Historians from around the nation will visit Cornell in March for Women's History Month to speak on subjects ranging from single motherhood to women in American theater.

A highlight of the month-long celebration at Cornell will be a symposium titled "From Fallen Women to Problem Girls: Single Pregnancy in Historical Perspective," featuring Regina Kunzel, assistant professor of history at Williams College. Kunzel authored the book Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 and the article "Pulp Fictions and Problem Girls: Reading and Rewriting Single Pregnancy in the Postwar U.S.," which appeared in the December 1995 issue of The American Historical Review.

"In my talk, I expect to focus on changing representations of single pregnant women, especially during the period I know best -- the first half of the 20th century," Kunzel said. "I will consider the first efforts to draw attention to single pregnancy, made by evangelical women who founded maternity homes at the turn of the century to 'redeem' unmarried mothers they understood as their 'fallen sisters.' Just a few decades later, social workers began to declare illegitimacy within their realm of expertise and redefined unmarried mothers as 'problem girls' to be 'treated.' "In tracing these shifting understandings of single pregnancy," Kunzel continued, "I hope to speak to the ways in which unmarried mothers have long been lightening rods, collecting larger fears about class, race, sexuality and the family. I hope, finally, to speculate about the current anxiety about single mothers and to talk about the power of representation in debates about single pregnancy, past and present."

The symposium will be held on Thursday, March 7, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Room 165 of Martha Van Rensselaer Hall and will include a panel with Cornell faculty members Rosemary Avery, associate professor of consumer economics and housing; Cybele Raver, assistant professor of human development and family studies (HDFS); and Elaine Wethington, associate professor of HDFS. It will be moderated by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of HDFS and women's studies.

Part of an annual series of programs sponsored by Cornell's College of Human Ecology, the symposium "is a forum for demonstrating the relevance of historical scholarship to issues in contemporary American society," according to Brumberg, a cultural and social historian.

Other Women's History Month programs at Cornell will include the following:

• Thursday, Feb. 29: Lecture by Faye E. Dudden '70, professor of history at Union College, "What Can Theater History Tell Us About Women's History? American Theater, 1790-1870," 7:30 p.m., Film Forum, Center for Theatre Arts. Dudden wrote the book Women in the American Theatre: Actresses and Audiences, 1790-1870, which won the 1995 George Freedley Award from the Theatre Library Association. -- Friday, March 1: Lecture and discussion with oral historian Roey Thorpe, "Stud, Butch, Femme, Fish: Race, Gender and Sexual Expression in Detroit Lesbian Communities," 3:30-5:30 p.m., Ives Hall faculty lounge.
• Wednesday, March 6: "La excritora ante su obra" (The Writer and Her Work)," lecture in Spanish by award-winning Madrid-based novelist Carmen Mart’n-Gaite, 4:30 p.m., Guerlac Room, A.D. White House.
• Friday, March 29: Panel and discussion featuring three Cornell graduate students: Jacqueline Hatton, "Add Women and Stir? New Recipes from Old Ingredients"; Susan Matt, "Keeping Up With the Mrs. Joneses"; and Liette Gidlow, "Hats Are Pretty Much of a Nuisance After All: The Construction of Women's Citizenship in the 1920s," 3:30-5:30 p.m., Ives Hall faculty lounge.
• Tuesday, April 2: Lecture by Mary Lowenthal Felstiner, professor of history at San Francisco State University, "To Paint Her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Era," 4:30 p.m., 122 Rockefeller Hall. Felstiner's presentation will include slides of the artist's paintings.

Sally McConnell-Ginet, director of the Cornell Women's Studies Program, said this year's guests were chosen to represent not just the range of work in women's history, but the ethnic and cultural range of the women doing the work. "One of our goals is to build bridges between women's studies and ethnic studies," she said, noting that this year's Women's History Month programming at Cornell includes a first-ever Spanish-language lecture.

"It is an unfortunate mark of the status of African-American and women's history that we get designated only a month," she added. "It's still the case that women's history is seen as somehow special and not paid as much attention in the mainstream."

All Women's History Month events are free and open to the public. Sponsors include the Cornell Women's Studies Program, the College of Human Ecology, and departments of German Studies, Theatre Arts, Romance Studies and Human Development and Family Studies.