Join two self-made authors for an evening dialogue about the birth and release of of their books. Kimberly Hess and VC Tang are both graduates of Smith College, MBAs, and took it upon themselves to complete a book during the pandemic. While their genres are seemingly distant, upon closer inquiry, both stories resonate with themes of lineage, ritual, place, and gratitude.
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Kimberly Hess is the author of A Lesser Mortal: The Unexpected Life of Sarah B. Cochran. She earned a B.A. in Economics and International Relations at Smith College, an M.B.A. from Rutgers Business School, and a Certificate in Historic Preservation from Drew University’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. During her nineteen-year corporate career she was also a trustee of the Alice Paul Institute and held volunteer leadership positions for nonprofits at the global and local levels. She has written about or discussed her book for various organizations including Pittsburgh's NPR affiliate WESA 90.5FM, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Women’s History Museum, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Heinz History Center. She began doing genealogical research in 1984.
Sarah B. Cochran probably didn’t expect to own businesses that competed with Henry Clay Frick’s or to exceed Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropic giving in certain circles. But when her husband and son died suddenly in 1899 and 1901, she had to take over the family coal and coke business at a time when it was illegal, and some thought unlucky, for women to work in or around coal mines. Rather than retreating from the world, from her forties through her seventies she engaged with it through philanthropic activity and suffrage activism that shifted power, championed others and influenced causes. But even today her contributions can be difficult to identify without already knowing they exist. Kimberly Hess wrote Cochran’s first biography and hopes it will not just tell Sarah’s story, but will encourage others to write about historical figures who have been left out of the larger historical narrative.