Sunday Lecture Series at OCHM: Dr. Roxanne Newton

Dr. Roxanne Newton will give a lecture at the museum titled “Blood on the Cloth: Ella May Wiggins and the 1929 Gastonia Strike”. The daughter and granddaughter of mill workers, Dr. Newton grew up in a small North Carolina textile town. Currently she is director of the Humanities and Fine Arts Division at Mitchell Community College where she teaches English, women’s studies and humanities courses. She earned a Ph.D. in Educational Foundations and Cultural Studies and a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from UNC Greensboro. The recipient of a number of academic and teaching awards, Dr. Newton has developed interdisciplinary courses including “American Women’s Studies,” “Working Lives: Multicultural Perspectives,” and “The Immigrant Experience in America.” Her humanities classes have created history quilts and have collected oral histories of immigrants and workers in Iredell County. The North Carolina Museum of History acquired the North Carolina Women’s History Quilt, made by Dr. Newton and her women’s studies students. Her research interests include working-class studies, narrative research, and critical pedagogy. She is the author of Women Workers on Strike:  Narratives of Southern Women Unionists. This event is free and open to the public. Sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council.