The winner of this year’s Women’s History Month Essay Contest was Amelia Bagwell. This was the contest’s first year, and it accepted essays written about famous women in history and literature.

Leslie Johnston, instructor of English, said she hopes to continue it every year in memory of the late dean of the Cartersville campus, Carolyn Hamrick.

Bagwell’s essay, “Olympe de Gouges: Herstory in French History,” discusses how de Gouges was an advocate for women’s equality throughout her lifetime and even during the difficult times of the French Revolution.

Bagwell said that de Gouges deserves to be studied just as much as any male figure that was prominent around her same time. On the subject of Hamrick, Bagwell said, “From her I learned what it meant to be a true woman,” and that she looked up to her as a role model.

Second place went to Samantha Crider for her essay about female characters in “The Odyssey.” In her essay she discusses how characters such as Athena, Calypso and Circe aided Odysseus and praises Homer for making his female characters able to stand on their own.