Do your eyes glaze over and you start to yawn when someone says “history?” Haverford alum Beth Salerno has a remedy for that. Her new book, Sister Societies: Women’s Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America, will keep you engrossed. How could you not be drawn in by a narrative that begins “a crowd of thirty or forty young men hurled rocks and insults against the building?” After that attention-grabbing opener, Salerno goes on to develop a lively narrative about women’s antislavery organizations in antebellum America.

Salerno’s intellectual interests were developed while she was a student in Haverford’s undergraduate history department, which featured such stimulating and challenging professors as Linda Gerstein, Roger Lane, and John Spielman. Salerno then pursued her historical interests, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2000. She describes herself as “interested in…how the women overcame violence, verbal critiques and their own internal disagreements.” She also aims to explore “the networking and mentoring relationships women created, and gendered understandings of citizenship.” In Sister Societies, she addresses those interests and goals.

Through this exploration of women’s political culture, Salerno also deftly draws readers into her interests. She gets us thinking about how networking and correspondence worked in the pre-telephone, pre-Internet era. With a crisp writing style and an easy-to-follow organization—five chapters that lead us from “antecedents” to “conclusion”—she engages a number of the issues of modern scholarship. How does gender shape citizenship, political activism, and the interplay between the two? To what extent do the ways that women acquire and use leadership differ from the ways that men do these things? How do variations of personality and regional culture lead to conflicts among supposedly like-minded ideologues?

Focusing on the relatively large number of antislavery women in New England (especially Massachusetts) Salerno asks what—if anything—is noteworthy about the way the relatively wealthy Boston antislavery women managed personal rivalries, as opposed to how such conflicts were handled in smaller communities outside the big city. She answers by suggesting that Elizabeth Chase of Fall River sought greater communication and clarification of the issues: “the Mass. Women need talking to, and it can best be done by a woman.” (p. 114) Though Chase apparently did not get her wish, her ideas about remedying discord buttress Salerno’s argument that the women saw the solutions as coming from inside, rather than outside, their gendered organizations.

As Salerno informs us, antislavery societies abounded in antebellum America, and studies of them have abounded since. So what does Salerno add that makes her volume worth reading? First, using the advantages of local history—the power of capturing compelling stories, rather than a broad sweeping narrative that, by definition, obscures detail—Salerno has given life and particularity to some of the little-known ligaments in the larger body of women abolitionists. Second, Salerno compares female antislavery societies across regions, and offers insights into the subtleties of region, class, and intellectual sophistication as they affect women’s priorities in organization in 19th-century America.

Salerno’s volume also includes tools for those who want to continue pursuing the topic. There is a thoughtful Essay on Sources, and an appendix that summarizes female antislavery societies by year of founding, and by state. She raises questions about public and private “morality” (pp. 39-42) that invite further investigation for their implications for our own time. But most importantly, Salerno’s study tells a good story about women’s commitment to social change, some of the unique qualities of their ways of organizing to effect it, and their willingness to resist violent attacks because of it.

—Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner
Professor of History
Haverford College

by Robbie Anderman ’70
“Wind in the Rhythm Circle”

Paired up with friends Jean Brereton, Leo Brooks, Drew McAlpine, and Errol Francis, Robbie Hanna Anderman takes his listeners on a journey through the Rhythm Circle in his latest musical project, “Wind in the Rhythm Circle.” Creating unique sounds with instruments crafted around the world (including in Anderman’s own home), Anderman and his friends have developed a compilation of songs that utilize various wind and percussion instruments to play in the four directions described in the Medicine Wheel tradition of the Rhythm Circle.

Anderman first learned about the circle during a gathering of men in his friend’s timber framing shop. One of the men described each direction in the circle: the South (where the drum is played) is the direction of innocence and trust; the West (where wooden sticks are played) is the direction of the sunset, the autumn, and introspection; the North (where the rattle is played) is the direction of the wintertime, and the elders; and the East (where the chime, the flute, and the whistle are played) is the direction of the springtime, the sunrise, and inspiration.

Each of the 14 songs on the CD has its own unique sound, created by a conversation between the instruments that each musician plays to the four directions in the circle. While most of the songs focus on the music created by flutes, a host of other instruments help create the tone and progression of each song. Included in the long list of instruments that the group performs with is a Native American flute, a clay Udu drum from Nigeria, Temple Chimes from Nepal, a Caxixi shaker from Africa, an Egyptian Doumbek, a Kalimba (or African thumb piano), a West African Djembe, a Chinese cymbal, Ecuadorian pan pipes, an elk hide hoop drum, and a deer antler whistle.

Anderman has included an insert that informs the listener which instruments he and his friends play during each song and provides a Web site that details how each song attends to the Rhythm Circle. The purely instrumental songs are a mix of slow rhythms that can relax the listener and faster beats defined by the contrast of the various instruments at play. While not everyone may understand the underlying beliefs of the Medicine Wheel tradition of the Rhythm Circle and how they affect the songs, listeners can certainly appreciate Anderman’s, Brereton’s, Brooks’, McAlpine’s, and Francis’ mastery of the instruments they play and the unique musical sounds created when the five perform in concert with one another.

