Spring Virtual Lecture Series: “The Mighty Struggle for Liberty & Reform: George Burleigh and His Remarkable Family”
Speaker: Jennifer Rycenga, Ph.D.
March 10 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT
No one evoked the beauties of Little Compton more than George Shepard Burleigh (1821-1903), except maybe his son, Sydney Richmond Burleigh, in painting. But George was much more than a lover of nature. Burleigh was the youngest child from a family of seven Abolitionist siblings. He wrote pointedly against slavery, against the death penalty, and in opposition to the war with Mexico. His literary work was widely published and championed by the literary elite (including Longfellow and Lowell), and he was recognized by the Transcendentalists as a kindred spirit. His marriage to Ruth Burgess, of Little Compton, brought George into the natural splendour of this corner of the world. But he never lost his reformer’s conscience, supporting women’s rights and temperance in the decades after the Civil War. George – and his love of Little Compton’s scenery and families – are more significant than has been previously acknowledged. This talk will outline the last four decades of George’s life, when he lived in Little Compton.
Speaker: Jennifer Rycenga
Jennifer Rycenga, author of Schooling the Nation: The Success of the Canterbury Female Academy (University of Illinois Press, 2025), is Professor Emerita in the Humanities Department at San José State University. Her scholarly work has focused on the Abolitionist movement, exploring areas previously hidden or marginalized, such as Black women’s activities and voices, the anti-racist work of white Abolitionists, and networks of families and friends involved in the struggles against slavery and injustice. In addition to her work on the Canterbury school controversy, she has led two Digital Humanities projects on the Burleigh family of Plainfield, Connecticut – seven siblings who all supported Prudence Crandall and the Canterbury school – and philosophic analyses of the work of Black speaker Maria Stewart (1803-1879).
Rycenga’s other work ranges widely across feminist musicology (co-editor with Sheila Whiteley of Queering the Popular Pitch, Routledge 2006), global feminism (Frontline Feminisms, co-edited with Marguerite Waller, Routledge 2001), and lesbian philosophy (The Mary Daly Reader, co-edited with Linda Barufaldi, New York University Press, 2017). Her next major work will examine the convergence of justice, history, art, and the natural world.
Jennifer Rycenga lives in Rochester, New York with her wife Peggy Macres, an elderly yet spry Shitzu-Poodle named Patsy Cline, and two highly-contented cats, Lyssa (Greek; Bringer of Chaos) and Ipo (Hawaiian; sweetheart).
gotty moved into its new building using a system of planks and rollers that would have made the ancient Egyptians proud. This winter it is tucked safely behind its brand new Category 5 Hurricane Screens.
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