Woman of the House Representative Nita Melnikoff Lowey '59 of New York has been tapped to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), a position that will be key in party efforts to take back the House of Representatives in 2002. Lowey is the first woman to head the committee and is now among the highest-ranking women in the House Democratic leadership. As chairwoman of the DCCC, Lowey is in charge of fundraising, recruiting candidates, and political planning.

Squeezing into Politics

In her new book, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (University Press of Virginia), Catherine A. Allgor FP '92 provides a new perspective on the political influence of first ladies of yore. “Squeeze” parties, hosted for Washington's elite by Dolley Madison in the White House of her husband James's presidency, were no mere superficial gossip fests, claims Allgor, a professor at Simmons College. Rather, these evenings represented a meeting of style and substance, “a manifestation of the right to rule,” writes Jeff Sharlet in a December 15 Chronicle of Higher Education article about Allgor's book. Also quoted in the piece was historian and MHC professor Joseph Ellis, who noted that Allgor's focus on the power of women in formal politics “takes gender history and plugs it into even the traditional mainstream of American history.” Ellis, who taught Allgor at MHC, characterizes his former student's new twist on White House women as a “wholly original'” idea. Allgor's book chronicles nineteenth-century first ladies and asserts that Madison, a savvy, “fine, portly, buxom dame” (in the eyes of Washington Irving, an occasional “Squeeze” guest), set the mold. Allgor also sheds new light on the significant influence of Louisa Catherine Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams. In February, Allgor will address a gathering of first ladies with their own varying experiences of parlor power.

MHC Rises in the East Works by printmaker Nancy Campbell, associate professor of art, and Allison Uttley '01 were on view December 16–22 in a special exhibition at Nagoya University of the Arts in Japan. The unique collaborative show included the drawings of nine faculty and thirty-six students from four Japanese universities and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges; the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; the University of Michigan School of Art and Design; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Campbell was responsible for the initial contact that brought an invitation to the Five Colleges. Medieval Japanese scroll paintings are a major source of inspiration for Campbell's work in printmaking, and she has been to Japan twice to study its art firsthand. During a visit last summer, she went to Nagoya University of the Arts, and the idea of a collaborative exhibition was born of conversations she had with faculty there.

Print by Nancy Campbell

Honored in Washington In October, Chrystie Solis '01 attended The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) Youth Gala, where she was honored for receiving a NIAF 1999–2000 study-abroad scholarship and met President Clinton. Solis used her award to study in Florence, where she pursued her interest in Italian literature.

Chrystie Solis '01 and President Clinton