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Constantly being asked about how she successfully juggled a career from home while raising her children spurred efforts by Anne Cipriano Venzon ’73 to guide women in similar situations.
Venzon, a military historian, and two of her closest friends were being peppered with the same questions from new or soon-to-be mothers.
So in 2002, Venzon and her friends, jewelry designer Carol Tutera and opera singer Barbara Carlstrom, collaborated to write Carpool Capitalists: Home with Kids and Career. The book, based on their experiences, provides pointers for women who want to start or enhance an existing home-based business while raising their children.
The venture has evolved into a web site, which provides information and resources for women at home with children and careers.
“In continuing conversations with women in that age group, we realized they aren’t going to sit down and read a book,” Venzon says. “They just don’t have the time. It struck us as being much more efficient and user-friendly for our audience to put this information online.”
In addition to work for the site, Venzon does tasks such as research, copyediting, and indexing for academic publishing houses. She is an author of five books on military history and is completing work on another.
Venzon became interested in military history when, as a four-year-old, she listened to her father and his fellow Naval Academy graduates tell exciting stories about military campaigns in far-off countries. But she credits former history professor Michael Glantz with leading her to history as a career.
“When I was at Lafayette, the women’s movement was really kicking in and the women who broke societal barriers had expectations of those following them,” she says. “If you were a bright woman in the sciences, they expected you to go to med school or get a Ph.D. If you were a bright woman in liberal arts, they expected you to go to law school.”
Venzon opted for the latter.
“One day, Professor Glantz asked me about my plans for law school,” she recalls. “He looked at me and asked how badly I wanted to be a lawyer. I said I was going to law school and he shot back, ‘That’s not the question!’ ”
Glantz flatly told Venzon that she wouldn’t be a lawyer, but said she had all the makings of an excellent historian. He told Venzon her grasp of the research process, understanding of historical material, and ability to give opinions about it would serve her well in such a pursuit. Still, Venzon went to law school for one semester.
Venzon realized Glantz was right. She changed course and received a master’s degree in European history from Seton Hall University, then completed work for a doctorate in military history from Princeton. The research work Venzon did at Princeton was the precursor of the work she does now for academic publishing houses.
When Venzon looks back on her own history, she remembers the academic environment at Lafayette that allowed her to flourish and the mentors who helped her find her calling and her passion, most notably Glantz; the late Richard Welch, former Charles A. Dana Professor of History; and Robert Weiner, Jones Professor of History.
“To me, as an academic, the primary thing you want to get out of your college experience is a top-flight education, and I got a really fine education at Lafayette,” she says. “I would stack up the members of the history department at that time with anybody, anywhere.”