Author and Historian Kimberly Hamlin Comes to The Music Hall in October

On Thursday, October 15, award-winning author and historian Kimberly Hamlin comes to The Music Hall for a socially distanced literary event. She will discuss her new biography, FREE THINKER, the remarkable true story of a "fallen woman" who reinvented herself and became one of the best-known female writers and reformers of the 19th century and the woman credited with securing congressional passage of the 19th Amendment, in celebration of the suffrage centennial.

"Kimberly Hamlin provides us with a stunning portrait of Helen Hamilton Gardener, bringing her life's work to light and public knowledge as it rightfully should be," says Brittany Wason, Literary Coordinator and evening's moderator. "I'm looking forward to an in-depth discussion about the work and the journey that it took to create this incredibly detailed and well-researched biography."

The 7pm event includes an author presentation and interview with Brittany Wason, Literary Coordinator at The Music Hall, followed by an audience Q&A. It will be held at The Music Hall at 28 Congress St., in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The theater is following state and local guidelines including requiring masks, social distancing, and contactless concessions, in addition to installing an updated HVAC system. More information on The Music Hall's safety protocols at www.themusichall.org/reopening.

Kimberly Hamlin's biography, FREE THINKER, tells the remarkable true story of Helen Hamilton Gardener, a woman before her time who reinvented herself after a public sex scandal and became the "most potent factor" of the Nineteenth Amendment and the highest-ranking woman in the federal government, in celebration of the suffrage centennial. FREE THINKER is the first biography of Helen Hamilton Gardener, who died as a national symbol of female citizenship. Her life sheds new light on how the sexual double standard motivated women to demand the vote and why it was not until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that the Nineteenth Amendment became a reality for all women.

Kimberly A. Hamlin teaches history and American studies at Miami University of Ohio and contributes to the Made by History series in the Washington Post. In 2017 She received the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award, as well as the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics for "Woman Citizen: Helen Hamilton Gardener and Women's Suffrage in America." Hamlin is the author of From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science and Women's Rights in Gilded Age America. She currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The ticket package for Innovation + Leadership: Kimberly Hamlin with Free Thinker on Thursday, October 15, at 7pm is $46. In addition to a reserved seat, the package includes a signed copy of FREE THINKER ($28.95, hardcover), a bar beverage, author discussion, and audience Q+A. Packages can be purchased online at TheMusicHall.org or over the phone with the B2W Box Office at 603.436.2400.

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