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Marian Wilson Kimber

@mwilsonkimber.bsky.social

2.6K followers 770 following 1.6K posts

Musicologist, writer, half of Red Vespa, author of The Elocutionists: Women, Music, and the Spoken Word and the forthcoming Clubwomen Activists and the Making of American Music. Posts in no way associated with my employer.

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · Apr 13

Today's historic find: 1923, Mrs. Frank Hoffman, music chair for the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs, complains that the average woman "doesn't know a trombone from a steamboat."

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Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

Jeff Yang @originalsp.in · 17h

An important additional detail: Most of the Unpresidented Band to which Korol belongs perform IN BANANA COSTUMES

This shit is indeed bananas

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Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 14h

“A clarinet player was arrested after playing her instrument to the tune of the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme song outside of a Portland ICE facility…”

Musician playing ‘Ghostbusters’ outside ICE facility is arrested by agents

‘Taking us citizens out of state to detain them without charge is a new action from the Feds and should be opposed,’ her band said

www.independent.co.uk

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 1d

Perfect!

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 1d

Somewhere there are photos of me in much more Keaton-esque hats. When I research women’s clubs the photos of the hats are amazing.

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 1d

Me in a hat many, many decades ago.

Fuzzy black and white photo of long-haired teenage girl in a cap with a brim

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 1d

I am not that cute!

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 1d

Still wishing hats would make a comeback.

Diane Keaton in a grey felt hat with a black band

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 1d

youtu.be/bw5zxdSObso?...

A Message From The Frog Resistance

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

youtu.be

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 2d

Also, apparently 19thC audiences liked those fancy fantasias! Schumann improvised between “serious” pieces to construct something closer to them in length.

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 2d

There is lots of lovely eighteenth-century music you could program. And lots of music written by women as well.

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Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 4d

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

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Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 4d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks! I just wish it had the power to change some minds. It’s so sad.

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 4d

I don't mean to be shamelessly self-promoting today, but it's the birthday of one of my heroes—Eleanor Roosevelt. Here's my article about women's peace songs sent to her in the 1930s, made possible by the FDR Library and the National Archives system:
journals.publishing.umich.edu/mp/article/i...

“It’s up to the women”: Women’s Peace Songs for Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt’s papers in the FDR Presidential Library contain approximately seventy musical works calling for world peace, the lyrics and/or music of which were created by women. Women’s peace so...

journals.publishing.umich.edu

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 4d

Here's my essay about how one concert program in the State Historical Society of Iowa—now being dismantled—changed my life: www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/10/10/t....

The theft of history

Marian Wilson Kimber: I have wondered if the box of women’s club programs that changed my life will end up in the dumpster.

www.bleedingheartland.com

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 5d

Welcome to Iowa City!

Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

Dr. William Horne @wihorne.bsky.social · 5d

This site offers students an incredible window into the coverage & causes of Red Summer. Highly recommend as a classroom resource or a basis for all kinds of student projects.

Archive - Visualizing the Red Summer

visualizingtheredsummer.com

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Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

Rebecca Bodenheimer @rmbodenheimer.bsky.social · 5d

🧵🧵🧵

As for her call for non-academics to get involved: one thing you should do if you see attacks on academic freedom or administrators capitulating to Trump's extortion at your alma mater is to write the uni/college president & express your outrage. They need to hear from alumni ASAP. Template👇

Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 5d

I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 5d

I actually know who Rossetter G.Cole was! He wrote some pieces for speaker and piano.

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Reposted by Marian Wilson Kimber

Wool-Encased Tea Addict @passeriform.bsky.social · 9d

My daughter is on a junket to New York with her online peeps. She sent me this poster from the Ripped Bodice:

A poster on a wall among bookshelves. It's in glorious color with pink peonies along the bottom. The text reads 'Unattended children will be given an enthusiastic explanation of intersectional feminism.'

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Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 9d

Yes.

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 9d

Thanks! This I where I saw single woman's club program that eventually led to an entire book.

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 9d

If you'd like to sign the petition, it's here: www.change.org/p/save-iowa-...

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 9d

There is a branch in Des Moines and one in Iowa City. Too much deferred maintenance in Iowa City, so they decided they couldn't afford it. Ethically they are supposed to evaluate the collection, but they're rushing into it. SIGN HERE:
www.change.org/p/save-iowa-...

Sign the Petition

Save Iowa History 2025 Redux

www.change.org

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 9d

They're literally going to dispose of some of the collection, and it isn't clear what. 😳

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