Susan's Speaking and Performance Topics Learn history the fun way ~ Contact Susan to perform one of her unique presentations for your convention, library, historical society or educational group.

• Recipe for Justice! Susan invites her audience members to help recreate scenes from her rollicking, poignant suffrage play. Through narrative, stories, recipes, and period music, Butruille shares the dramatic tale of Washington equal suffrage from territorial beginnings through finally winning permanent voting rights in 1910 and inspiring the final campaign for national suffrage in 1920. Meet Washington suffragists May Arkwright Hutton and Emma Smith DeVoe. Witness early suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton questioning religion, and Susan B. Anthony defending herself at her trial for voting. Learn about the gentle “jailbird” Alice Paul, and Inez Milholland, who died for the cause. Listed on Washington Women’s History, www.washingtonwomenshistory.org.

• Suffrage Backlash! After American women won suffrage in 1920, many believed that the power of their vote would gain more rights for themselves and pull the nation toward peace and desperately needed social reforms. It worked for a while. But the same forces that had opposed suffrage came together to oppose Progressive reforms. The Red Smear Attack directly linked prominent women’s organizations such as AAUW and their leaders (“pink sisters”) with the Bolsheviks and “International Socialism.” History, poetry, speeches, newspaper articles, and period music such as labor songs relate stories of post-suffrage Progressivism and the “Suffrage Backlash.” Photographs and charts illustrate the program.

• Westward Bound! Oregon Trail author Susan Butruille recreates stories from the Oregon Trail through narrative, songs, poetry, and audience participation. A popular Elderhostel program.

• It Seems That I Was Inspired: Abigail Scott Duniway, Northwest Suffragist. A one-act solo play. Oregon Trail emigrant Abigail Scott Duniway defies Victorian convention and starts her own newspaper as a tool to win rights for women in the Northwest. Duniway was instrumental in winning the vote for women in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. “A low-key yet dramatic performance with liberal dashes of humor.” -- Oregon Press Women. A 2006-2009 Humanities Washington Inquiring Mind program.

• Tea, True Womanhood and Uppity Women. Watch out for tea parties! That’s where many women have started thinking about their lives, their own freedom, and other radical notions. Through journals, stories, songs, and readings, Susan Butruille explores dynamics designed to keep women in their places, and tell about some women who defied convention and turned toward freedom. Tea, anyone? A 2006-2009 Humanities Washington Inquiring Mind program.

• The Other Pinchot: Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, Feminist and Activist. A lively, emotional solo play featuring a leading activist of the early twentieth century who pays tribute to her husband, Gifford Pinchot, founder and first Chief of the US Forest Service.

• Marie Pantalon: The Lady Wore Pants! This costumed dramatic interpretation is based on a French-speaking miner, a character from Women’s Voices from the Mother Lode. When Susan performed in Marie’s home village of Thônes in the French Alps, the local newspaper reported: “Ce n’est plus Susan qui parle mai Marie.” (It is no longer Susan who speaks but Marie.) Susan’s screenplay, Marie Pantalon, is based on this character.

• Uppity Women of the West. A roundup of women from the West, with sotires, songs, and recipes, telling of women who defied custom and tradition with a “Yes, I can!” attitude. Emigrants, pioneers, cowgirls, ranchers, entrepreneurs, activists, and adventurers. “Super! Made the Old West come alive!” -- Elderhostel

• A Writer’s Journey Into the Wilderness. Take a hero’s journey into the labyrinth of your uncultivated and wild self, where your power and your truth lie. “What a memorable, useful workshop! I especially enjoyed your sharing your own journey through your journal, and I will use what came out of the workshop exercises.” -- Oregon Writers Colony.

• Magical Travels to Sacred Places. Stories, poems, songs, and recipes from Susan’s journeys to discover ancient hidden female spirituality from the American West to Australia, Greece, Turkey, and France.

  ---

  || Bio || Articles || Books || Women's History Dates || Email || Home Page ||

  
  ©opyright 1999-2010 Susan G. Butruille, All Rights Reserved