Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement

by Peggy Frankland, Susan Tucker (Editor)

Overview

Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement provides a window into the passion and significance of thirty-eight committed individuals who led a grassroots movement in a socially conservative state. The book is comprised of oral history narratives in which women activists share their motivation, struggles, accomplishments, and hardwon wisdom. Additionally interviews with eight men, all leaders who worked with or against the women, provide more insight into this rich--and also gendered--history. The book sheds light on Louisiana and America's social and political history, as well as the national environmental movement in which women often emerged to speak for human rights, decent health care, and environmental protection. By illuminating a crucial period in Louisiana history, the women tell how "environmentalism" emerged within a state already struggling with the dual challenges of adjusting to the civil rights movement and the growing oil boom. Peggy Frankland, an environmental activist herself since 1982, worked with a team of interviewers, especially those trained at Louisiana State University's T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History. Together they interviewed forty women pioneers of the state environmental movement. Frankland's work was aided by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. In this compilation, she allows the women's voices to provide a clear picture of how their smallest actions impacted their communities, their families, and their way of life. Some experiences were frightening, some were demeaning, and many women were deeply affected by the individual persecution, ridicule, and scorn their activities brought. But their shared victories reveal the positive influence their activism had on the lives of loved ones and fellow citizens.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496802446
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	01/21/2015
Pages:	259
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Peggy Frankland has served environmentalism in many capacities, notably as president of Calcasieu League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN) in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Susan Tucker wrote Telling Memories among Southern Women, which remains a classic introduction to oral history and household employment. She is also author of City of Remembering: A History of Genealogy in New Orleans and editor of New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories, both published by University Press of Mississippi.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments IX

Introduction XIII

Chapter 1 "How Could I Stand By?": Protecting one Place, Protecting Many 3

Sally Herman 5

Fernell Cryar 9

Barbara LeLeux 12

Catherine Holcomb 15

Monica Laughlin Mancuso 18

Helen Solar 21

Miriam Price 25

Chapter 2 "We are Black and White, Rich and Poor": Crossing Boundaries, Remaking Louisiana 30

Ann Williams 31

Rose Jackson 35

Marietta Herr 40

Ruth Shepherd 44

Theresa Robert 49

Kay Gaudet 53

Chapter 3 "I Know that it was a Revelation from God": Religion and Environmental action 59

Lorena Pospisil 60

Shirley Goldsmith 65

Gerry Ardoin 70

Janice Crador 74

Debra Ramirez 80

Chapter 4 "What a Few People can Do": Learning to Advocate for Others 85

Jessie Price 86

Gay Hanks 90

Mary Brasseaux 94

Florence Robinson 97

Mary Ellender 101

Carol Savoy 105

Chapter 5 "You are Not Somebody Pretending to be a Man": Success, Politics, and Gender 110

Mildred Fossier 112

Mary McCastle 118

Florence Gossen 123

Clara Baudoin 127

Liz Avants 132

Les Ann Kirkland 136

Mary Tutwiler 140

Chapter 6 "When Something is not Right, You Have to do Something about It": Career Activists Build Bridges 145

Sister Helen Vinton 146

Lorna Bourg 151

Marylee Orr 157

Linda King 162

Wilma Subra 166

Chapter 7 "We as a People are Better than our Politics": Allies, Experts, and Adversaries 174

Charles Elson "Buddy" Roemer 175

Carroll Wascom 179

Maureen O'Neill 185

Kai David Midboe 191

Dan Borne 197

Robert Kuehn 203

Audrey Evans 207

Paul Templet 211

Will Collette 217

William "Willie" A. Fontenot 221

Chapter 8 "There Was Never a Question of Data": Perspectives from Ten Years Out 228

Wilma Subra 231

Supplemental List of Women Environmental Activists 242

Notes 245

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

"By these testimonials, some of the most powerful evidence possible, the book describes a phenomenon—the rise of ordinary-seeming women to courageous and extraordinary achievements."

—Oliver A. Houck, author of Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases That Changed the World and Down on the Batture

"This highly remarkable book brings us the poignant, untold story of brave frontline activists who rose from their daily routines as homemakers, farmers, and teachers to fight a powerful company spewing toxic waste amidst an unsuspecting citizenry. They were not born to activism; they surprised themselves. But like the first abolitionists and suffragettes, these pioneers began a great awakening to the environmental disaster that remains with us still. A hugely inspiring book to guide us all in the crucial work ahead."

—Arlie Hochschild, author of The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times and The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home

From the Publisher