How did women exercise political power before they had the right to vote?  This is one question that teachers and students consider as they explore the myriad ways that women led political groups, mounted campaigns for justice, and worked to preserve tribal sovereignty, for example.  Now teachers and students have more resources that help fill out the contours of women’s activism in the west.  A digital history project, Women’s History in the Pacific West, offers 69 new biographies of women who influenced the National Park System.  Led by two UC Davis Professors, Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor and Lisa Materson, and funded by a grant from the National Park Service, this project has a special appeal for middle and high-school teachers who can integrate lesser-known, but critically-important women into their courses. 

As UC Davis’ Karen Nikos-Rose recently wrote, “The women, living and dead, who are featured in the 69 stories and the sites they represent, include:

• Lillian Bernice Snooks, who was at the forefront of the late 20th-century campaign to preserve Atsugewi (Native to northeastern California) culture and traditions. She was part of an extended family of women who pursued this work at Lassen Volcanic Park and other sites in a concerted effort to reject the U.S. assimilation campaigns that they had endured as children.
• María Feliciana Arballo, who as a 25-year-old widow of Afro-Latina descent with two small children was one of about 40 women in the Anza expedition when it began its colonizing journey from Sonora, Mexico, to Alta California, or upper California, in 1775. Juan Bautista de Anza specifically recruited families for this expedition, which was meant to place a Spanish stronghold in California and populate the region with Spanish-descended settlers. (Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail)
• Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta, co-founder, with César Chávez, of the National Farm Workers Association, who was born in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico, and grew up in Stockton, California. Her organizing and activism has focused on improving the lives and working conditions of agricultural laborers, especially among Latinx and Chicanx communities in the United States. (César E. Chávez National Monument)
• Geraldine Kenui Bell, who was the first Native Hawaiian woman to be superintendent of a National Park Service unit, and actually oversaw the operation of two different parks in Hawaii simultaneously after working her way up through the ranks of the park system while still very young. Bell has advocated for the celebration and protection of Hawaiian culture for current and future generations of Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians). As superintendent, she prioritized the repatriation of the iwi kupuna (ancestral bones) in the Pu‘uhonua O Hōnaunau’s museum accessions records. Bell worked with descendants, other Native Hawaiian organizations and the Hawaii Island Burial Council (which she later served on for eight years) to repatriate the iwi kupuna in a culturally respectful manner. (Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historic Park)
• Caro Luévanos-Garcia, who leads by example and social media to encourage hiking and other outdoor recreation among Latinx communities, especially middle-age and senior populations. The Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks helped to inspire her advocacy work. Luévanos-Garcia’s story demonstrates how experiencing national parks can transform individuals’ relationships with nature, as well as how visitors are claiming their own places of belonging in the parks.”

The CHSSP plans to release short lesson plans in alignment with this project in the coming months.  In the meantime, we invite teachers and students to explore this collection.