Exhibit animates Obama's mother

[dkf]

The artifacts and field notes left behind by Ann Dunham before she would become known as President Barack Obama's mother drew a crowd of 300 on Sunday for a peek at her passion to improve people's lives.

"Through Her Eyes: S. Ann Dunham's Field Work in Indonesia" includes Dunham's notebooks and pictures from her field research, as well as jewelry, textiles, ceramics and baskets she collected while helping villagers receive "micro loans" that changed their lives.

"None of this stuff is valuable at all in terms of its monetary value, but there were stories behind each piece," said Dunham's daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng. "You can see how meticulous her field notes were and the sense of intellectual rigor that was coupled with a lot of feeling."

Dunham, who died of cancer in 1995, earned her doctorate at the University of Hawaii while helping craftsmen in Indonesia and Africa get small loans to improve their lives and their villages, and ended up becoming an expert in "microlending."


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