From Kitihawa to Ida B. Wells to Jane Addams to Jane Byrne, women have been instrumental in Chicago’s history. Join us at CHM as we commemorate Women’s History Month by highlighting women storytellers and storytelling as a way of recounting history.

Through their performances, Starla Thompson and Connie Shirakawa will share how their personal life experiences as women of color have helped shape their professional and historical interests. Enjoy hands-on activities with collection items that center the written and spoken word as a way of telling one’s own story.

Included with general admission.

Schedule

12:00–4:00 p.m. – Drop-in Activities

Connect with local women’s organizations.

1:00–2:00 p.m.

Starla Thompson returns to CHM to engage our guests in conversation, movement, and performance. Thompson comes to us as an “educator, scholar, advocate, dancer, mother,” and Indigenous woman of the Otter Clan of the Forest Potawatomi and Santa Ynez Chumash Nations to speak on the importance of women in Indigenous American communities and to perform her “Jingle Dress Dance.” 2nd floor, Morse Genius Chicago Room

All ages welcome; children and families are especially encouraged to join.

2:00–3:00 p.m.

Hands-On History: Try your hand at poetry anyone can create – blackout/whiteout poems, found poems, list poems, and more! You can connect with women of Chicago’s history and write a new narrative from fascinating historical documents and artwork. Designed for ages 13+. Session includes coloring pages for participants with younger children. 1st floor, Guild Room

3:00–4:00 p.m.

Connie Shirakawa performs her one-woman show Warrior Woman (dir. Sharon Evans), which recounts her personal history as a Japanese American woman living in Chicago. She explores her entry into the field of advertising and the role of her various intersecting identities that helped shape her lived experiences and made her into the woman she is today. 1st floor, Robert R. McCormick Theater