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The Women of Mad Men and Call the Midwife

13 May

I am a graduate of Douglass College (DC ‘04), an all-women’s school that was part of Rutgers University. In 2007, Douglass College and three other liberal arts schools were all combined to become the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS). When the merger was first proposed, Douglass alumnae (myself included) protested, and ultimately a compromise was reached that led to the creation of the Douglass Residential College (DRC). Women attending SAS can choose to live at DRC, which offers them special programs and opportunities to excel that are central to Douglass’s mission.

Last month brought a new conflict. Rutgers University wants to fold the Associate Alumnae of Douglass College (the main fundraising body for DC/DRC) into the Rutgers Foundation with the goal of streamlining all fundraising. However, it is not clear if gifts donated to Douglass will go directly to DRC, which is concerning. Again, Douglass alumnae protested and mobilized to Save the AADC. (#SaveAADC) On May 1 there was a rally on DRC, which my friend and fellow alumnae Stephanie attended with her two young sons. (Gotta start kids early in activism!) This issue hasn’t been resolved and is headed toward mediation. Details can be found here.

The quick action of my classmates and sister alumnae, and the pictures from the rally I saw on social media, inspired me to think about my favorite female characters that I admire on TV, most of whom are on Mad Men and Call the Midwife.

Mad Men 

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Mad Men, a show set in a 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency that followed the lives of the employees and the events of that turbulent decade, has long been appointment television for me. (This is rare for me, which I’ve previously written about on this blog!) I enjoy discussing Mad Men with my dad, who graduated high school in 1968 and remembers the 1960s well. I am excited to see how it all ends this Sunday when the series finale airs.

I loved following the stories of the women of Mad Men, Betty, Peggy, and Joan. The show was set before the women’s movement gained traction in the 1970s and never shied away from the issues women living and working at the time faced, such as sexual harassment, unequal pay, and discrimination–issues that still exist in 2015, sadly.

Betty Draper Francis (played by January Jones) is a victim of her time–a Bryn Mawr educated woman who was a model but then became a housewife suffering from “the problem that has no name” described in Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking book, The Feminine Mystique. Watching Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) ascend from the secretary pool to become Copy Chief was thrilling but bittersweet because she had to sacrifice more and work much harder than her male colleagues to succeed. Joan Holloway Harris (Christina Hendricks) was the office manager who became a partner at the firm in a controversial manner, but proved herself as a capable ad exec when she brought in Avon as a client.

All seasons of Mad Men (with the exception of the last batch of episodes) are available to borrow from the Hoboken Public Library, and other BCCLS libraries, if you want to dive into this show or re-watch it again.

Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5, Season 6, Season 7 Part 1

Call the Midwife

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Call the Midwife, based on Jennifer Worth’s memoirs of the same name, follows the nurses and nuns of Nonnatus House that serve the Poplar community in South London in the late 1950s-early 1960s. As the show’s title indicates, much of their time is spent caring for expectant mothers and delivering newborns. The birth scenes are realistic (for TV) and employ real newborn babies, who by British law can only shoot scenes for 20 minutes at a time.

Women make up much of the cast, and their stories are diverse and interesting. Some of the nurses come from more privileged backgrounds and are at first horrified by the poverty they encounter in Poplar. I think Sister Monica Joan (played by Judy Parfitt), an elderly nun who suffers from dementia, is the most fascinating character. She no longer works as a nurse due to her condition, but in her moments of clarity she shares wisdom and sage advice with her fellow sisters and the younger nurses when they run into challenging situations.

Many of the stories Jennifer Worth’s first memoir, which I read and enjoyed, were used in the show. One story I liked that hasn’t been seen on the show was about how one young Poplar boy took it upon himself to protect Nurse Chummy (Miranda Hart), who was a target for teasing by the other children. Worth wrote that that young boy grew up to become a bodyguard for Princess Diana.

All four seasons of Call the Midwife are available to borrow, as well as the memoir. Jennifer Worth wrote two more books a about her time as a midwife, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse and Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End. Both are on my to-read list.

Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4

Who are your favorite female TV characters? Please share in the comments.

-Written by Kerry Weinstein, Reference Librarian

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Out of Time: Kage Baker, Connie Willis, and Groundhogs Day

21 Jan

A popular thought experiment is to decide where you would like to travel in time (my top three would be: back to see the dinosaurs, Victorian England, or a future moon colony on Mars).  Elements of time travel have been used in classic works like Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine.  Right now we have the hugely popular Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and the continuing phenomenon of Doctor Who.  So if you are like me and can’t get enough of the “wibbily wobbly timey wimey” stuff as David Tennet’s Doctor would say, check out time travel works by two of my favorite Science Fiction Authors and my favorite time travel movie, Groundhog Day.

