Authors Christina Larocco and Heather Shafter will discuss the lives of two women activists and the lessons learned from their impact on social movements at a special event June 28 at Hilltop Books in Chestnut Hill.

Larocco’s book, “Crosshatch: Martha Schofield, the Forgotten Feminist," chronicles the life of the Bucks County abolitionist and educator, and Shafter’s "Life of Libby: Chasing Peace & Justice with Humor, Guts, & Passion" recounts the activism of Chestnut Hill’s Libby Frank, a feminist and antiwar activist who served as executive director of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

The connectedness of social movements

Larocco, editor-in-chief of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s “Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography” since 2015, didn’t set out to write a book on Schofield, who founded a school in South Carolina for freed African Americans. Instead, Larocco discovered Schofield’s archived papers in 2016 at the Swarthmore College Friends Historical Library while consulting on a different project. She was struck by the personal nature of Schofield’s archive as compared to those of other female historical figures, which often leave out or destroy personal letters.

“When I came across her diaries and letters, they were so effusive about her inner world,” Larocco said. “I really hadn't seen anything like it before. I think it's really important not only to understand a different facet of women's lives in the past, but also because we need to tell women's stories in as much detail as we possibly can. Both then and today, that's an
important political act.”

Schofield came from a progressive Hicksite Quaker family and was a suffragette. He story demonstrates the intersectionality of activism and connectedness of social movements. While researching the book, Larocco questioned her own role in the world as a white feminist.

In an interview with the Local, the author discussed Schofield’s writings, which included racial stereotypes of her students as “unruly.” Larocco wondered if Schofield’s transcribed interviews with people whose family members were killed by white supremacists were accurate representations of the interview subjects’ views or a reflection of Schofield’s biases.

“I was working through her work in racial justice and the blind spots in her worldview at the very same time that I was coming to terms with my own role in history as a white woman and a feminist and someone who inevitably has been complicit in maintaining structures of power that I don't support,” Larocco said.

Larocco also reviewed papers that offered insight into Schofield’s personal life. Schofield
corresponded with a female friend, referring to the pair as husband and wife, and expressing extreme grief over the friend’s marriage. Schofield destroyed some letters by burning them or throwing them into the ocean, but Larocco suspects some may have been passed down to distant relatives.

Sharing peace and freedom

Shafter, when writing about Frank, touched on movement intersectionality. She joined
WILPF because of its focus on the interactions of race, gender, and class hierarchies. Frank, along with her work connecting feminism and global peace, opposed the Vietnam War and draft, and resisted McCarthyism as a member of the Communist Party.

Shafter was a college intern working for WILPF when she met Frank, who died in 2023, and
eventually decided to record Frank’s life story. The interview and writing process took 10 years, working between Shafter’s full-time job as the chief operating officer for BRODY Professionals, aJenkintown consulting firm, and Frank’s health complications as she reached her 90s.

According to Shafter, focusing on what you are passionate about, working with allies, and educating a broader base who may not initially agree with you, are crucial lessons from Frank’s life of activism.

“I think it really starts with knowing what you care about, what's most important to you, what you want to put your energy toward, what gives you energy,” Shafter said. “And then find other people who care about the same thing so that you're not working in a vacuum.”

Shafter said her book, and Frank’s life, show change is possible by highlighting how much progress has been made. “It's been done before, it can be done again.”

After Shafter published her book in 2024, she wasn’t done. “Chasing Peace and Justice,” her podcast named after the book, invites a guest each episode to highlight their advocacy in hopes it will inspire others.

Shafter and Larocco will be at Hilltop Books, 84 Bethlehem Pike, on Saturday, June 28, at 2 p.m.