MIDDLEURY — Labor historian Annelise Orleck will recount the struggle for welfare rights by Las Vegas women in the 1970s in a talk at Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury onJune 7 at 7 p.m. Her talk,“What if Poor Women Ran the World?”is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’sFirst Wednesdays lecture seriesand is free and open to the public. (Note: This talk is rescheduled from January.)
Orleck will tell the story of nine African-American union maids in Las Vegas who challenged welfare cuts and built a long-lasting, vibrant anti-poverty program run by poor mothers.
Orleck is a professor of history at Dartmouth College, where she teaches U.S. Political History, Women’s History and the history of race, ethnicity a