Speakers Bureau Speaker
Judy Nolte Temple, Tucson
Professor Judy Nolte Temple teaches in the Women’s Studies and English Departments at the University of Arizona. She is a past-president of the Western Literature Association and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to New Zealand in 2003, where she studied the journals of English missionary women. She has edited two books of essays on literature of the Southwest and written two books on women diarists. The first book is A Secret to be Burried, about an Iowa pioneer, and the second is Baby Doe Tabor: The Madwoman in the Cabin.
Presentations are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
Family Secrets: The Uneasy Tradition of Diarists and Their Readers
The long tradition of diary-writing dates from the 17th century, when people like Samuel Pepys described their days–and their deviations into sins. Some argue that this private sort of writing can form a "serial autobiography" especially suited to women. This talk will trace the history of diaries and the various motives of their writers, famous, infamous, and unknown. How do censorship, self-censorship, and coding make diaries mysteries to be solved? Now that many diaries are published, how are family relations strained when private thoughts become public? How do today’s on-line blogs tease the line between privacy and publicity? This presentation will cover such diarists as Anne Frank, Anais Nin, and Overland Trail men and women.
• Host organization provides slide projector.
Wealth, Power and Prejudice on the American Mining Frontier: The Tragedy of Horace Tabor and His Beautiful "Baby Doe"
Horace and "Baby Doe" Tabor are mining frontier legends who touch the "bedrock" of American beliefs about manly risk, wealth, and the existence of two "types" of pioneer women--the prostitute and the sunbonnet saint. Once Horace became the richest man in the late 19th-century West, he discarded his first wife, Augusta, for the much-younger and notorious Irish divorcee, "Baby Doe." Horace invested unwisely and became bankrupt, and after his untimely death, his widow and two young daughters moved to the Matchless Mine above Leadville, Colorado. Additional tragedies haunted "Baby Doe" as she grew from a beauty to a starving and eccentric crone over a period of thirty years. The Tabor saga also highlights less appealing American themes such as anti-Mormon and anti-Irish sentiments. This illustrated talk mines the previously unseen writings of "Baby Doe" that argue against her being a "bad" woman and demonstrate how she finally achieved an acceptable role for women as the "Good Widow." The Tabor saga has inspired the often-performed American opera "The Ballad of Baby Doe," as well as numerous books and graphic memorabilia.
• Host organization provides slide projector.
