Shannon Frystak, Ph.D. is a first-generation college student who went on to pursue a Masters and Ph.D. focusing predominantly on Women’s History. An award-winning writer and historian, she is Professor and Graduate Coordinator of the Department of History and Geography at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania where she has taught since 2007. Her first book, Our Minds on Freedom: Women and the Struggle for Black Equality in Louisiana, 1924-1967 looked at the important and, often, overlooked work of female civil rights activists in a Deep South state. Her second book, Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, part of the Southern Women Series at the University of Georgia Press, is a collection of essays co-edited with her friend, Mary Farmer-Kaiser. She is widely published in a number of collections and journals and is currently working on a book about Lucille Watson, a plantation owner in Tensas Parish, Louisiana.

Take it away, Shannon

When did you first become interested in women’s history?  What sparked that interest?

I always knew that I wanted to be an academic, in some capacity, but as I had worked full-time to put myself through undergraduate school at Bowling Green State University, my grades were less than stellar and I decided to take some time off before deciding on a career long-term. After traveling across country, living in Washington, D.C. and working as a waitress while I volunteered at the Community for Creative Non-Violence, a homeless shelter/advocacy program, I moved to New Orleans and it was here that I began researching programs that might interest me; it felt like there were so many possibilities. One day I was perusing the Peterson’s Guide to Graduate Programs and happened to notice that Sarah Lawrence had a Master’s program in Women’s History. One of my favorite classes as an undergraduate student was my Women’s Studies course and I had long been an activist, attending many a women’s march in our nation’s capitol. So, I gave it a shot and I applied. And I got in! However, being that my undergraduate GPA wasn’t up to par, mainly because I worked full-time as a bartender to finish school, they asked me to take a few classes at a local university to prove that I was up for the challenge of a rigorous graduate program. The class I chose was called “Black Movements and Messiahs,” and it was taught by professor and civil rights activist, Raphael Cassimere. That class everything changed – I began to do research into black women’s history, reading Nikki Giovanni and Paula Giddings, and this course led me to pursue a Master’s in what was essentially African-American Women’s History. My thesis looked at the integration of the New Orleans chapter of the League of Women Voters, a story I happened upon when researching the white activist, Rosa Freeman Keller. The local chapter of the League of Women Voters allowed me access to their records where I came across a thin folder titled “Integration.” That serendipitous find led me to expand my research and to what ultimately became my larger work on women in New Orleans and across the state who were an integral, yet overlooked, part of the Louisiana civil rights movement.

What unsung woman activist from the past would you most like to read a biography of and why?  

I’m currently looking at the life of Lucille Watson, a white female plantation owner, who successfully oversaw the daily operations of her family’s cotton (and later cattle) farm in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, just over the Mississippi River from Natchez. Her life should be made into a movie – she was a young debutante who married her uncle when her aunt died, a tennis pro, an avid hunter and fisherwoman, an amazing host who loved to entertain and who’s Christmas Eve parties were notorious, and the chatelaine of Cross Keys plantation, until her death in 1985.

What work of women’s history have you read lately that you loved? (Or for that matter, what work of women’s history have you loved in any format?)

When I first began research in women’s history there was so little about women in Louisiana and writ large. Today there are so many wonderful histories and books dedicated to uncovering stories about women and their contributions to American history. Some of the best recently published include my good friend Virginia Summey’s work on Elreta Melton Alexander Ralston, the groundbreaking attorney and first black female graduate of Columbia Law School, who in 1947 became the first black woman to practice law in North Carolina. My friend Jess Armstrong, who has a Master’s Degree in History, has recently published some really fun and engrossing historical fiction – The Curse of Penryth Hall and The Secret of the Three Fates – set in early 20th century gothic Great Britain where the protagonist, Ruby Vaughn, solves mysteries in London, Scotland, and, next up, Oxford. The field of women’s history has expanded greatly since the 1970s and the studies of women in this country and abroad are numerous, illustrating how significant women are to the history of world.

A question from Shannon: What is something that you learned in your research/studies of women in history that was striking, something we wouldn’t otherwise know, that surprised you or delighted you? Something that was completely unexpected.

I will never forget learning that Alexander the Great had an older half-sister, Cynane, who was also a successful general—a story that scholars of the period are familiar with, but not one that makes it into mainstream world history classes. When I first stumbled across her story I literally ran down the stairs, shouting to my husband “You’ll never guess what I found!”

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Want to known more about Shannon and her work? Check out her faculty page.

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Tomorrow will be business as usual here on the Margins with a blog post from me. Then we’ll be back on Monday with six questions and two answers from Kim Barton and Johanna Wittenberg, novelists and hosts of the podcast “Shieldmaidens: Women of the Norse World.”