Every week the Town Crier blog will look back at Seattle’s near-forgotten Town Crier magazine to see what was happening then and talk about what’s happening now. One of the largest sections of the original Town Crier was “What People Are Doing,” highlighting things like, “The Tennis Club has decided to have its dinner dances on alternate Wednesdays,” and, “Dr. Alfred Martin delivered an address on Wednesday afternoon on psychic research.” In this series we’re revisiting the old column and tying it to our community’s current happenings, asking: “what are people doing?”
Today’s entry…
“Once upon a time,” began a story in the June 21, 1919 Town Crier, “a certain pompous individual said women had no humor. It is evident he had not met Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, else his mouth would have been filled with the ashes of his own words as he ate them.” Dr. Reinhardt was speaking informally to the members and friends of the Women’s University Club “before an appreciative audience that taxed the capacity of the dining room.”
Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt
To note: Dr. Reinhardt (1877-1948) was an American educator and activist. She was elected president of Mills College in 1916 and held the position until 1943, making her the longest serving president in the history of the famed women’s college. Mills College was the first women’s college west of the Rockies, established in 1852.
The story concluded with, “Dr. Reinhardt’s talk brimmed with good sense and a humor that caused many a ripple of laughter to run lightly through the audience and many of her hearers carried away with them the feeling expressed by one of them to the effect that if she had a daughter she would ask nothing better for her than to be associated with and under the influence of a woman like Dr. Reinhardt.”
Town Hall has had its share of rippling laughter of late. Samantha Irby conversed with Lindy West; Angela Garbes discussed pregnancy and motherhood; Caitlin Doughty chatted about mortuary matters; Sydney Brownstone and Heidi Groover swapped conspiracy theories; and Jill Soloway, creator of Transparent, took the stage with Hannah Gadsby and Morgan Parker.
Find out who else might have talks that brim with good sense and humor on our online calendar.
