Tillie Olsen: One Woman,
Many Riddles
by Panthea Reid ’ 71 (PhD)
Olsen was a 1920s hellcat, a 1930s
revolutionary, an early 1940s crusader for
equal pay for equal work and a war-relief
patriot, an ex-GI’s ideal wife in the latter
’40s, a victim of FBI surveillance in the
1950s, a civil rights and antiwar advocate
during the 1960s and ’70s, and a lifelong
orator for universal human rights. The story
of her life brings remote events into focus
— the rebellions in czarist Russia, the terrors of the Great Depression and hopes of
the New Deal, through a world war and a
cold war, and the progressive and repressive
movements. Popularly referred to as “St.
Tillie,” she was hailed by some as the
mother of modern feminism.
Unfinished Desires
by Gail Godwin ’ 59
Set in a Catholic girls’ school in the
North Carolina mountains in the 1950s,
the novel is centered on the memoir of
Mother Suzanne Ravenel’s 60 years at the
school. The writing forces her to revisit
the trials of the year 1951-52, when a
freshman student’s mean clique is upset
by the arrival of a ninth-grader who has
recently lost her mother and a new nun
assigned to the freshman class. The girls
try to revive a play Ravenel wrote several
years before. Godwin explores friendships
among teenage girls and their ambivalence toward religion.
New Address? One e-mail to the GAA updates your University record.
alumni@unc.edu
Your GAA. Serving Carolina and our students— past, present and future.
General Alumni Association
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Why is our mascot a ram? Why is our color sky
blue? Where did all of these Carolina traditions
come from? This book of 87 cartoons may not
provide historic fact about some of Carolina’s
most treasured myths and legends, but it will
offer up an answer with a wink and a smile.
Written by John J. W. Rogers, emeritus W.R. Kenan, Jr.,
Prof. of Geological Sciences; Illustrated by Angela Tchou,’ 10.
Distributed by Bull’s Head Book Shop (919-962-5060) and
other stores that sell UNC memorabilia. All proceeds will
benefit the University of North Carolina. E-mail John at
jjwr@mac.com for details.
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