Connect With Your Library

National Library Week is April 3 through 9. The theme this year is Connect With Your Library. Our Russell County Public Library calendar is full of events for April. We have given you a reason to connect (or re-connect) with your library almost every day!

We are very excited about the talk The Face of America: One Woman’s (and Her Family’s) Adventures as an American Diplomat. On April 14, Rose Likins, a retired U.S. State Department diplomat, will share stories from her years stationed in Latin America and her experience raising kids abroad. Ms. Likins is presently Library Director at Smyth County Public Library. Please join us for this talk at 6:30 pm at the Lebanon Library.

A Cup and A Conversation is a new weekly adult program. Each Thursday at Lebanon from 10 am to noon we welcome adults to drop by and have a cup of coffee. You can work on a puzzle, play cards or just chat. Action Tables are another opportunity to talk about how to put your values into action; this program expands on the Values Tables from earlier this year. Action Tables meet at 1 pm on Mondays at Honaker and Fridays at Lebanon. 

Paracord, book art, collage, and crochet are some of the crafts we feature at our libraries this month. You can drop in and learn or grab a bag of supplies and take it home. Connect with Crafts is at 4 pm on Mondays at Honaker and Tuesdays at Lebanon. 

We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia is a free exhibition at Lebanon Library from March 29 through May 3. This traveling exhibition comes to us from the Library of Virginia and is an excellent opportunity to learn more about Virginia history. On April 20 at 7 pm, Brent Tarter, Barbara Babson, and Mari Julienne will discuss their book The Campaign for Woman Suffrage in Virginia via Zoom. We can send you a link to the Zoom meeting, or you can watch it in the Lebanon Library. 

Spring is here, and Covid is fading (mostly), so come in and pick up a book or a magazine, try a new craft, or listen to a talk, but most importantly, connect.

Posted by Kelly McBride Delph

The Invisible Half of the County

Russell County Public Library founded 1959

For thousands of years, women were the invisible half of the population. History records the men who led or excelled. Yet, when women were not elected to offices or appointed to boards, they still served. Women led. Look at this picture. The Women's Club was instrumental in the foundation of the public library in Russell County. And they did it in hose, heels, and hats. (And they had to iron much of what they wore...when was the last time you used an iron?!)

Women are more than half the population, yet we are still not represented fully in our communities' jobs and roles. We need to step up to the plate and serve--apply for the job, run for the office, coach the team.

As we take our full and rightful roles in society, we need to remember the women in the past and the present who have filled important roles, large and small. The Women's History Essay Contest is your opportunity to honor a women who is native to or lived in Russell County. Russell County Public Library holds the Women's History Essay Contest every other year and the judges use the essays to recommend women for the Russell County Women's Hall of Fame. 

Write the women of Russell County into history with your essay.

Posted by Kelly McBride Delph 

Writing Our History

Women are half of the population; but if you read history, you hear mostly about the men who led society for years. The women were always there, but in the shadows. Come March, we encourage you to shine a light on women, specifically a Russell County woman.

In honor of Women's History Month, this March Russell County Public Library will again sponsor our Women's History Essay Contest. The purpose of the contest is to highlight women in Russell County history and to suggest women who might have a place in the Russell County Women's Hall of Fame.

The contest deadline is March 15 and the word limit is 500, so you must be brief and to the point. Click here for additional guidelines.  A panel of independent judges reads the essays and their decisions are final.

Join us at the Lebanon Library on March 29 at 5 pm for our Women's History Celebration. We will honor the winning authors and induct any nominees to the Hall of Fame.

March is only a few weeks away, so start thinking and making notes now. Create our history one word--and one woman--at a time.

Contributed by Kelly McBride Delph

Virginia Women of Merit

Virginians of merit have been honored with a statue at Capitol Square in Richmond since 1858. In that year, an equestrian statue of George Washington, native son and first president of the nation, was unveiled. Other prominent Virginians honored include a doctor, a general, and a poet.

Since it's Women's History Month, do you know how many women are honored with a statue in Capitol Square? Well...there are women represented on the Civil Rights Monument. That's about it. But change is in the air.

Voices from the Garden, the Virginia Women's Monument, will have 12 statues cast in bronze of women representing over 400 years of Virginia history. These women were selected to represent various spheres of interest and geographic areas of the state.
The monument will have a glass panel on one side that is etched with the names of other noteworthy Virginia women.  A  bench, listing milestones in Virginia women’s history, will make up the other side.

Visit the Virginia Women’s Monument Commission to learn which two women from Southwest Virginia are honored with a statue. Nominations are being accepted for names of noteworthy Virginia women who's names will be etched in the glass wall. Who will you nominate?

You can also visit to the Virginia Capitol website to see pictures of the many statues and monuments in the square and even in the Capitol itself.

The monument is being paid for by private donations, so the Virginia Women's Monument Commission is happy to accept donations, too!

Voting, History, and Women

Today is March 1st. It's Primary Day in Virginia.      
What if you didn't have the right to vote?

In many states in the union, you needed to be a property owner and pay a poll tax to be allowed to vote. This was true until well into the 20th century. In Russell County, that means that in 1860 of the 10,280 residents, less than half of them were eligible to vote. Neither could the white women; there were 4,514 white females in the county, of which maybe half were of an age to vote. The Supreme Court case that overturned the collection of the poll tax from voters in presidential elections originated here in Virginia...and was only overturned in 1964.

The nearly 1,000 black people who were slaves in Russell County in 1860 could not vote. The 15th Amendment (1870) prohibited denying any citizen the right to vote because of race, color or previous condition of servitude. But it was nearly 100 years before that amendment became a reality, for black men or women.

Almost every woman now alive in the United States was born with the right to vote. Oddly enough, many New England states did allow women to vote until the early 1800s. In the late 1800s four western states gave full voting rights to women. It wasn't until 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, that women were allowed to vote in federal elections.In 1920, the Russell County population was 26,786. The population of females over 21 was 5,562, while the male population over 21 was 6,347. 

Today in Russell County, only 18,500 people are registered to vote. (Of the approximately 28,897 people in Russell County, over 22,000 are old enough to vote.) If you are not registered, you can register and vote in the presidential election in November. Just get registered by September, and don't forget that photo ID when you head to the polls in November.

Are you registered to vote?       Will you vote today?