The Immigrant, Radical, Notorious Women of Washington Square
A lecture by Joyce Gold – 3 / 19

Home to many of the political, creative, and intellectual movements in New York’s history, the residences around Washington Square and its amazing female population account for much of that vitality.

Perhaps in no other neighborhood on earth have so many notable women lived and achieved for the last 150 years. Throughout the years, it has seen an unparalleled array of women—working class, gentry, radical, literary, academic, theatrical, convict, and immigrant. Eleanor Roosevelt, Edith Wharton, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Roebling, Bella Abzug, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Ida Tarbell, Emily Post, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and even the woman who invented the kewpie doll, all shared this famed New York neighborhood.

Highlights of the talk include:
• Literary, art, and theatre iconoclasts
• The salon of Mable Dodge, a center of WW I-era activism
• The tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and its role in the labor movement
• The Suffrage Movement

Joyce Gold teaches Manhattan history at New York University. A contributor to the Encyclopedia of New York, she is the author of From Windmills to the World Trade Center: A Walking Guide through Lower Manhattan History and From Trout Stream to Bohemia: A Walking Guide to Greenwich History. She holds a Masters in Metropolitan Studies from NYU. The New York Times has called her “the doyenne of city tour guides.”