Minutes for Emily Dickinson International Society
Annual Members’ Meeting
Alumni House Large Meeting Room
Amherst, Massachusetts
Saturday, August 10, 2014
President’s Welcome
EDIS President Martha Nell Smith welcomed members and began the meeting at 9:39 a.m.
Approval of the Minutes of the August 11, 2013, Meeting
Secretary Nancy List Pridgen presented the minutes for the 2013 Members’ Meeting. It was moved and seconded that the minutes be approved, and they were approved unanimously.
Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer James Fraser gave the Treasurer’s Report. Fraser explained that he was now basing the report on the calendar year, from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013. EDIS began the year with $13,866, and it ended the year with $6,399, a net decrease of $7,467. Receipts for the year were $33,313, and expenses totaled $42,792. Expenses included publication of the Bulletin, Scholar in Amherst, and Graduate Scholarships, and cost of the 2013 international conference.
Fraser explained that he has been working since 2012 to restore EDIS’s tax-exempt status. Finally in May 2014 final material for EDIS’s case was placed on file and the case was assigned to an IRS agent, Ms. Gaiser,and Fraser is waiting to hear from the her very soon that EDIS’s tax-exempt status has been restored, and, he hopes, that it will also be retroactive.
Membership Committee Report
Elizabeth Petrino gave the membership report: Membership for EDIS now stands at 292. In addition to Petrino, the Membership committee consists of Alexandria Socarides, Cindy MacKenzie, and Kate Allen, who represents graduate students in EDIS.
Cindy MacKenzie and her graduate student Liza Gilblomhave assembled a packet for new members, which includes a welcome letter from the EDIS president,a certificate of membership, a crossword puzzle, a button, and a refrigerator magnet. EDIS sent packets to 41 new members.
New buttons for sale at this conference include “Rowing in Eden,” “Dwell in Possibility,” and “Emily Dickinson for President,” and also a refrigerator magnet proclaiming “Member Emily Dickinson International Society.” These make excellent prizes for students or chapter group members.
Allen has compiled a list of graduate students who might join EDIS. She is sending invitations to join EDIS and attend the annual meeting. The graduate student site focuses primarily on graduate students, but those who are interested in helping graduate students can join. The site can help graduate students find each other though they are a distance apart. The website address is . It has links to the EDIS site and the Emily Dickinson Museum site.
Petrino asked members to renew and encouraged Dickinson scholars speaking at the Institute to join.
Plans for the upcoming year include continuing to advertise EDIS at national and international conferences. EDIS conferees can give fliers to colleagues who are presenting on Dickinson or who have had Dickinson articles published recently.
2014 Annual Meeting
Jonnie Guerra previewed the day’s events:
After the Members’ Meeting, Jane Wald will talk about “Emily Dickinson’s Precincts of Freedom.”
During the Box Lunch, William and Nancy List Pridgen and Lois Kackley and Greg Mattingly will be available to discuss their workshops presented on Friday afternoon.
During the afternoon, the Emily Dickinson Museum will hold tours, the Frost Library and the Jones Library will be open for viewing Dickinson material, and members can take a self-guided walking tour of Amherst writers’ homes. Jane Wald’s husband will also conduct trolley tours of literary sites in Amherst. The 5:00 p.m. tour at the EDM will focus on changes to the Museum.
At 4:00 p.m., Maxine Silverman will present a poetry reading from her book,Transport of the Aim: A Garland of Poems on the Lives of Emily Dickinson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Celia Thaxter.
Two happy hours will be held beginning at 5:30: Martha Nell Smith will host one at 30 Boltwood. Paul Crumbley will host another at The Monkey Bar. Dinner is on your own.
Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. will be the Research Circle, hosted by Ellen Louise Hart, for those who want to present their research in progress on Dickinson, or who want to listen to others.
Paul Crumbley will give a talk on “Back Talk in New England: Dickinson and Revolution” at 10:15 a.m.
