A 1964 graduate of Deptford High School who lived in Pitman and Woodbury Gardens as a youngster, Patti Smith burst onto the punk rock scene in the 1970s, performing at the CBGB music club in New York City and releasing her first album, “Horses.”
“This is the era where everybody creates,” she sang proudly in her cover of the Byrds’ song “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.”
Smith continues to create through music, poetry and writing books. She reached the top of the charts in 1978 with her version of “Because the Night,” written by Bruce Springsteen, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
As part of Women’s History Month, Smith was one of 31 women lauded in March as “Movers, Shakers and History Makers” in the Gloucester County Historical Society (GCHS) Museum’s new exhibit.
The exhibit – which will become permanent, according to museum coordinator Jordan Orensky – also includes figure skater Tara Lipinski, who won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics and lived in Sewell during her early years.
Other notable women in the exhibit are Kim Reichert, Gloucester County’s first female police captain; Lt. Commander Frances Willoughby, the first female physician commissioned in the U.S. Navy; civil rights advocates Loretta Winters and Irene Hill-Smith, both NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) presidents; scientist Eleanor Vadala of National Park, who helped develop the synthetic fiber Kevlar; Gibbstown marine biologist Sylvia Earle; and dozens more from the 18th century on.
“We are honoring some of the remarkable women of Gloucester County,” said Orensky, a graduate of Haddon Township High School and Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, where she earned a bachelor’s in history with a minor in museum studies. “It (was) the first in-depth exhibit for Women’s History Month, and we intend to make it permanent.”
Two 18th-century women honored are Ann Cooper Whitall, a Quaker who nursed injured soldiers during the Revolutionary War and is known as The Heroine of Red Bank, and Elizabeth Haddon, a Quaker who was deeded 500 acres of land in South Jersey in what is now Haddonfield, Haddon Heights and Haddon Township.
Some of the prized items displayed in the exhibit include the desk of Elizabeth Haddon; the marriage certificate of John and flag maker Betsy Ross; and many original, first-edition books.
Also included are Dorothy Bullock, who “educated migrant farm workers in the 20th century and has an elementary school in Glassboro named after her,” noted Orensky, and Eliza Murray and Rhoda Mann, who helped heal people with natural remedies in the 1800s and earned the title of “doctress.”
The Gloucester County Historical Society (GCHS) Museum is based at the 1765 Hunter-Lawrence-Jessup House on Broad Street in Woodbury, which was added to the Register of Historic Places nationally and in New Jersey in 1972 and is known for its significance in military history, education and politics.
The property became the home of the historical society in 1925, and the museum houses more than 30,000 artifacts and historical objects on view to the public via permanent and rotating exhibits.
Hours for the museum and the adjacent historical society are Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m.; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from noon to 4 p.m.; and the third weekend of every month on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.
For more information, go to gchsnj.org.