Kage Baker’s The Company Series

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Kage Baker is one of my favorite authors.  She unfortunately passed away too soon in January of 2010 at the age of 41.  Some of the unfinished works she left behind were published after her passing, but I’m sure she had many more amazing works in her.  We are, however, lucky that she concluded her excellent science fiction series The Company.  The novels chronicle the tales of cyborgs who are created when members of Dr. Zeus Inc (or “The Company”) travel back in time and grant immortality through technology to children who would have been killed at a young age.  The operatives’ mission is then to live forward in time and to preserve objects of art and endangered species for future generations.  The company’s efforts are not simply altruistic though and these efforts create a vast fortune for the organization in the future.

The first book, The Garden of Iden, is set during Renaissance England and centers around Mendoza, a new operative who has just come of age and is on her first mission.  She is trained as a botanist and because she had to live through the Spanish Inquisition during her mortal life she expects to want nothing to do with the regular humans around her, but that changes when she meets the passionate Nicholas Harpole, Sir Walter Iden’s secretary who also resides at the estate where Mendoza has been stationed.  This book packs inside a love story, a coming of age tale, science fiction, and historical satire.  The series in later books continues to explore in greater depth the mysterious Company and follows the stories of a variety of the operatives; the next novel in the series focuses on Mendoza’s mentor and father figure, Joseph, but fans of Mendoza will be pleased to know that she reappears throughout the books.  She plays a pivotal role in the last Company novel, The Sons of Heaven, which reveals what happens in July 9, 2355 when all transmissions from Dr. Zeus to its operatives mysteriously stop.

Connie Willis’ Time Traveling Historians

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Connie Willis is another favorite author of mine.  She has written several time travel books that while not a “series” all take place in the same alternate universe: Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, and All Clear.  Willis first wrote about her time travelers in her short story Fire Watch set during the Blitz, which is available in several short story collections available at BCCLS libraries including The Best of Connie Willis, The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, and Fire Watch.  The stories feature historians who go back in time to study history from a first-hand perspective.  The time travelers are generally prevented from making alterations to history since the equipment will not function or send them to a different time than originally selected if it will cause an alteration in history or a paradox.  This leads to some of the drama since the historians may not be fully prepared for the situation they encounter, this is especially true of my favorite of her works Doomsday Book, which is set during the Middle Ages.  Within Doomsday Book there is an interesting parallel between the Influenza outbreak that is occurring in the future with the bubonic plague that is happening in the past; the story feels very relevant today with the recent Ebola outbreak.  To Say Nothing of the Dog: or, How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last, is much lighter and more comedic in tone than the other novels.  Jerome K. Jerome, whose Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog, inspired the title of the work makes a cameo appearance in Willis’s work.  Although the books are set in the same universe and contain a few of the same characters, in general the books do not need to be read in any order and can be enjoyed individually, with the exception of Blackout and All Clear which were intended as a two volume work set during World War II in England.  Blackout definitely leaves the reader hanging, so you may want to check out both books at once so you don’t have to wait to learn what happens next; the six months I had to wait between them when they first came out seemed like an eternity without a time machine to jump me ahead.

Groundhog Day

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The movie Groundhog Day unlike the novels mentioned above doesn’t feature purposeful time travel, but instead features a jaded weatherman, played by Bill Murray who must relive the same day over and over and over again.  I’ve watched the movie almost as many times as Larry relived his visit to Punxsutawney, PA for Phil, the groundhog’s big reveal.  The redemption story and romance between Bill Murray’s Larry and Andie MacDowell’s Rita, are sweet, but it is the humor that makes this a repeat viewing favorite.  It is fun to see how Larry interacts with the town’s people each day and how gradually even if the day doesn’t change, he does.  For me if not exactly in storyline, in spirit it captures a bit of A Christmas Carol.  Tim Minchin and Matthew Warchus who created Matilda the Musical, are planning to adapt Groundhog Day as a musical this year.  I can see some very funny songs coming from the setup, but not sure how I feel about a singing groundhog.  Since Groundhog’s Day is coming up next month (February 2) it is the perfect time to check out this classic fun film.  And for a tasty treat while you watch, you could also celebrate in my family’s favorite traditional way with crepes.  In French tradition if you can flip a crepe fully over in one toss in the frying pan while holding a coin on Groundhog’s Day, you will have good luck for the rest of the year (and if you don’t succeed you are still lucky enough to have some tasty French style pancakes to eat).

-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference

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