Amy is brought in by Pacifica Radio Archives (http://fromthevaultradio.org) to comment, contextualize and make relevant these three recently unearthed Women’s History Radio Dramas recorded in 1959.
So I’m in The Dance Store, with my about to be bat-mitzvahed daughter, setting up her mitzvah project (mitzvah is a good deed). Her project is gathering used dance items for the less fortunate (HER idea). So my cell phone rings. It’s Donna, my producer and friend and from KPFK Pacifica Radio where I host Motherhood Unplugged, a radio show I do sometimes. She says “Amy, I have a few questions for you and if you answer them correctly, there’s a prize”. “OK”, I say, feeling proud of my daughter and up for a challenge. She continues; “I’m here with Mark Torres from the station’s archives (Pacifica Radio has an incredible archive) and he wants to know if you know who Lucretia Mott it?” “Are you kidding? And I go off on a cool Quaker, ordained minister, huge influence on Elizabeth Cady Stanton Lucretia Mott rant. “How about Angelina Grimke?” “Of course!” I respond. I LOVE Angelina Grimke – and go off on another rant about how she and her sister Sarah were these ballsy Southern Women who stood up to slavery, were turned out of their hometown and on and on until she interrupts me with “how about Margaret Fuller?” Margaret Fuller, Woman In The Nineteenth Century is the seminal feminist – she cuts me off and the next thing I know I am asked to come in and work on this project called American Woman, Fact And Fiction, a fourteen part radio theater series written and performed in 1959. They needed someone – an expert – to put it all into context and make it relevant. Hello!!!! This baby’s got my name all over it! In I go, cds I get, listen I do and wow!!! Check it out. REAL theater on the radio, profiling LOTSA my gals!! I got six, thirty-minute programs, coupled to make three shows. They are labeled: Anne Hutchinson Colonial Women the first show, Lucretia Mott and Feminist In Early 1800s is the second show and Margaret Fuller (written as Feller) and Suffrage is the third show all airing on Pacifica Radio Archives. (In Los Angeles it airs weekly on Thursday nights at 11PM) I had a blast (and spent A LOT OF TIME) working on this. Written by a woman – Virginia Maynard in 1959, narration by a man and so very 1950s in tone and presentation, the plays within – and there are all sorts of re-enactments with lots of really good voice actors – are really something! It IS theater on the radio and I LOVED IT.
So take a listen. It’s cool.
From the Vault: The American Woman, Part 1