Stetson prof to discuss Florida’s female pioneers

Posted On: March 4, 2020

Dr. Peggy Macdonald, a native Floridian and adjunct history professor at Stetson University, will discuss some of the women who have shaped Florida during free presentations at two branches of the Volusia County Public Library system.

She will speak at:

• 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 17, at the DeLand Regional Library, 30 E. Howry Ave.
• 2 p.m. Saturday, March 21, at the Daytona Beach Regional Library, 105 E. Magnolia Ave.

She will share information about Dr. Esther Hill Hawks, a physician who ran the first racially integrated free school in Florida; Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous for writing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and kick-starting Florida’s tourism industry with her 1873 book, “Palmetto Leaves”; Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, a pioneering educator and civil rights leader; Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, the first and only female Florida Seminole tribal chair; and May Mann Jennings, a suffragist and conservationist who helped establish Royal Palm State Park, which formed the nucleus of Everglades National Park.

Reservations are not required for these programs, which are sponsored by the Friends of the Library in honor of Women’s History Month.