Looking to enrich your life? Join us for a series of free cultural conversations.

The White Fund’s purpose is to have a free series of interactive presentations for Lawrence area adults, youth, and children. The audience is encouraged to seek wisdom, cultural enrichment and intellectual enhancement by attending and participating.

Spring 2012

February 12 The Lawrence Strike of 1912: Women, Protest, and Déjà Vu All Over Again.

February 17 A Morning with U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz: Top Priorities of a Federal Prosecutor
 

During the presentation Dr. Ardis Cameron will be reading excerpts from her book “Radicals of the Worst Sort: The Laboring Women of Lawrence, Mass, 1880-1912“

Sunday, February 12
2-4:00pm
White Fund room (LA-101) at the Louise Haffner Fournier Education Center
78 Amesbury Street, Lawrence

Light refreshments will be served.

On January 11, one hundred years ago, a group of about 100 women nervously waited in the weave room of the Everett Mill to see if their pay envelopes were cut.  When their worst fears were confirmed, they threw down their aprons, grabbed picker sticks, and organized “flying squadrons” to recruit others and shut down the machines.  The famous bread and Roses strike had begun.

Join Ardis Cameron as she explores the strike of 1912 and why it remains meaningful in today’s world.  Based on her book, Radicals of the Worst Sort, Cameron will focus on the actions of the city’s women, their place in and out of history, and why the vision of “Bread and Roses” can help labor’s comeback.

Ardis Cameron is an author and director and professor of American and New England Studies at the University of Southern Maine.

Friday, February 17
8:45 a.m.
Lawrence High School
70-72 North Parish Road, Lawrence, MA

Join U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz as she talks about the role of the federal prosecutor, with emphasis on the priorities of her office of 200 employees in Boston, Springfield and Worcester. Ms. Ortiz, who has worked as a lawyer for three decades and a federal prosecutor for more than 12 years, will also share her personal journey – with emphasis on empowering young people to foster their self-confidence and future success. She will discuss the importance of making good decisions and the right choices, at an early age, which will position young people with an opportunity to reach their full potential.

Carmen M. Ortiz has dedicated much of her professional career to public service. Nominated by President Barack Obama as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Ms. Ortiz was confirmed by the United States Senate in November 2009. She is the first Hispanic and the first woman to represent Massachusetts as United States Attorney.

About the White Fund Enlightenment Series

In the 1850’s Daniel Appleton White served as an Essex County Probate judge and a Massachusetts Congressman. His birthplace was a Methuen farm that would eventually become a part of downtown Lawrence and the campus of Northern Essex Community College. At his direction, money from the sale of a portion of that land would endow a “course of lectures delivered annually designed to enlighten the mind and elevate the character.” His chief concern was “for the advancement and success in life” of the young men and women at work in the textile mills.

The first White Fund lecture was delivered in 1864. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Booker T. Washington were among the mid-century luminaries who graced the White Lecture podium at City Hall on Common Street. Charter trustees Charles S. Storrow, Henry K. Oliver and Nathanial G. White, for whom the Lawrence Public Library was dedicated, enlisted speakers “tending to the moral and intellectual uplift of the inhabitants of Lawrence.” Today the White Fund Trustees continue this tradition through support of the White Fund Enlightenment Series offered in cooperation with Northern Essex. By Judge White’s design, these presentations are free to the public.

For more information on any of the events, or for directions to the events at Northern Essex’s Louise Haffner Fournier Education Center, please call 978-738-7403.