National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior

PO Box 65
Harpers Ferry WV 25425

304 535-6748 phone
304 535-6244 fax

Harpers Ferry NHP News Release

Release Date: Immediately
Contact: Marsha B. Wassel
Phone: 304 535-6748

Women’s History Month Program Presents “A Woman’s Place Harpers Ferry 1800-1931”

Harpers Ferry Park announces the March 2006 Women’s History Month Program, “A Woman’s Place: Harpers Ferry 1800-1931.” On Saturday and Sunday, March 25-26 the public is invited to join “In the Shadows: A Woman’s Place”, a ranger-guided walking tour each day at 2:00 p.m. Self-guided walking tour brochures are also available at the Park Visitor Center. The brochures highlight locations in the town where Harpers Ferry women made their contributions to the town’s history.

Members of the living history group, The Frederick Ladies Relief Society, will interpret the lives and work of cotton mill workers in the Ready Made Clothing Store Exhibit. Harpers Ferry’s rich industrial history includes the establishment of a cotton and weaving mill on the adjacent island and town of Virginius Island. The local papers described the mill as a four story Brick Factory of the most permanent character, fitted with gaslights and heated with steam pipes and contains 97 looms powered by two new iron turbine wheels.

In the late 1840’s, cotton industry workers from England immigrated to Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to begin a new life in a foreign country. Unfortunately, for these immigrants, the cotton and spinning mill fell into economic ruin.
The Harpers Ferry’s merchant district sold locally produced cloth and hired many local seamstresses to hand sew men’s ready-made clothing in order to meet the demand for affordable menswear.

Visitors are invited to Roeder’s Confectionary to learn about the life and times of Mary Roeder, and her large German family, who immigrated to America in the 1840s. Mary was forced to become head of the family, raising her brothers and sisters when her father, Frederick Roeder, became the town’s first casualty during the Civil War.

Living in Harpers Ferry during the Civil War was risky but civilians, like Mary, who wanted to save their property knew it was necessary. Families were at the mercy of hungry, desperate, tired, scared, wounded, and occasionally hard-hearted troops.

Programs show the strength and courage of many remarkable women.

-NPS-

Updated: Thursday, 16-Mar-2006 09:21:20 Eastern Daylight Time
www.nps.gov /archive/hafe/new/nr-womens-place-2006.htm
Author: Marsha B. Wassel

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