Celebrating Women’s History Month
Since RRCHNM’s founding in the 1990s, we have been committed to highlighting the contributions women made in the past. One of our first projects was a CD-ROM version of the textbook Who Built America? which grew out of efforts to reinterpret American history from “the bottom up”—drawing on studies of workers, women, consumers, farmers, African Americans, and immigrants—that has helped transform our understanding of the past. This textbook highlighted perspectives often neglected in traditional teachings of American history, including women’s history.
Some of our more recent projects, including Women in World History and the podcast Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant, specifically focus on the roles and contributions of women. While other projects, such as Death by Numbers and Connecting Threads, weave women’s history into their interpretation. RRCHNM’s projects show our commitment to democratizing history through incorporating multiple voices in our presentation of the past. Women’s history is American history. Women’s history is World history. Without including women in our interpretation of the past, we will never be able to understand it.
In honor of Women’s History Month, below is a collection of free and open resources from our projects that highlight women’s history. You’ll find materials used by teachers and students across the country, read about the role women played in printing the Bills of Mortality, listen to podcast episodes, and more.
Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant
Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant features conversations about 18th and 19th-century women and their letters that don’t always make it into the history books. Join Kathryn Gehred and her guests as they dive deeply into a document that reveals the life and the world of the woman who wrote it. In each episode, we investigate the political and cultural events mentioned, and just as importantly, aspects of daily life. Their lively conversations highlight the significant role women played during the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Episode 43: That B Maria Goodwin
Sarah E. Nicholas to Jane H. Nicholas Randolph, March 30, 1821. In which Sarah E. Nicholas writes to her sister Jane H. Nicholas Randolph about an incident in the streets of Baltimore. Kathryn Gehred is joined by Amelia Golcheski, the CEO and Executive Director of the Cashiers Historical Society.
Episode 47: To Preserve in Grace and Faith
Phillis Wheatley to Obour Tanner, October 30th, 1773 in which Wheatley discusses faith, her book, and a trip to England.
Episode 53: By Being Almost Murdered
Dr. Maeve Kane joins Kathryn Gehred to explore Konwatsi’tsiaienni Molly Brant’s life during the American Revolution. Brant was a member of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kane and Gehred discuss Brant’s pivotal diplomatic efforts to maintain the Mohawk’s alliance with the British during the American War for Independence, and the turmoil Indigenous women like her faced during Sullivan’s Campaign in the late 1770s, as they read two letters from Brant to her step-son-in-law, Daniel Claus.
Episode 54: I am Frightened When I Look at Her
Mary Wigge joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Lucy Flucker Knox to her husband General Henry Knox in which she describes how she spends her days during the Revolutionary War. Lucy, a wealthy Tory’s daughter whose parents and siblings have returned to England, expresses her loneliness and longing for Henry, who is with the army in Philadelphia.
Episode 57: Those Tumultuous Assemblies of Men
Dr. Cynthia Kierner joins host Kathryn Gehred to discuss a 1778 letter from Richard Henry Lee to his sister Hannah Lee Corbin. In a lost letter, Hannah previously expressed her frustrations that widows are being taxed without representation. In this response, Richard explains the cultural and legal barriers that prevent Hannah and other widows from voting.
Podcasts
Consolation Prize
Episode 10: Worthy of Notice
We’re telling the story of three women, whose stories range from the very conventional to the very unconventional (at least by the standards of the time). Each of these women contributed something significant to the history of the U.S. consular service, and each deserves to have her story told.
Finding Jane Austen
250 years after her birth, Jane Austen remains a giant in the cultural zeitgeist. Her works have been adapted hundreds of times over multiple mediums, and she remains one of the most popular writers in the English language. Yet little is known about Jane Austen the person. The majority of her letters were likely destroyed, leaving us only 161. In the absence of her own direct testimony, where do we find the real Jane Austen? In her books? In her family and friends? In the “world” of Jane Austen or in the many iterations of her life and afterlife?
Antisemitism, U.S.A.
Episode 7: The Houses We Live In
In post-war America, Bess Myerson became the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America competition, but she confronted bigotry and exclusion far more daunting than any pageant.
Worlds Turned Upside Down
Episode 8: The Trade
At the dawn of a new era after the Seven Years’ War, British officials envision commerce and colonies as the key to British independence and its rising glory, but trade in commodities and manufactured goods comes at an awful price.
Graduate Student Work
A Woman’s Touch on the Bills of Mortality
In this blog post, former graduate research assistant, Luz Mueller, dives into the involvement of women in the printing of the Bills of Mortality. Mueller details the efforts of two women in the operation of a printing company and their dedication to the production of the Bills of Mortality.
The Backpack: Solidarity in Secrets and Sacrifice the Legacy of the Relief Society in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
During the twentieth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experienced hierarchal administrative shifts pivoting to a male priesthood primary role while marginalizing women members. Prior to this new power structure, the women of the church had organized into a Female Relief Society and functioned in parallel to the priesthood. While the women were shifted to the periphery of church organizational authority, the legacy of the Female Relief Society served as a guide point for women-centered support, advocacy, and education. This oral history project analyzes four women’s recollections and memories of the formation and foundation of their belief system. This intergenerational focus group are not meant to be representative of the entire church female membership, but their voices are an important conduit to understanding Mormon women’s lived religion, how they relate to the legacy of the Female Relief Society, and women’s unique role in religious landscapes.
The Vine and the Oak: Womanhood on the Western Frontier
This article by graduate affiliate Rachel Birch discusses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the strife between federal intervention in nineteenth-century Utah. It acknowledges the lives of Mormon women and their resistance against federal authority, despite their strict religion, these women were able to make space for their activism.
Graduate Student Reflections: How Network Analysis Influenced My Research
This piece explores Caroline Greer’s experience doing network analysis related to itinerant female preachers in the early-19th century United States. Until she constructed a dataset, she overlooked the proportion of male clergy who acted as allies and supported women’s right to preach. In a way, this project acts as an inversion, as women are often overlooked in history and historical scholarship, but here she missed the impact of men.
Teaching Resources
Historian Teresa Murphy Analyzes Sarah Bagley Letters
In this video resource, Dr. Murphy models historical thinking using the letters of 1840s Lowell, Massachusetts labor activist Sarah Bagley to reformer Angelique Martin. In particular, Murphy notes Bagley’s choice in language. Was she formal? Familiar? Passionate? What did she choose to tell Martin?
Teacher Guide: Native Women and Suffrage – Beyond the 19th Amendment
Women’s suffrage is a commonly-taught topic in U.S. history and the textbook narrative follows a familiar pattern: the topic often begins with Seneca Falls in 1848 and ends with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. This guide supports teacher’s efforts to complicate that narrative by examining those who did not fit the narrative. As scholars such as Cathleen Cahill have noted, Black women, Native women and other women of color did not necessarily receive the right to vote in 1919 and activists viewed suffrage as one issue among many facing their communities that needed to be addressed.
Syllabus: Women and Gender in World History, 600-2000
Developed by esteemed historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks, this syllabus lays out a 15-week world history survey course that follows women and gender in history, beginning in the 6th century and continuing through the 20th century. All materials for the course are available for free online via World History Commons and are linked in the syllabus. Wiesner-Hanks also provides guidance for how to frame readings, sources, and assignments for students.