Alexandra Socarides and Elizabeth Petrino reported on the Institute, which was held on Friday afternoon. They explained that they organized the Institute, which began with a call for papers and papers in progress on New England writers in the fall of 2013. Submissions were sorted into five discussion groups, according to topic. The discussions and a rigorous and intimate wrap-up session lasted three hours. The Institute was deemed a great success. Petrino and Socarides asked that members submit to them any ideas for improving the format of future Institutes.
Smith thanked Guerra and Wald for planning and organizing the annual meeting. She thanked Socarides and Petrino for putting on the Institute, and Bill and Nancy Pridgen and Lois Kackley and Greg Mattingly for putting on workshops for members not participating in the Institute.
2015 Annual Meeting
Smith announced that the EDIS 2015 Annual Meeting will be held in Amherst rather than California. It will take place the last week in July or the first week in August. EDIS will be working closely with the Emily Dickinson Museum on this meeting. The theme will be announced soon. She asked that anyone who has suggestions or feedback please send an email. A form for feedback is also available on the EDIS website. Smith supplied her own email address < > and the EDIS website address <> to facilitate communication.
Barbara Mossberg stated that the theme will involve a fresh look at Amherst. EDIS will not take for granted the grounds, the resources, the community where Emily Dickinson lived. The conference could look at the flora and fauna, such as birds,and the ecology of the Amherst area. It was suggested that the program could involve hikes, and Wald mentioned the literary trails in Amherst. Mossberg also suggested that the theme could be related to “Wild Emily,” a play on the poem “Wild nights.”
Possibilities for Future Annual Meetings
Smith told members that EDIS will be going west for a meeting in the near future.
Petrino and Páraic Finnerty are eager to have a meeting about Dickinson and Shakespeare in the near future. Cynthia Hallen wants to have a meeting in Amherst coordinated with the annual Dickinson family reunion.
The discussion of the 2016 International Conference in Paris, tentatively scheduled for June, revealed that the members from Japan would be in the middle of their semester then and would not be able to attend. Smith said the Society would work with the Japanese members in setting the final date.
Emily Dickinson Museum Update
Cindy Dickinson reported that last year was busy, especially since it was the Museum’s Tenth Anniversary. A new special program, entitled “Dickinsons in Love,” explores the romantic lives of the Dickinsons. Most of the program involves sitting and participating through role play, using words of Dickinson, as well as work done by Dickinson researchers.
Two other theatrical programs are scheduled – one in June called “The Emily Dickinson Project,” and another also in June but not yet named, which will involve a walk around town, ending at the Evergreens. This one is an example of immersive theater (the audience will be part of the action). The theater without walls, called fourth wall, is a cutting edge form which will include Dickinson’s words spoken by eight different actresses, each bringing out a different facet of her character. It will use both the interior and exterior of the Homestead. The Museum has just given permission for this performance to happen and has had nothing else to do with the play or its contents.
This year marked the third Emily Dickinson workshops for teachers, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Eighty teachers, in two waves, learned new ways to think about and to teach Emily Dickinson.
Jane Wald reported that the business model for the Museum is based on earned income and donated income. Last year 13,000 visitors came to see the Homestead and the Evergreens. July 2014, 2,000 people visited, the largest number ever in one month. The Museum has 50 employees, mostly part time. The quality of tours and programs is enriched by community members and scholars passionate about Dicknson. The Museum’s geographical location makes attracting more visitors a challenge.
Several projects are underway. Emily Dickinson’s room has been stripped down to the bare essentials. Since restoration begins in a few weeks, now is the last opportunity to see the room in this state.
