Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 6, 1993 TAG: 9306060129
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Less known are the two portraits and one memorial to women. But the developers of "The Women of Virginia Historic Trail" hope to change that. They are trying to remind Virginians of the accomplishments of women by providing a path to 30 sites in the state honoring women, including American Indian Pocahontas and country musician Maybelle Carter.
"It's important to try and teach young women, and older women, too, the history and contributions of women to the state of Virginia," said Karen Keesling of Falls Church, project director for the trail sponsored by the Virginia Business and Professional Women's Foundation.
At the Capitol, Queen Elizabeth I and Lady Nancy Astor, Great Britain's first woman member of Parliament, are honored with portraits. There also is a marble memorial to Lila Meade Valentine - an early 20th-century lobbyist for children's and women's issues as well as voting rights.
Keesling said the Virginia trail is modeled on ones she discovered in Michigan and Boston and inspired by Suzanne Lebsock's 1987 book, "A Share of Honour," a history of Virginia women from 1600 to 1945.
Among the better-known names on the trail are Dolley Madison and Martha Washington. Lebsock, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the wives of the founding fathers have a place on the trail in their own right.
"For one thing, they are the names that people tend to know before they come to Virginia. The other thing is there's more appreciation by the decade that wives had important roles," she said.
A trail brochure includes short biographies, a map, and a list of important sites. The business women's foundation printed 26,000 copies in October.
by CNB