OSU Celebrates Women's History with Oral Histories

Check out the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program (OOHRP) at the Oklahoma State University Library. Explore the following websites:

Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project
http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/owhof/

Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project
http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/wotol/

Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry: Oklahoma Women and the Dust Bowl
http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/dustbowl/

Want to learn more? Call OOHRP at 405-744-7685, email liboh@okstate.edu, or visit http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/.

OSU's Oral History Research Program Interviews Oklahoma's Women Legislators

Oklahoma State University has an oral history program which operates out of the Edmond Lowe Library. One initiative records the voices of the women inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame which is hosted by the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women. Project leader here is Juliana Nykolaiszyn.

Another effort is their "Remembering Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel: Poet and Dust Bowl Emigrant" project. Here prreservation of materials, historical documents and oral memories focus on Oklahoma poet Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel. Project leader on this effort is Karen Neurohr.

Not surprisingly, the project I get most excited about is OSU's oral history of the "Women of the Oklahoma Legislature." Here OSU is chronicling the lives of the women who served in the Oklahoma House and Senate. It records their memories plus holds historical documents of these extraordinary women past and present. This project is lead by Tanya Finchum.

The image in the post comes out of that effort. Hope they get more information up on the Internet so we can know more on this project (or maybe it is there and I can't find it). :-)

Here is a list of all women who have served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. (Anyone know of a similar list for all women who have served in the Oklahoma State Senate?)

OSU's Maud A. Spear

The fall 2007 issue of Oklahoma State University's alumni magazine has an article on Maud Agnes Spear who was the first woman admitted to - and to graduate (1915) OSU's engineering program. The Women in Engineering House is known as Maud's Quad. I can't find a link to the magazine but it says she was born in Illinois Nov 15, 1892 to John and Catherine Spear. Her father taught in Native American children in government schools which eventually brought the family to Oklahoma. Both she and her sister, Mary, were active OSU (A&M back then of course)students. Maud took a job with an architectural firm in Milwaukee, WI and later moved to Washington, DC. There she met and married Leland Olds. They had 4 children. She continued to work as an architect and her husband had quite a career himself. She died in 1990 at the age of 97.