October Rose Productions

Celebrating the lives and accomplishments of women, written for the Washington Women’s Heritage Project. New verses can be found on my web site. From Mama Wanted to be a Rainbow Dancer

Inspired by the quilters and basket-makers who wove our stories together in the early days of settlement. Erin Corday shares the lead vocals. From Washington Notebook.

A hard look at the experiences of women who crossed the country by wagon train in the mid-1800s. Inspired by Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel. From October Roses.

During the long journey  for women’s suffrage, Washington State was in the eyes of the world as it won and lost the vote for fifty years.  Washington State won the vote in 1910.

I have always been moved by this speech by former slave Sojourner Truth, given in Akron, Ohio in 1851 at a women’s rights convention.  Tracy Spring leads the background vocal.

In order to truly celebrate the raising up of women’s voices through the ballot box, we need to understand the realities of the silencing of women’s voices and experience in our history.  Helga Estby and her daughter Clara walked across America in 1896. This is her story, with thanks to Linda Lawrence Hunt (see her book, Bold Spirit).

Two very different women were primary players in the struggle for the vote in Washington:  Emma Smith Devoe and May Arkwright Hutton. Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt were also seen as adversaries. But as the song says, “We all need each other to achieve equality”! Lead vocals shared with Janis Carper. From Washington Notebook.

The Washington Women’s Cook Book was published in 1908 as a fundraiser for the Suffragists. It was dedicated  "To the first woman who realized that half of the human race was not getting a square deal..."

Ultimately, it was the men who voted in the fight for Suffrage.  We honor the great abolitionist Frederick Douglas who spoke at the Seneca Falls Convention, Arthur Denny who almost swayed the Washington territorial legislature to give women the vote in 1854, and Harry Burn of  Tennessee who was convinced by his mother to change his vote and cast the ballot that ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on Aug. 18th, 1920.

A song sung by the Suffragists, imprisoned in Occaquan “workhouse” for protesting in front of Wilson’s White House.

On November 14, 1917, 30 Suffragists in Occoquan Workhouse were beaten, threatened, and mistreated in what came to be known as the "night of terror." 

Inez Milholland was a labor lawyer, public speaker, WWI protester and suffragist who was known as the martyr of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.  Despite an illness, she went on a speaking tour in the West and collapsed while giving a speech in Los Angeles. She died ten weeks later, Nov. 25, 1916

“Forward out of error, Forward into light” was the motto of the National Woman’s Party, the young suffragists including Alice Paul, Lucy Burn and Inez Milholland who revitalized the movement and gained the vote in 1920. The song is a dialogue between the older women of the movement and the younger women who took up the cause. Vocals shared with Jen and Kristin Allen-Zito.

A Suffrage song parody about those who resisted Suffrage.  My additional verses are aimed at the women who both benefit from and resist the changes for which our foremothers struggled.

Virginia Brodine, author and activist, wrote this song in about 1939 as an organizing song for domestic workers.  It says a lot about “women’s work”.

Laura was a labor leader and activist in the turbulent struggles between lumber mill owners and workers.  Murdered in 1940, her killer was never found. From Women’s Work.

My mother, Jean Barkley, was a Rosie during WWII, driving a truck at Ft. Lewis, Washington. This story was inspired by a quote from a woman who worked at Boeing during World War II.  She said, ..“the day the war ended, every woman in there GOT IT. Leadman came ‘round and says, ‘Frances, tonight you can hang your torch up, your job’s done; the war is over.’ And on that day I picked up a piece of scrap iron and lit my torch and wrote my name on it.  That was in 1945.  This is my proof for my grandchildren and great grand-children that I really was a burner in the wartime.” (Washington Women’s Heritage Project). Harmoney vocals: Frankie Armstrong. From Women’s Work.

For the women who have gone before, and to those who come after. Vocals with Jen and Kristin Allen-Zito. From Where I Stand.

Written for Guadalupe House in Tacoma, Washington – a halfway house for women coming out of prison.

Dedicated to my husband Scott and my son Nathaniel and all the patient moms and wives who show up.