Woman's Day Event

Bios:

Ciarrai Eaton is the Executive Director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation where she is honored to continue Matilda's legacy of social justice. She uses her degrees in performance and education to shine a light on erased stories throughout history.

Tracy Winter Allen worked as an assistant to Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner during her last two years as founding executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center. She is a retired music educator and performer who recently joined the Gage Foundation Board of Directors. She is the author of two books about Gage and recently completed transcribing Gage's writings into a digital database.

Robin Echols Cooper received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications with minors in art and theater from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She has been telling stories professionally since 1992. Ms. Echols Cooper’s unique style takes you on an animated journey as she weaves tales from around the world. Her family stories bring you home. She has performed in a wide variety of venues. She presents creative specialized workshops in the art of storytelling. Robin has been with the Women In History Ohio organization since 2000.

Molly Ritter is an educator, researcher, and organizer who believes liberation begins with learning to see power—and is sustained through the ongoing work of untangling it. Raised overseas by fundamentalist missionaries under rigid patriarchal control, she was nevertheless shaped by small, unexpected, yet powerful examples of feminist resistance. American Girl books told stories of girls with agency and gumption, a quietly radical grandmother modeled love without domination, and the moral clarity of Jesus’ teachings exposed the hypocrisy of those in power over her. Those early openings raised questions that eventually showed her a way out. Today, she works with faculty and students at the University of Pittsburgh, designing learning experiences that center experimentation, failure, and the slow, collective work of making meaning. Her work has also included equity reform, labor organizing, and consciousness-raising, grounded in the conviction that liberation is not an end state, but a practice built patiently through how we learn, teach, and work together.

Tracy Langworthy, PhD is the Interim Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Jamestown Community College. Tracy have been teaching history at JCC since 2004. Nineteenth-century women's history is a particular passion, along with the broader history of American social reform. I also love learning about the history that surrounds us in Western New York.

Michelle Henry is a certified Registered Historian. She served as the Chautauqua County Historian in 2000 until she retired in January 2023, and also served as the county's Record Management Coordinator. Michelle had written several articles for local and state publications, including the New York State Archives Partnership Trust's Archives magazine and the Chautauqua County Historical Society's Timelines. She has served as a consultant for the NY state Museum Collection Assessment Program, providing assistance and advice to small museums in Western New York.