In 2013, a member of the North Country Women, Valerie Summer, donated materials from the Women Together newsletters (Women Together Newsletter – CONTENTdm Title). Student Emma Berry (SLU ’14), working with History Professor Dr. Judith DeGroat, Director of Research & Digital Scholarship Eric Williams-Bergen, and Mark McMurray from Special Collections organized the donated material within the St. Lawrence University Special Collections (https://library.stlawu.edu/sites/default/files/2020-12/MSS180.pdf) where later professors such as DeGroat and others drew on these materials for student courses pertaining to local history and activism.
In 2017, student Alex Whalen (SLU ’20) began a student fellowship where she interviewed members of the North Country Women, including Valerie Summer, using the fellowship as a basis for her honors thesis. In 2021, DeGroat, Williams-Bergen, and Camilla Ammirati from TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) received a grant from CIC to further research about the project, soon labeled Rural Feminisms, which involved further interviews, research, and a culminated exhibit in the spring held at TAUNY (https://www.ruralfeminismsproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/CIC-Grant-Project-Poster-Rural-Feminisms-in-the-North-Country-3.pdf).
In 2022, student Colleen McKernan (SLU ’23) continued work on the project through a fellowship with the intention to continue research and create a website to more publicly share information about the Rural Feminisms project. The goal of this website is recognize and honor the women involved, such as the North Country Women, women who took part in creating Women Together, and women who thought of and enacted feminism, activism, and other feminist activity.
Student Team Members; Alex Whalen ’20, Colleen McKernan ’23, Emma Berry ’14, Sarah Hentschke, and Isabella Wellman-Webster.
