From Phoebe Wernborg

With its mission to push for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as well as educate the community about women’s rights issues, the HHS club Generation Ratify Holliston is led by students Phoebe Wernborg and Carmen Luisi, and advised by Ms. Arnold.  Currently the group focuses on increasing its membership (presently 25 students), involvement, and recognition.

Generation Ratify Holliston plans to highlight Holliston women who have made an impact in our community.  Their first “Woman of the Month” is Joanne Hulbert.

Joanne Hulbert can often be found around town enjoying a cup of coffee at Central Cafe or digging up town history to include in her many projects. Getting to know Mrs. Hulbert has been a pleasure, and we wanted to share a little bit more about her and the work that she does for our town that you may have not heard about! 

Joanne Hulbert grew up with a passion for reading and writing. She connects this to a story of how her father brought home hundreds of old books from a school for her to enjoy. Her 6th grade teacher inspired an interest in local history through daily trivia questions with a focus on niche town facts and history. 

Mrs. Hulbert writes about the history of Holliston and has written a couple articles for the Holliston Reporter. One of her focuses is the women’s suffrage movement in Holliston. Mrs. Hulbert focuses on finding the obscurities in history and giving women—who might have otherwise gone unrecognized—the opportunity to become more well-known.

Women have gone unrecognized throughout history, and Mrs. Hulbert’s work of finding the niche, lesser-known women, has created the bigger picture of history. What may seem insignificant to some is actually the building blocks of our town and its history. Whether it’s the women who started their own competitive walking groups or the women who fought for suffrage, every piece of history is necessary to putting together the picture of our town’s history. 

Joanne Hulbert has worked many jobs in her life. Because of this variety, she has had her own experiences workplace inequalities. One difference she has noticed—women work better when they work together. When she worked in a fire department, she saw that when women stopped competing with each other, they were better able to form a community and overcome obstacles that were thrown their way. 

Her outlook:  stand your ground. Mrs. Hulbert believes that it is up to the “ordinary” people to combat societal injustices and that if you want something done, you’re going to have to do it yourself. She believes that significant progress happens when women fight and stand their ground until progress has been made. 

We’d like to thank Joanne Hulbert for taking the time to meet with us and answering all of our questions. She is a sweet woman who always has a fun fact or story to tell you. We’d be lying if we said we didn’t learn more about Holliston in the short time we spoke than we have in our entire lives. Everyone should go read her writings that can be found on the Holliston Reporter’s website. We hope that she keeps digging up history!

Generation Ratify Holliston meets once a week on Wednesdays during their study period where they discuss projects and ideas.  Currently a website is planned so as to make information more available. If you have any women that you feel should be highlighted, please send us an email at phoebewernborg@gmail.com.