The Biography of Juanita Mccown Hight

While the life of Juanita McCown Hight (1913- ) may present some deviations from what is conventional, this biography will show that she was actually part of the long tradition of females claiming their rights in society through methods obvious and covert, deliberate and unintentional. She drew on the various motivations of each of these women to simultaneously reap the benefits of their work and create a legacy just as impactful. Like June Cunningham Croly, she never abandoned the domestic traits of a woman, but she embraced them through her membership in local women's clubs and promotion of home economics as a means to empowerment. Also like Croly but following the paths of women in her home county, she was a journalist who was published over the region. In the same manner as Pauline Van de Graaf Orr, she wholeheartedly supported education for females in the state and especially at the first state supported school for women's education, the II&C, or Mississippi State College for Women as it was during her time there. Her political involvement and lifelong belief in voting is a right for which she never had to fight, but one which she would more than likely protest vigorously were it limited. In these ways, her life leaves its own story to be studied and emulated against the stories of women in the past and present.