Celebrating Women & Books

WNBA Book Women Seventy Women Who Have Made a Difference

The 15 women who met at Sherwood's Book Store in lower Manhattan on October 29, 1917, would be proud of the organization they founded that night and whose 70th anniversary we are celebrating. They would be proud to know that the Women's National Book Association has not only survived but has grown to a national organization encompassing all the diverse branches of the book world, with membership open to men and women.

This diversity makes WNBA unique and has enabled our members to create networks geographically as well as professionally. It also allows us to join with other groups to promote books and reading at national events such as the programs at the Modern Language Association, the Pannell award ceremony at the American Booksellers Association Convention, and the annual breakfast at the American Library Association Conference.

It is in this spirit that we decided to celebrate our 70th anniversary, and the Year of the Reader, by saluting 70 book women who have made a difference. We invited the entire book world to nominate women who are committed, dedicated, creative, and catalytic. In response to our ads in the trade press, hundreds of names of outstanding women poured in, which were then reviewed by our judges, who ultimately chose the 70 awardees listed in this booklet. This list confirms the range of the roles and responsibilities of today's book women.

We are delighted to present The WNBA Book Women Award to these 70 women who have made a difference. They represent all that is special about the book world, an "industry" which despite the changing world of business and technology still remains one of professionals dedicated to connecting the words and creativity of authors to the minds and lives of readers.

There seems no better way to celebrate 70 years of WNBA in 1987 than to honor these women who are the reason WNBA was founded and remains so significant today, and will continue to do so into the next century.

Cathy Rentschler
President, 1987-1988

Seventy Five Books by Women
Whose Words Have Changed the World

Selected by members of the Women's National Book Association in Observance of Their 75th Anniversary

Annotated by Adeline Oakley / Boston Chapter WNBA

Eighty Books for 21st Century Girls

Thank you for your interest in "Eighty Books for 21st Century Girls." Members of the Women's National Book Association throughout the United States are pleased to share this list of 80 important books with you as part of our organization's 80th anniversary celebration. As we also approach a new millenium, we thought it was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the books we have enjoyed while growing up and share 80 favorite titles that provide smart, capable, and talented female role models for future generations of girls.

Americana as Taught to the Tune of a Hickory Stick [pdf]

In its originality this little volume might be called daring if its contents were gleaned otherwheres than from textbooks. Verily the appeal of the selections ranges from wonderment, to laughter, to tears-the whole somehow mellowed by the fragrance of age.

Herein have been garnered sheaves of material from popular elementary schoolbooks of the past. This past begins with our American colonies and extends up to the recollection of several of us oldsters. And the entire gamut of the lower school curriculum has been traversed-reading, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, geography, and history, together with the publishers' advertising therefor.

Constance Lindsay Skinner Author and Editor [pdf]

The Women's National Book Association is now publishing this volume to commemorate Constance Lindsay Skinner, a remarkable bookwoman who, inspiring and enchanting many, made a lasting contribution as an author and editor. In it we intend to proclaim her genial talents to WNBA members, CLS winners, book collectors and antiquarian booksellers, librarians and educators, feminists-and to all others who care about books and the people who make them.

Little was known at the time of Skinner's death about her personal life and work; across the years less and less has been remembered.

Women in the World of Words [pdf]

The Women's National Book Association is the only professional organization in the book trade which covers a national cross section of women engaged in all phases of the industry. Our members are constantly on the alert for ways in which they may serve the world of books and enlarge and enhance the acquaintance and friendship of bookwomen the county over. Since the WNBA does not represent any special group interest within the industry, it provides an ideal medium for concerted action.

We have come far in the past fifty years and we still have far to go to achieve all the possibilities that lie before us. Together we can play a constructive and vital part in helping to make books attain their fullest and most influential role in these challenging times.

Sincerely,

Victoria S. Johnson
National President, 1967