The Museum will begin reestablishing an orchard at the far eastern edge around the corner of Triangle and Main Street. A handsome memorial gift has made this possible. The Museum will hold a garden theme week, where participants will put their hands into Dickinson’s dirt. One of the Museum’s landscape consultants has gathered information about what grew there in Dickinson’s lifetime, and her vegetable garden and her flower gardens will gradually be restored. The works of John Martin, Marta McDowell, and Judith Farr have provided vabluable information on the plants on the grounds. Trees in the orchard include pear, cherry, and varieties of apple.
Beginning in 2015, a multi-year project involveshousing the University of Massachusetts’s archaeological field schoolat the Museum for several years. Thiswill provide a great deal of valuable archaeological information about the Homestead and the Evergreens.For example, exact locationsof the barn and cider house will be established. Landscape archaeology will help pinpoint the location and extent of the gardens, and soil samples will help determine what was planted there.
Other projects include ongoing work on the drainage and fire suspension systems. Drainage involves digging up the basement of the Evergreens, supervised by archeologists, so that nothing important is lost.Heating, ventilation, and cooling systems will help preserve the collections and the houses and make visitation to the Museum more comfortable. The Museum has received a matching grant of $380,000, which has been matched, yielding $760,000 to work with. The Homestead and the Evergreens will be painted and decorated in 1880s colors.
The conservatory will be restored after the fire suppression systems and the heating and ventilation projects are completed, preventing the need to redo any parts of the project. The conservatory will be finished in the next year or two. Graphic information has been collected, and design drawings have already been prepared.
Wald gave tour times: 1 p.m., 2p.m., and 3p.m. – the Homestead and the Evergreens; 1:30p.m., 2:30p.m., and 3:30p.m. – just the Homestead. Three architecture tours will be offered. At 5:00 p.m. will be a Highlights tour. Trolley tours of Amherst will be held at 2:30 and 3:00 p.m. and will be led by James Wald, who teaches history and historic preservation at Hampshire College.
Wald responded tomembers’ questions:
The cattle show was first held on the Amherst town commons and later on the fairgrounds that are due east about a mile and a half from the Alumni House, off East Street.
The Amherst History Museum is open Saturdays but not Sundays.
The cemetery is preserved and maintained by the town. Last year the town restored the fence and gate around the Dickinson plot.
The shops backing onto the cemetery will be redeveloped, but there will be an attempt to preserve the mural that can be seen at the cemetery.
Smith thanked Dickinson and Wald for their update on the Museum and said she looked forward to working with them on the EDIS 2015 annual meeting.
Members’ Talk Back and Announcements
Allen offered her cards to those who have perspective on the graduate website so they could go to the website and/or email her.
Daniel L. Manheim expressed concern about some members, particularly those in China and other international addresses, who had not received their copies of the Bulletin. He said that members should receive one copy of the Bulletin at the end of May and another just before Christmas. He asked that those not receiving the Bulletin at these times contact him at . Manheim also asked for ideas for Bulletin articles or manuscripts of very short scholarship-like documents.
Pridgen pointed out that she had just now realized that last year’s minutes read “24th anniversary” instead of “25th anniversary.” It was quickly moved, seconded, and approved that she correct it.
Nominations Committee Report
Alexandra Socarides announced that Pridgen would be stepping down as Member-at-Large and introduced the newly-elected Member-at-Large Marta Werner. Socarides stated that more members had voted this year than in previous years.
Socarides also announced that Hiroko Uno has stepped down as board member, and that Member-at-Large Eliza Richards was elected by the EDIS board members to take Uno’s place. She said that another Member-at-Large election would be held as soon as possible to fill Richards’ seat.
Socarides also stated that the following board members had been re-elected for three more years on the EDIS board:
Barbara Mossberg
Elizabeth Petrino
Vivian Pollak
Martha Nell Smith
Socarides announced the officers for 2014-2015:
Martha Nell SmithPresident
Barbara MossbergVice President
James FraserTreasurer
Nancy List PridgenSecretary
Diana FraserClerk
Elizabeth PetrinoMembership Committee Chair
Páraic FinnertyNominations Committee Chair
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 10:53