‘Silenced Voices’ Are Revealed in New Book on Historical Figures

Summer is a great time to dive into books that challenge conventional thinking, spark innovation, and deepen understanding of the ever-changing business landscape for leaders. This series features some of the newest titles by faculty and alumni. For more recommended reading, check out the books on Dean Andrew Karolyi’s shelf. 

The Civically Engaged Woman: Rhetoric and Activism of the Silenced Voice (Bloomsbury Academic 2025) explores the lives of nine often-overlooked women—from abolitionists to philanthropists—in the United States between 1820 and 1920.

“This may seem like a surprising book for an academic in a business college, but it’s an opportunity to see history in a new light, and women’s history is our history,” says Christina L. McDowell, a coeditor of the book and a senior lecturer in the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration in the SC Johnson College of Business. “Business isn’t ahistorical. This book offers insight into the value of the humanities in a professional school and industry—the rootedness of the humanities in all business practices. As I teach my students, it’s important to be a well-rounded human.”

In editing and writing this book, McDowell and coeditor Jill Burk, an associate teaching professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State University, wanted to highlight these women’s lasting influence and enlarge people’s understanding of civic participation, community engagement, and the guidance of heroines and their narratives.

McDowell wrote the chapter “Beyond Confectionaries: Catherine ‘Kitty’ Hershey and a Hospitality of Care,” which focuses on the founding of the Milton Hershey School for orphans. As the wife of the chocolate magnate Milton Hershey, Kitty Hershey developed a “philosophy of community engagement and civic participation” that revolved around a sense of welcoming, hospitality, and care for others, McDowell says.

“All of the women discussed in this book illustrate that we create our identity through what we defend and support; it doesn’t matter what is said, but instead is based on our actions,” she says. “This book is for anyone interested in human communication and why and how the communicative actions of those of our past are still important and present today.”

When asked what she hopes readers take away from the book, McDowell cites the book’s concluding sentence: “There are many moments in life when we feel we are being silenced. The hope is, like these women, we will make a personal choice—a choice to seek change through community engagement and civic participation, and find our own voice through communicative actions.”