The Week in History, March 15th – 21st.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg C. 20121
The Week in History recognizes the lives, losses and achievements of four authors.
“How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg2
Author/Co-author of books and Supreme Court opinions, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg turns 87 years old this week.3
As a child, Ginsberg’s mother Celia Bader tried to give her daughter the best education she could, often taking her to the library to ignite a love of learning inside her. Celia Bader passed away from cervical cancer the day before her daughter’s high school graduation. When Ginsberg was nominated to the Supreme Court she spoke of her mother. “.…the bravest and strongest person I have known, who was taken from me much too soon. I pray that I may be all that she would have been had she lived in an age when women could aspire and achieve and daughters are cherished as much as sons.”4
Ginsberg’s influence as an educator and Supreme Court Justice are legendary. Find out more about her life story by checking out Notorious RBG : the life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (KF8745.G56 C37 2015) and Ruth Bader Ginsberg: a life (KF8745.G56 D44 2018) both can be placed on hold for you at the Clark College Libraries.
“Pretending that there are no choices to be made – reading only books, for example, which are cheery and safe and nice – is a prescription for disaster for the young. “
“When I create characters, I create a world to inhabit and they begin to feel very real for me. I don’t belong in a psych ward, I don’t think, but they become very real, like my own family, and then I have to say goodbye, close the door, and work on other things.” — Lois Lowry5
Two time winner of the Newberry award, Lois Lowry is an author known for writing about difficult subjects for a young audience.7 Born this week in Hawaii to a military family, Lowry experienced personal loss at age 25 when her older sister succumbed to cancer.8 She wrote her first novel, A Summer to Die, based on the event. Her first Newberry award winning novel, Number The Stars revisited the theme of family loss through historical fiction. The story is about a young girl and her family attempting to survive the Holocaust in Nazi occupied Denmark.
Lowry is best know for what could be called the first YA dystopian novel, The Giver, but she is also the author of humoresque works such as the series, Gooney Bird Greene.
You can find the versatile writer’s work, Number The Stars, in the Clark College Libraries (PS3562.O923 N8 1990)
“We’re told that to be successful girls, we have to be small and quiet. Yet to be successful humans, we have to become big and have a voice. There’s an inherent contradiction.” — Glennon Doyle9
New York Times bestselling author Glennon Doyle was born this week in Burke, Virginia. She is a mother of three who launched the blog Momastry in her spare time and then founded the non-profit, Together Rising, which helps families in need.11
Doyle is survivor of bulimia and alcoholism. She spent time in a mental institution as a teenager. She used these negative life experiences to share her life story with others through TED talks, the web and her books. Her writing has been described as brutally honest. In 2016 her book, Love Warrior, was picked by Oprah Winfrey to be a part of her renowned 2.0 Bookclub.12
You can order Love Warrior, through the Clark College interlibrary loan program.
“I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re photographing them and what you’re doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.”
“Photograph the world as it is. Nothing’s more interesting than reality.”
– Mary Ellen Mark13
Photo journalist and documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark was born this week in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. She died at age 75 in 2015 from a blood illness due to bone marrow failure.15
Mark was attracted to people who lived on the outer fringes of society. She would live among them, get to know them and photograph them to tell their story. Her subjects included patients in the woman’s security ward for the Oregon State Hospital (Ward 81) prostitutes in Bombay (Falkland Road) and the homeless youth and children of Seattle in her book, Streetwise which was later made into a film by the same name. During her lifetime she published 18 books of her photographic work.16 Her photographs were published in Life, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. She won numerous awards.17
Learn more about her by requesting the book, Mary Ellen Clark, by author Charles Hagen, through the Clark College Library interlibrary loan.
1https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg.jpg
2https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/ruth-bader-ginsburg-quotes
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg
4https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-ruth-bader-ginsburg
5https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/lois-lowry-quotes
6https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lois_Lowry_author_2014.jpg
7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Lowry
8http://www.loislowry.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=196l
9https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/glennon-doyle-melton-quotes
10https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:G-about.png
11https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glennon_Doyle
12https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/heidi-stevens/ct-love-warrior-oprah-book-club-balancing-0906-20160906-column.html
13https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/mary-ellen-mark-quotes
14https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary-ellen-mark-2_(cropped).jpg
15https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Mark
16http://www.maryellenmark.com/
17https://web.archive.org/web/20020401222337/http://www.salon.com:80/people/bc/2000/03/28/mark/
