The Friends of the Sacramento State University Library invite you to our final Charles Martell Author lecture of the year with Allison Gilbert, co-author of Listen, World! How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman, the first biography of Elsie Robinson, the most influential newspaper columnist you’ve never heard of.
100 years ago, a decade before Gloria Steinem was born and forty years before Betty Friedan identified “the problem that has no name,” American newspaper columnist Elsie Robinson pushed readers to rethink gender inequality. “I’m tired of hearing the differences of men and women emphasized and exploited,” she wrote in 1922. “It has built a wicked wall between the sexes and it’s time we knocked it down.” A writer who used her national platform to defy social mores, Robinson’s “Listen, World!” column reached more than 20 million readers, making her one of the most famous people in the country. But she’s been largely forgotten.
Now, New York Times best-selling author Julia Scheeres and award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert have written the first biography of this remarkable pioneer. Their cinematic narrative weaves meticulous research with Robinson’s own inspiring words, taken from her columns, interviews, books, and letters—most never digitized or previously available to today’s readers. In Listen, World!, Scheeres and Gilbert seek to rescue this heroine from obscurity, shining a light on her remarkable body of work and the heartbreaking paths she took to become one of the most prominent writers in America.
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 2024
TIME: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
LOCATION: Zoom, subtitles will be available
WATCH
Further information and interviews:
This event will have subtitles, to request additional accommodations such as ASL interpretation, please contact lib-events@csus.edu by Wednesday, March 27, 2024.