EUGENE–A free exhibit focusing on the life of a prominent feminist who co-founded The New Yorker magazine will open March 8 in the first-floor lobby and east and west corridors of the Knight Library, 1501 Kincaid St. at the University of Oregon.

"The Talk of the Town: Jane Grant, The New Yorker and the Oregon Legacy of a Twentieth-Century Feminist," will continue through April 15. The UO Library and the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) assembled the exhibit in celebration of Women’s History Month.

Hours for the Grant exhibit are 8 a.m.—midnight Monday through Thursday; 8 a.m.—7 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.—7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.—midnight Sunday.

A related exhibit about the founding of CSWS will be on display for the same period in the Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room on the second floor of the Knight Library. Hours for the CSWS exhibit are 9 a.m.—5 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m.—5 p.m. Saturdays.

Grant (1895—1972) was a journalist and feminist who took an active part in American culture and politics from 1920 to 1970. Although her primary occupation was journalism–she was the first woman to be a general reporter on the staff of the New York Times–her energy and vision provided the stimulus for several significant American enterprises.

In 1925, with her first husband, Harold Ross, she co-founded The New Yorker magazine. With her second husband, William Harris, she had a part in founding and operating White Flower Farm, a successful mail-order plant and seed company in Litchfield, Conn.

Grant’s most independent project was the Lucy Stone League, which she founded originally with Ruth Hale in 1921 as a means of encouraging women to keep their maiden names. In 1951, after the league had languished for nearly 20 years, Grant alone revived the group, became its president for nearly 20 years and expanded its purpose to "include activities to instruct in, safeguard and extend the civil and social rights of women."

The Center for the Study of Women in Society, dedicated in 1983, is funded through a $3.5 million bequest from the estate of William Harris in honor of Grant, his wife. Harris, who was editor of Fortune Magazine when he married Grant in 1931, died in 1981 after a second career as an investment banker.

CSWS is a nationally recognized, multidisciplinary feminist research organization. It supports research on women and gender by university and community scholars. The center sponsors speakers and events concerning women, and it publishes working papers as well as a magazine and newsletter.

A free public program to mark the opening of the Grant exhibit is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 8, in the Browsing Room at the Knight Library, 1501 Kincaid St.

Mary Lou Parker, a Jane Grant dissertation grant recipient, and Marilyn Farwell, a UO professor of English, will describe Grant’s life and works as a journalist and feminist activist.

A ceremony recognizing the efforts of several faculty in obtaining funds to endow and create CSWS will follow. Those to be honored are UO President Emeritus Robert Clark; Joan Acker and Miriam "Mimi" Johnson, professors emerita of sociology; Ed Kemp, former head of Library Acquisitions; and Farwell.

A reception in the Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room will conclude the exhibit-opening event.

Beginning March 8, a virtual version of the Grant exhibit’s text and images will be available on the Web at http://libweb.uoregon.edu/speccoll/mss/JaneGrant/.

For more information, contact manuscripts librarian Linda Long, (541) 346-1906.

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