Don’t know about Kansas’ Army of Amazons? You can soon.
They’re part of a new two-part documentary on Kansas PBS called “Great Women of Kansas.”
Part 1, which originally aired in September, will be broadcast again at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 19. Part 2 premieres at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 20.
Part 1 focused on Susanna Salter, first elected female mayor in the United States; wildlife photographer Osa Johnson; prohibitionist Carry Nation; pilot Amelia Earhart and several others.
Part 2 spotlights five more Kansas women — actress Hattie McDaniel, former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and prominent Wichitans Olive Ann Beech, Olive W. Garvey and Velma Wallace — plus a group of women who became known as the Army of Amazons.
Producer Chris Frank said women have often been left out of, or reduced to supporting roles in, accounts of the past.
“We know that in history, women were marginalized. Like when I was interviewing Ann Garvey about her grandmother, she would say, ‘Chris, we’re still being marginalized.’ Let’s be honest, that’s true in some ways.”
Kassenbaum was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without her husband previously holding the seat.
Beech started as a secretary and wound up running her husband’s company after his death. Similarly, Olive Garvey took a leading role in her husband’s business empire after his death while still supporting numerous organizations.
McDaniel was the first African American to be awarded an Oscar, for her role in “Gone with the Wind.” Wallace, wife of former Cessna chairman Dwayne Wallace, overcame her shyness to become one of the city’s great philanthropists.
The Army of Amazons was so named by The New York Times in the winter of 1921 when thousands of female residents of southeast Kansas marched through bitter cold in support of their husbands, who were striking coal miners. The governor ordered troops to the area and many women were arrested, but the women exacted revenge at the ballot box in the next election.
Frank is leaving the door open to at least one more segment of “Great Women of Kansas.” He noted, for instance, that he would have included female basketball star Lynette Woodard in Part 2 if she hadn’t been committed to another documentary project.
“We are keeping our options open. There are people I would have loved to have gotten