—Lauren Donaldson ’06

by Marcy Dermansky ’91
Twins

When Marcy Dermansky’s novel Twins opens, the title protagonists, Chloe and Sue, are turning 13 and offering vastly different perspectives on their relationship. Defiant, manic Sue is obsessed with maintaining her longtime closeness with Chloe: “She was the better twin. She had the better name, and I was desperate to hold on to her.” Chloe, whose voice alternates chapters with Sue’s, is making new friends and striving towards independence and a life not defined by her twin status: “Everyone took for granted that Sue was my best friend and that I was hers. We were considered the same person, indistinguishable, even when Sue threw pens at boys or hopped through the halls like a kangaroo. But I was not Sue.” As Chloe tastes the beginnings of adolescent popularity, Sue lashes out, manipulating Chloe both physically and emotionally and eventually breaking the nose of one of Chloe’s friends. Throughout their high school years, both girls experience exhilarating highs and debilitating lows as they struggle with their peers, their outrageously self-absorbed lawyer parents, and their search for their own identities. However, it’s not until they are apart from each other than they can find a way to co-exist, as a pair of twins and as two distinctive individuals.

It may be cliché to call a book “readable,” but that’s just what Twins is; the tide of Chloe and Sue’s turbulent tale pulls you along with irresistible force. In her first full-length novel, short story writer and film critic Dermansky has crafted two characters about whom you can’t help but care, even when you’re horrified by the things that happen to them and the things they do to each other. It’s hard not to cringe, for example, when preteen Sue is rejected and ridiculed by Chloe’s new friends and forces Chloe to join her in throwing up their food, or when older teen Chloe is abandoned by her parents and subsequently used by a new boyfriend and his friends who move into her vacated house. It’s also hard not to cheer when Sue blossoms under the stabilizing influence of her older brother’s serene girlfriend, or when Chloe finds her niche as a star of the girls’ basketball team, trained by a classmate’s NBA-star father. Dermansky poignantly and accurately portrays the hallmarks of everyday adolescence—parties, fair-weather friends, first loves, and rampant insecurity—but also gives us something out of the ordinary with Chloe and Sue, who illustrate the rewards and complexities of surviving the teen years with a mirror image of yourself always beside you.

—Brenna McBride

by Christian M. Hansen ’54
In the Name of the Children: The Life Story of a Pediatrician to the Poor

Pediatrician Christian M. Hansen is fond of the “Parable of the Starfish,” in which a young woman flings stranded starfish back into the sea to save their lives. An old man happens by and asks her what she hopes to accomplish; with millions of starfish along the shore, how can she make a difference by rescuing these few? She looks down at the starfish in her hand and replies, “It makes a difference to this one.”

As Hansen, a Quaker since adolescence, describes the triumphs and trials of his service to poverty-stricken children throughout the world in his powerful new book, In the Name of the Children: The Life Story of a Pediatrician to the Poor, he echoes the sentiments of this parable: “Saving each child’s life has value and meaning, even if we can’t save them all.”

In stark detail and simple, honest prose, Hansen relates the “bewildering challenges” that true poverty presents to health workers. From the distressed city of Camden, N.J., to the Native American reservations of Arizona and New Mexico, to the Mississippi Delta at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, to war-torn areas in Africa and the Middle East, to Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, Hansen battled racial injustice, malnutrition, abuse and neglect of children, a lack of medical supplies, running water, and electricity, and even his own mental state as he tried to provide patients with the kind of care they needed and could not have obtained otherwise.

Among the experiences Hansen recounts are his introduction to Martin Luther King, Jr. during his stay in Mississippi (“He appeared serene even after all he had been through. His eyes were bright and clear. He was not as slim as he had been in his youth, but appeared solid. There seemed to be a kind of aura around him, but perhaps that was my imagination.”); his appreciation of the culture of Burigi in East Africa, where, he says, “I’ll never forget the smell of charcoal fires, the long lines at the wells, or the sight of young children walking back to their tents balancing five-gallon pails of water on their heads;” and his work in Baghdad during the first Gulf War, when U.N. sanctions against Iraq had resulted in a severe dearth of medical equipment or supplies, and where Saddam Hussein’s face, painted on billboards and walls across the city, seemed to haunt Hansen wherever he went. Each chapter covers a different location and includes color photos of the people and places Hansen encountered, making his stories even more poignant and gripping.

Hansen is especially compelling as he reveals his near-breakdown in 1985, when he took a position running a developmental disabilities program in Qator, Saudi Arabia. After having an acute anxiety reaction to the hopeless medical conditions of young patients, he started on a tricyclic medication for depression but couldn’t alleviate a daily sense of doom. Back home in the United States, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He now takes lithium. “This disease,” he writes, “has helped me to understand the tenuousness of my hold, and everybody’s hold, on health.”

