Michele Steinberg

What must it have been like? Speculative fiction about Mary Kenney O’Sullivan

Mary Kenney’s rise to fame, or perhaps notoriety, within women reformers’ circles, was fairly well documented due to her connection with the Hull House in Chicago, her move to Boston to work with the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, and her marriage to labor leader and activist Jack O’Sullivan. But after Jack’s death, there isContinue reading “What must it have been like? Speculative fiction about Mary Kenney O’Sullivan”

Mary at the 1893 Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World’s Fair)

Reading through the digitized version of Mary Kenney O’Sullivan’s unpublished autobiography provides more than a glimpse of her personality. Her sense of humor, her passion for justice, and her fearlessness are apparent. Several times while reading her anecdotes, I thought, “this woman was afraid of NOBODY.” While she admitted to feeling intimidated by upper classContinue reading “Mary at the 1893 Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World’s Fair)”

Learning at the Schlesinger Library

My first foray into non-electronic research about Mary Kenney O’Sullivan brought me to the Schlesinger Library, a unique resource for the history of women in the United States. It is at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s a fairly young institute, born in 1999 but rooted in its own women’s history going backContinue reading “Learning at the Schlesinger Library”

Learning about Mary

I first learned about Mary Kenney O’Sullivan as part of a walking tour being developed in 2016. Now called Working Women: Boston Women Find Their Voice, the tour aims to tell the story of cross-class collaboration as women in Boston struggled to secure the vote for women. In 2016, I knew little about the suffrageContinue reading “Learning about Mary”

Discovering the other side of the story

I became a walking tour guide in my early 40s. In the midst of a fulfilling and busy career in fire safety education and outreach, I was looking for something that would get me outside and challenge other parts of my brain. I found it when I stumbled across Boston By Foot, a nonprofit walkingContinue reading “Discovering the other side of the story”