Berks is meeting this year and taken to New Orleans. Once in Louisiana, they were sold to labor in the sugar and cotton fields of the Mississippi River Valley. This presentation will tell some of their stories and then take interested attendees to the sites of the jail and docks where enslaved people’s lives were irrevocably changed.
• 12:30–2:30 p.m. Lunch (on your own—see local restaurant guide)
• 2:30–3:30 p.m. Concurrent Panels — Marriott Ballroom IV
  5A Graduate Student Council Roundtable: Crafting Projects and Future Plans

  Moderators: Sonia Gomez, Santa Clara University and Yelana Sims, University of South Carolina

  This roundtable invites anyone interested in the Berk’s Graduate Student Council to join a discussion of the committee’s purpose, its goals, and its plans for the future. Panelists will be able to offer insight into the current activities and future initiatives that the committee will be undertaking and audience members are invited to contribute their insights on how to better invite, retain, and support graduate students in the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. Keeping in the restful and restorative spirit of the Little Berks, this session is designed for attendees to join the panelists both in conversation and in crafting.

  Mallory Hardesty, Loyola University

  Hadeel Jeanne, University of Massachusetts Amherst

  Kaci DeLisle, University of California, Berkeley
• 3:30–4:30 p.m. Annual Business Meeting — Marriott Ballroom IV
• 6:00 p.m. Reception — Rooftop Terrace/Pool Deck (Cocktail attire encouraged)
• 7:00–9:00 p.m. Dinner and Keynote — Marriott Ballroom IV (Cocktail attire encouraged)
  Dr. Felicia Kornbluh, “Love Among the Ruins: Lesbian Community, Ableist Gender, and Constitutional Change”
• 9:00 p.m. Games & Social Time

• 8:00–10:00 a.m. Breakfast — Marriott V-VIII