Hansen’s goal in writing this book is not simply to transcribe his memories, but also to raise awareness among his readers of the importance of saving these children’s lives. Poverty, he says, is a persistent foe in the fight for children’s health: “You have a much higher chance than the rest of the population of dying from a perfectly treatable disease, such as asthma, or dying from a gunshot wound on a Saturday night.”

He wants to see doctors make more of their roles in fighting poverty, perhaps giving a couple of years to public service after finishing their training.

“If we were to take as literal truth the words of our founding fathers, that all men are created equal, we would start being very, very concerned about our effects on others, around the world and at home,” he writes. “And we’d be more concerned about the kids.”

Moreover, he encourages his readers to find their own ways to contribute to social justice fields regardless of medical background (or lack thereof), ways, he says, that “allow you to make a living and bring you satisfaction and joy.”

—Brenna McBride

by John C. Whitehead ’43
A Life in Leadership: From D-Day to Ground Zero

At a time when the vehement criticism of world leaders has fostered a climate of intense political and ideological conflict, John C. Whitehead’s autobiography, A Life in Leadership, offers an inspirational account that moves the reader to confront the challenges of the 21st century with a renewed sense of hope and optimism. With an extraordinary career that has led him to the front lines of some of our nation’s most remarkable events, John C. Whitehead has undoubtedly accomplished more in 80+ years than most people could have with infinitely more lives. Whitehead vividly recounts these exciting tales in an enjoyable, 281-page narrative of insightful life experiences and invaluable leadership lessons.

Told in the charming, humble voice of Whitehead’s first person narration, the book begins with a 2001 telephone call from Governor Pataki, urging the renowned international statesman to oversee the monumental revitalization of Ground Zero (an offer that Whitehead loyally accepted, despite his previous plans to slowly move into retirement). Richly symbolic, this opening scene presents a powerful metaphor that aptly captures an indelible hallmark of Whitehead’s professional trajectory: his unwavering call to duty.

In his early years as a student at Haverford College, Whitehead demonstrated this fearless commitment to service through his ambitious pursuit of an impressively broad and abundant array of extracurricular activities—he sang in the glee club, played JV baseball and basketball, directed intramural athletics, ran the international relations club, and, yes, even found time to serve as president of the student council. Later, as a young ensign in the United States Navy, Whitehead accepted his captain’s desperate call for a landing craft commander during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, one of the most gruesome battles in American military history.

Whitehead makes it no secret that the cataclysmic events that defined the World War II years—events inescapably tied to his personal and intellectual development—prompted him to rethink his understanding of the world: “I was no longer just a student in a small college in Pennsylvania, but a citizen of a wider, far more dangerous world.” The reader certainly cannot help but ponder the chilling parallels between Whitehead’s words and those echoed by the students at his alma mater some 60 years later, as they contemplated the future of a post-9/11 universe.

The troubling experiences of the war unquestionably shaped Whitehead’s future opinions on globalization and foreign policy, constantly serving as a reminder of the ill effects that resulted in the absence of amicable foreign relations. It comes as no surprise to the reader, therefore, that, at Goldman Sachs, Whitehead decided to pursue opportunities to internationalize the firm’s business, even if that meant that the firm would have to sustain substantial short term losses in the process. Similarly, as Deputy Secretary of State, Whitehead defiantly advocated his vision to aggressively exercise diplomatic relations with the Eastern European countries, despite formidable opposition from his hardliner colleagues on the National Security Council. In both cases, Whitehead’s successful combination of patience and persistence would inevitably pay huge dividends—today, Goldman Sachs continues to prosper as one of the world’s most prominent global investment banks, while many still attribute the fall of the Soviet Union, in part, to the geopolitical pressure exerted by the independence of the Eastern European nations.

While Whitehead’s fascinating tales of leadership inspire all audiences, they resonate with the Haverford community in a particularly meaningful way. Unlike most books written by today’s business leaders, Whitehead’s narrative does not purport to contain the “secrets” or “rules” of effective leadership. Instead, Whitehead draws heavily upon the simple lessons that he acquired during his time at Haverford College. At countless moments in his autobiography, Whitehead revisits the quintessentially Haverfordian principles of compromise, consensus, and understanding. One can even reasonably infer that the Haverford Honor Code inspired Whitehead to author a similar document of business principles years later at Goldman Sachs. Even in his current role as Chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Whitehead continues to invoke these Quaker values as he performs the delicate task of resolving disputes among competing stakeholders in the redevelopment of the World Trader Center site.

It is this very ability to understand people that empowers Whitehead to make a tremendous impact on his reader, just as he has on so many other individuals over the course of his brilliant career. Sure, many of us will probably never have the opportunity to race down the hills of Afghanistan on a mujahedin raid, or negotiate foreign policy with global heads of state. For many of us, such experiences will forever remain vicarious remnants of an unattainably whimsical existence. Yet, by the end of the book, even the most timid reader is eager to apply John Whitehead’s invaluable leadership lessons to the larger world that awaits him or her…on the front lines, of course.

—Vincent Indelicato ’03
Vincent is currently a law student at the University of Michigan Law School. He served as the personal assistant to John C. Whitehead at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation during the summer of 2002.