Review: "Why Margaret Fuller Matters" Traveling Display

Many thanks for sharing this insightful display with us.

I discovered that the display was easy to mount. Since the ground level of our sanctuary is mostly all clear glass, lighting is always plentiful. The few non-glass areas have protruding beams just narrow enough that two large paper clamps just below eye level allowed a makeshift easel for most of the panels. Each of your panels fit neatly on this simple stand. This allowed easy viewing for anyone. Two regular easels flanked the front of the sanctuary on either side of the pulpit. These held the panels on Greeley and Italy since they were the theme of our service on March 21. We have photographs of this exhibit on our Facebook site. I will download these for you later.

I must say the panels were surprisingly succinct. I think they included all the bits of Fuller information I considered important yet were reliable guides to describing the larger forces--some her own, some unbidden--that shaped her life. Since nearly all the Fuller books are ponderously detailed for average readers--or else cursory to a fault--these were a refreshing and engaging outline of the important details of a singular life. To condense without distorting--the constant UU bugaboo--your author deserves distinctive praise. I especially valued three mentions of Lydia Maria Child, who will be the subject of a fall Sunday service--and a play of her own--in the next part of our Fuller Bicentennial celebration.

The exhibit was on display with docents at the original Sunday service March 21 plus the two succeeding Sundays since you had not yet sent me shipping instructions. The original service focused on Fuller's transformation into a passionate world citizen once she arrived in Italy. It included a Verdi aria. an accordion solo and "Come Back to Sorrento." The Coffee Hour afterward was a buffet of congregants' favorite Italian appetizers.

The docents were costumed members of the cast from our January play on Fuller--the women who played Margaret, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lydian Emerson. We cast all women in honor of Timothy Fuller's insistence that a woman could do anything a man could do. These docents were also on hand to guide visitors during a Paint and Furniture Sale May 27 and an interfaith seminar on Death and Dying Thursday May 25.

In addition it was in place for participants in independent meetings of Narcotics Anonymous, Buddhist meditation class and Kripalu Yoga.

With many thanks,

Paul Coleman
First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches
North Palm Beach, Florida