Ann R. Stokes Papers

Background on Ann R. Stokes

Ann Richardson Stokes (1931-2016) was an activist, artist, and community builder across such issues as progressive politics, women's and lesbian/gay rights, and the environmental and antinuclear movements. Stokes was born and educated in New Jersey, the daughter of Dr. Emlen Stokes and Lydia Babbitt Stokes, and the great grand-daughter of Charles Pratt. She later attended Goddard College in Vermont, and stayed involved with her alma mater. A lifelong Quaker and longtime member of Putney Friends Meeting, Ann moved to Welcome Hill in West Chesterfield, NH in 1959. She helped build and run the studio retreat for women artists, Welcome Hill Studios, which has been inspiring and nurturing artists since the 1970s, and in 1985 Stokes published an account of the all-woman-built first studio in her book, A Studio Of One's Own. A lifelong artist herself, Ann worked mostly as a painter, photographer, sketch artist, and scrapbooker. She kept scrapbooks and journals throughout her life. A fabled party thrower, she hosted Nina Simone, Odetta, the Arthur Hall African-American Dance Troupe and many others, and built up lore around "Madame Sherrie" with her events and with a gift of land in West Chesterfield known as Madame Sherrie's, which now includes the Ann Stokes Loop hike. A talented writer and painter, Ann penned numerous thoughtful letters to editors across the country, but was happy to engage personally in social action as well, such as when she was jailed for two weeks for protesting the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in 1977 or when she ran, unsuccessfully, for Sheriff in West Chesterfield.