The 10th Annual Women’s History Tour – Saturday, May 18

Honoring Alexandria women’s achievements through history

By Elisabeth Johnson, PhD

ALEXANDRIA, VA- The Alexandria Commission for Women will sponsor its 10th Annual Women’s History Tour on Saturday, May 18. The tour will begin at 10:00 a.m. at the Lyceum, 201 South Washington Street, and include a dozen sites in about a one-mile walking tour. The tour will be moderately paced and participants will be encouraged to ask questions. Kristin Lloyd, Acting Director of the Alexandria History Museum, will guide the tour.

The Annual Women’s History Tour was founded by the late Susan Lowell Butler, former chair of the Alexandria Commission for Women as well as the Friends of the Commission for Women. Susan was committed to ensuring that stories of Alexandria’s women, past and present, would not be forgotten.

Each year the commission, in conjunction with the Alexandria History Museum, conducts this walking tour of sites significant to Alexandria women. This year’s tour will commence at the Lyceum, which was the social and cultural zenith of the community in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A stop at the Relief Hook and Ladder Company building on Prince Street has been added to examine women’s roles in historic volunteer fire companies and to reveal the mystery of Belle the Houdini Fire Horse. Another first-time stop will be the site of Shinbone Alley and the role of Mary Burnett.

Other sites will include Ramsay House, Cameron Street, City Hall, Mansion House Hospital, Lord Fairfax House, Barrett Branch Library and Gadsby’s Tavern Museum where the history of Margaret Brent who, through a 1654 land grant, was the original owner of Alexandria will be revealed.

The tour will conclude with a reception at Lloyd House, with refreshments and drinks courtesy of the Friends of the Commission for Women. Emily McCoy, member of the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association Board of Directors, will discuss the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial, currently being designed to honor the suffragists who fought for ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The 10th Annual Women’s History Tour and Reception is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. The tour will be limited to the first 30 persons who reply: AlexandriaWoman@gmail.com or (703) 566-0856.

Dr. Elisabeth Johnson, independent contractor, designs and executes quantitative research studies for federal and state agencies as well as private industry. She is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honor society.