The Pember Library will host a discussion with Hallie Bond on Perspectives on Rural Life: Poverty and Plenty. Free and open to the general public, the event begins at 6:00 PM on August 19 at the Pember Library. This event is made possible through the Conversations Bureau, a new program of the New York Council for the Humanities. Conversations Bureau discussions are made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This conversation focuses on two short texts that, although by the same author (Jeanne Robert Foster), give contrasting views of life in the Adirondacks a century ago. One is an intense description in the first person of a woman’s life on a poor hill farm where, she feels, she is “only hands and feet for George, / Someone to put the food on the table, / Someone to have more children for him.” The other is a tour around the author’s neighborhood in the same hills along with descriptions of the people who lived there. The two poems will be used to guide discussion of what makes “community” in sparsely-settled regions, women’s work and roles in rural America, and how our perceptions of rural life and attitudes have shaped our concepts of American identity.
For more information on this conversation click here. Many items on the resource list are available at the library. Please ask at the desk if you are interested.
