In 2004, JWA sponsored Andrea Kalinowski's Stories Untold: Jewish Pioneer Women 1850–1910 exhibition at the Boston Public Library as part of our 350th anniversary program events. Kalinowski’s multimedia canvases bring together quotations from diaries and news stories, photographs, and quilt patterns to tell stories from the lives of nine Jewish pioneer women. They also inspired the feature on jwa.org on Jewish women pioneers in the American West.

JWA was lucky to receive one of the pieces as a gift from Founding JWA Board Chair Barbara Dobkin—a quilt telling the story of Anna Marks. In 1880, Anna Marks and her husband immigrated to America and settled in Eureka City, a rich mining area 60 miles south of Salt Lake City. Anna Marks made a fortune in real estate and owned controlling interests in two mines near Eureka. She also invested money in diamonds. Not afraid to pull her guns on men who crossed her, Anna gained a reputation for being “the feistiest woman in the state.”

Today, Anna Marks’ quilt hangs in JWA’s conference room, inspiring us to live up to her fearless legacy.

In March 2005, JWA held its first New York gala—So Laugh a Little: An Evening of Jewish Women's Comedy Honoring Barbara Dobkin. The Founding Chair of the Jewish Women’s Archive, Barbara Dobkin has broken new ground in both Jewish and secular philanthropy. She is known for her cheeky sense of humor, so it made sense to honor her, and her contributions to JWA, with a night of comedy.

So Laugh a Little was held at the Copacabana in New York City. Each guest received a Barbara Dobkin mask and a pink feather boa. The event laid the foundation for JWA’s acclaimed documentary film about Jewish women in comedy, Making Trouble.

In JWA Executive Director Gail T. Reimer’s sunny office you will find this print by artist Joan Snyder. Commissioned by The Jewish Museum in New York City, it includes the names of every woman, Jewish and non Jewish, whose name appears in the Bible. Joan Snyder and a photograph of her print by Sheldan Collins are featured in JWA’s exhibit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

Before founding JWA in 1995, Gail T. Reimer conceived and co-edited the path-breaking anthology of Jewish women’s writings—Reading Ruth: Women Reclaim a Sacred Story. Working on this project led Gail to see that contemporary Jewish women’s stories were likely to suffer the same fate as Biblical women’s stories if something weren’t done about collecting and preserving them. That realization led to the founding of the Jewish Women’s Archive.