The rich role that women have played in Kentucky’s history and legacy is celebrated in a new documentary, Dreamers & Doers: VOICES of Kentucky Women, which will air Monday, June 15 at 9/8 pm on KET and Tuesday, June 23 at 9/8 pm on KET2.

The new film, produced by Lexington filmmaker Michael Breeding and commissioned by the Kentucky Commission on Women, celebrates the valuable contributions women have made to the history, growth and development of the Commonwealth – in areas as diverse as science, entertainment, literature, politics, arts, education, athletics and more.

“We hope the documentary can be a starting point for continuing research on the contributions of women,” said Eleanor Jordan, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on Women and executive producer for the documentary. The Kentucky Commission on Women’s popular Kentucky Women Remembered exhibit at the Kentucky State Capitol served as a starting point for the documentary.

Highlighted in the film are 40 Kentucky innovators and trailblazers from across all regions of the state. Those profiled include novelist Harriette Simpson Arnow; suffragette Josephine Henry; aviator Willa Beatrice Brown; African-American news reporter Alice Dunnigan; Appalachian author Verna Mae Slone; educator and reformist Nettie Depp; politician and businesswoman Mae Street Kidd; singers Loretta Lynn, Rosemary Clooney and Jean Ritchie; pediatrician Dr. Grace James; journalist Diane Sawyer; actress Jennifer Lawrence; U.S. Congresswoman Katherine Gudger Langley; civil rights icon state Senator Georgia Davis Powers; Frontier Nursing Service founder Mary Breckinridge; and Kentucky’s first – and only – woman governor, Martha Layne Collins.

One of the women profiled – Rose Will Monroe, originally of Pulaski County, Ky., – was the face of the fictional “Rosie the Riveter” during World War II.

“We want people to see this and say, ‘I never knew about that woman. Look what she did!’” Linda Roach, a member of the Kentucky Commission on Women told the Lexington Herald-Leader at the film’s Lexington premiere earlier this year.

In addition to airing statewide on KET, the film will be distributed on DVD to every middle and high school in Kentucky for educational purposes.

Dreamers & Doers: VOICES of Kentucky Women is a production of Michael Breeding Media, Inc. and the Kentucky Commission on Women, with major funding support from Toyota Manufacturing Kentucky, The Gheens Foundation, Frontier Nursing University and the Kentucky Arts Council.

KET is Kentucky’s largest classroom, serving more than one million people each week via television, online and mobile. Learn more about Kentucky’s preeminent public media organization on Twitter @KET and facebook.com/KET and at KET.org.

Contact:

Todd Piccirilli
Senior Director, Marketing and Communications
859-258-7242
tpiccirilli@ket.org