Pair of Historians Receive NEH Award to Explore
Women's Political History Through Digital Media
The University of Houston College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) is proud to announce that Moores Professor of History Nancy Beck Young and Associate Professor of History Leandra Zarnow have been awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Collaborative Research Grant of $249,998. This three-year grant will span from 2022 to 2024, supporting the critical expansion of a project titled, “Sharing Stories from 1977: Putting the National Women’s Conference on the Map.”
This interdisciplinary collaboration, led by project co-directors Young and Zarnow, is the only comprehensive multi-institutional digital humanities project to analyze the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC). Both professors bring nationally-recognized historical expertise in modern political and women's history to the project, with Zarnow contributing additional experience in gender and sexuality studies.
Young and Zarnow will continue to lay the foundation for the project’s one-of-a-kind open-access website on the legislative, political and social impact of the 1977 NWC. The initial launch is scheduled for November 2021, and the full project is expected to be completed by 2027 in commemoration of the NWC’s 50th anniversary.
Two other collaborating scholars from the UH College of Technology, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems Peggy Lindner and Assistant Professor of Digital Media Elizabeth Rodwell, bring vital expertise in computing to “Sharing Stories” as project leads for web development and user experience.
The University of Houston College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) is proud to announce that Moores Professor of History Nancy Beck Young and Associate Professor of History Leandra Zarnow have been awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Collaborative Research Grant of $249,998. This three-year grant will span from 2022 to 2024, supporting the critical expansion of a project titled, “Sharing Stories from 1977: Putting the National Women’s Conference on the Map.”
This interdisciplinary collaboration, led by project co-directors Young and Zarnow, is the only comprehensive multi-institutional digital humanities project to analyze the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC). Both professors bring nationally-recognized historical expertise in modern political and women's history to the project, with Zarnow contributing additional experience in gender and sexuality studies.
Young and Zarnow will continue to lay the foundation for the project’s one-of-a-kind open-access website on the legislative, political and social impact of the 1977 NWC. The initial launch is scheduled for November 2021, and the full project is expected to be completed by 2027 in commemoration of the NWC’s 50th anniversary.
Two other collaborating scholars from the UH College of Technology, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems Peggy Lindner and Assistant Professor of Digital Media Elizabeth Rodwell, bring vital expertise in computing to “Sharing Stories” as project leads for web development and user experience.
Nancy Beck Young, Ph.D.
Nancy Beck Young, Ph.D.
Leandra Zarnow, Ph.D.
Leandra Zarnow, Ph.D.
"This is a well-deserved honor and opportunity for Drs. Young and Zarnow and their entire team.”
“This award is a testament to the quality of research and scholarship that these two professors and their UH colleagues have become known for in their field. The project embodies civic engagement, diversity and the positive impact women had in the 20th century as agents of political and social change.”
The 1977 NWC was the first and only federally funded women’s conference in U.S. history and it also embodied a tremendous experiment in grassroots, inclusive democracy with over 2,000 elected delegates and around 32,000 observers converging in Houston.
Attendees came together to address the biggest political problems of the era, outlining strategies and policy goals aimed at strengthening women’s roles in the political process.
According to Young, “Sharing Stories” will allow students to engage in hands-on research into the demographic backgrounds of the conference participants, using digital humanities methodologies to analyze and map political trends that otherwise would not be detectable.
“We are so gratified to have our work supported in this generous manner by the National Endowment for the Humanities,” Young said. “We look forward to bringing thousands more UH students into this nationally recognized research enterprise.”
'77 Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. University of Houston Digital Library.
'77 Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. University of Houston Digital Library.
“Sharing Stories” is a natural outgrowth of a previous NEH grant they received to host the June 2017 NEH Summer Seminar and 40th anniversary conference. These efforts attracted international scholarly attention to the 1977 NWC, as noted by Amélie Ribieras in Transatlantica.
“This conference brought together former NWC participants, scholars, students and interested public for two days of programming that fostered intergenerational and community-academic exchanges"
“Fortieth anniversary conference speaker and former IWY commissioner Gloria Steinem — who calls the NWC “the most important event no one knows about” in her memoir “My Life on the Road” — challenged the University of Houston to launch a social media initiative during the conference to gather NWC participants’ memories. The seed for our project was planted in Steinem’s public memory campaign.”
Zarnow's 2019 New York Times, bestseller Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug, placed Abzug as a political force in the 1960s and 1970s as the most notable and recognizable woman in politics in her day.
One of the greatest experiments in civic engagement, the NWC modeled democracy in action. The participants—predominantly women—offered an expansive agenda to make the nation more inclusive and equitable and the U.S. government more representative and responsive.
““Once the project is complete, Young and Zarnow’s research will revolutionize how scholars think about political activism and community engagement in the late 20th century,” said Daniel P. O’Connor, interim dean of CLASS.
A communication by the CLASS Office of Communications
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