The San Francisco Public Library invites everyone to an illustrated lecture by author Angelica Shirley Carpenter, based on her book of the same title, Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist. The talk, followed by a book sale, will be held at the main library, 100 Larkin Street, Latino Hispanic Rooms A & B, at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 6.

For the first fifty years of the women's rights movement, Gage was a well-known leader, organizer and author. Unlike her colleagues Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she believed in equal rights for all, regardless of race, sex, or class.  After Gage died, in 1898, her so-called friends wrote her out of history.  One author who did not forget her was her son-in-law L. Frank Baum, who wrote about a strong American heroine in his most famous book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Using historical and contemporary photos and Gage's own words, Carpenter provides a history of the women's movement, seen through the eyes of a woman who helped shape it.  Find out more at angelicacarpenter.com.

Carpenter is Curator Emerita of the Arne Nixon Center for Children's Literature at California State University, a past president of the International Wizard of Oz Club, and a member of the American Library Association, the Authors Guild, the League of Women Voters, the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Women's National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter.