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Women Belong in History Books: Herkimer and Oneida Counties New York 1799-1950
As I reviewed 19th century histories, it was apparent all had been written by men who wrote of the things important to them. Men came, settled the land and their sons married and communities grew. Rarely are women mentioned by name. But women belong in history books.
In 1998 I was asked to teach a course on "200 Years of Great Women." The list soon reached 100 women, research done on 55, essays were written on 20 and I was out of energy. In 2014 I was asked to give a program on local women as part of a series. A plan was developed to recruit interested people to finish the research and write the essays using the same format. This book is the result.
Volume I includes essays on:
Silvia Saunders
Grace Paull
Mother Lizzie Lavender
Roxalana Tefft Druse
Sophronia Farrington Cone
Molly Brant
Ellen Clapsaddle
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Ella M. Edsall
Nellie Thurston
Adelaide Thompson Williams White
Harriet Blackstone
Helen Munson Williams
Harriet E. Russell
Hazel Crill Patrick
Grace Selden Van Wagenen Carpenter
Martina Elemendorf Brandegee
Rose E. Cleveland
And others...
In 1998 I was asked to teach a course on "200 Years of Great Women." The list soon reached 100 women, research done on 55, essays were written on 20 and I was out of energy. In 2014 I was asked to give a program on local women as part of a series. A plan was developed to recruit interested people to finish the research and write the essays using the same format. This book is the result.
Volume I includes essays on:
Silvia Saunders
Grace Paull
Mother Lizzie Lavender
Roxalana Tefft Druse
Sophronia Farrington Cone
Molly Brant
Ellen Clapsaddle
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Ella M. Edsall
Nellie Thurston
Adelaide Thompson Williams White
Harriet Blackstone
Helen Munson Williams
Harriet E. Russell
Hazel Crill Patrick
Grace Selden Van Wagenen Carpenter
Martina Elemendorf Brandegee
Rose E. Cleveland
And others...
- GenresHistory
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2017
Interesting and informative.
April 9, 2017
Disclaimer: I helped work on this book, just so you know. I wrote the essays on Silvia Saunders, Adelaide Thompson Williams White, Grace Selden Van Wagenen Carpenter, and Eugenie Stevens.
This book contains essays on women from Herkimer and Oneida Counties in upstate New York who played a significant role in their communities but are unlikely to show up in your average history book. The names were selected and preliminary research done by Jane Spellman and then, in the interests of getting the book finished in this century (because Jane likes to research more that she likes to get 'er done), the work was distributed to a group of volunteers to wrap up research on each woman and to write an essay based on the template Jane gave us. The template kept the essays uniform, like encyclopedia entries.
I had a particular interest in Eugenie Stevens because she was a librarian at my hometown library (well before my time, thank you very much) and it's not that White and Carpenter weren't interesting but Silvia Saunders could have been a whole book on her own. And I had never even heard of her before getting involved in this project.
The old saying "Behind every good man is a woman" seems to be true. Many of the women were married to successful men. But there are also many single women in the book. What came as a surprise to me as I was doing this research were the things that I kind of knew but had never thought much about. Like the fact that, until sometime after 1839, married women in the United States basically didn't have any more rights than a two-year-old. A married woman couldn't enter into contracts and, if she earned money, inherited it or received it as a gift, it belonged to her husband. She couldn't even own intellectual property. Until 1845 if a married woman living in New York State invented a widget, the patent rights belonged to her husband!
This book contains essays on women from Herkimer and Oneida Counties in upstate New York who played a significant role in their communities but are unlikely to show up in your average history book. The names were selected and preliminary research done by Jane Spellman and then, in the interests of getting the book finished in this century (because Jane likes to research more that she likes to get 'er done), the work was distributed to a group of volunteers to wrap up research on each woman and to write an essay based on the template Jane gave us. The template kept the essays uniform, like encyclopedia entries.
I had a particular interest in Eugenie Stevens because she was a librarian at my hometown library (well before my time, thank you very much) and it's not that White and Carpenter weren't interesting but Silvia Saunders could have been a whole book on her own. And I had never even heard of her before getting involved in this project.
The old saying "Behind every good man is a woman" seems to be true. Many of the women were married to successful men. But there are also many single women in the book. What came as a surprise to me as I was doing this research were the things that I kind of knew but had never thought much about. Like the fact that, until sometime after 1839, married women in the United States basically didn't have any more rights than a two-year-old. A married woman couldn't enter into contracts and, if she earned money, inherited it or received it as a gift, it belonged to her husband. She couldn't even own intellectual property. Until 1845 if a married woman living in New York State invented a widget, the patent rights belonged to her husband!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews