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Newsletter - May 16, 2024

LWVIN | Published on 5/16/2024
LWVIN EVENTS 2024-25
2024 President's Day
September/October 2024 Location to be determined

2025 League Day at the State House
Indianapolis, IN Exact mid-session date to be determined

2025 LWVIN Biennial Convention
June 6-8, 2025 Ft. Wayne, IN
 

These two organizations have joined forces to educate and empower voters in 2024--a powerful combination!

ALA and LVW PARTNERSHIP

“Leagues and libraries have a rich history of partnership, working together to serve their communities through education, outreach, and civic engagement.”

~Alma Couverthie, LWVUS

"The League of Women Voters and ALA share a strong commitment to civic participation and a history of community trust across the nation. Joining forces at the national level will enable us to scale decades of educating and empowering voters at the local level."

~Emily Drabinski, ALA

To launch that partnership, ALA and the League will host a webinar, League of Women Voters and America;s Libraries: Partners to Count On, on May 29, 2-3 p.m. ET. The webinar is open to all and will highlight the experiences of library/League partners, with actionable ideas and key learnings from their work together. To register, go HERE.

This announcement couldn’t have come at a better time! Our Citizen's Education Handbook, developed with support from a Making Democracy Work grant, is now complete and online at LWVIN.org. A few hard copies are being sent to each Local League and we hope to make it available through libraries all across the state of Indiana.

The CITIZEN'S EDUCATION HANDBOOK is available to read on the LWVIN website. Go HERE and click on the image to view it. The copy is identical to the printed version but the links are clickable.
HOOSIERS FOR RENEWABLES:

A Resource for Informing and Engaging at the Local Level

The LVWUS Impact on Issues states that “climate change is a serious threat facing our nation and our planet,” and it goes on to include in its list of solutions the “promotion of renewable resources.”

As issues come up related to wind and solar developments in your local communities, we recommend Hoosiers for Renewables as a resource for becoming informed and engaged. Hoosiers for Renewables works to help all stakeholders who want to support renewable energy developments in their county.

There are a range of resources on their website, including answers to frequently asked questions; economic and other benefits to communities; survey data showing bipartisan Hoosier support for renewables; and studies by Purdue and Ball State on the impact of renewable energy developments.

Also, Hoosiers for Renewables Executive Director Rachel Conner will be contacting our LWVIN natural resources advocacy co-chairs when there are meetings coming up in a particular community, so we can get in touch with local League leaders and introduce them to Rachel if they wish.

If you have any questions about Hoosiers for Renewables, please contact natural resources advocacy co-chair Kristina Lindborg, at kristina.lindborg@gmail.com.
FORGOTTEN FOREMOTHERS
Profiles of lesser-known heroines in the fight for women's rights
Laura Bridgman
Laura in her mid-20s, around 1855. Image by Southworth & Hawes; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Public Domain
Laura in the late 1880s holding one of her handmade doilies. Image by Warren’s Portraits, Boston, Massachusetts. Dartmouth College archives
Called “Helen Keller before Helen Keller,” Laura Bridgman was a blind and deaf woman educated as part of a physician’s experiment in the 1840s. She rattled the bars of her scientific cage, demonstrating a crucial (yet still debated) truth: the innate humanity of the disabled.

In 1842, famed English author Charles Dickens traveled the eastern United States. He recorded and published his observations in American Notes for General Circulation. While in Boston, Charles visited the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind. “Like most other public institutions in America, of the same class,” Charles wrote, “it stands a mile or two without the town, in a cheerful and healthy spot.”

There at this institute, Charles met “a fair young creature with every human faculty, and hope, and power of goodness and affection, enclosed within her delicate frame” by the name of Laura Bridgman.

Laura Dewey Bridgman was born over 100 miles northwest of Boston in the green and woodsy area of Hanover in New Hampshire on Dec. 21, 1829, to Harmony and Daniel Bridgman. The family had welcomed two daughters before Laura, who was born frail and unwell.

Throughout the 1800s, scarlet fever, a disease caused by the Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria, ravaged Massachusetts in regular intervals. The 1832 outbreak claimed the lives of her two older sisters. Laura survived, though she was profoundly harmed.

To read the full article go HERE.
Kathryn S. Gardiner
Pam Locker, Editor, LWVIN Voter






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