Riverdale prides itself on the quality of its students’ writing, and for many years English teachers have devoted much of their time, both in and out of the classroom, to helping students become better writers.  While publications such as Impressions and The Riverdale Review have provided outlets for our students’ creative writing and journalism, until recently there has been no means of sharing the best of the non-fiction writing that is an essential part of the daily work of all our students.  In 2010, to remedy this deficiency, David Nicholson, long-time English teacher and tireless promoter of good writing, introduced to the Riverdale community a new publication, The Riverdale Reader as a forum for non-fiction.  At the same time, the Non-Fiction Writing Contest was inaugurated as a means of identifying the very best non-fiction writing produced by Riverdale students each year.

 

In addition to writing by students, the Riverdale Reader contains each year an essay by a faculty member. This year we are honored to feature the work of Dr. Ellen Baker of the History Department. Her essay examining the ways that women's participation in the picket lines at the Empire Zinc Company in Bayard, New Mexico in 1951 impacted gender relations not only in the work place but also in the home provides a wonderful example of vibrant, politically engaged scholarship. It is also a fine piece of writing which we know you will enjoy reading. It fits particularly well as the featured faculty writing this year as it explores the topic focused on for our spring One World Day, redefinitions of gender.

 

We would like to thank all the students who submitted their work to the Non-fiction Writing Contest as well as members of the History and English departments who solicited, collected, and read the submissions. We look forward to the participation of many students in the contest next year. Thanks go to Kelley Nicholson-Flynn, Milton Sipp, and Dominic Randolph for supporting the contest and this journal, and a great big thank you is owed to Margaret Corn, '15, without whose expertise and generous devotion of her time this publication would not exist.

 

With pleasure and pride we present this year's edition of The Riverdale Reader.

The Editors