American Memory: American Women
ThoughtCo. Women’s History ThoughtCo’s Women’s History round-up includes this archived site: American Women’s History: A Research Guide This archived site provides access to over 2,100 print and online references (including letters and diaries collected into collections) that may aid your research. You can browse indexes organized by state and subject for easier research, as well as links leading to government documents, newspapers and oral history archives. The author suggests visiting Discovering American Women’s History Online too for additional sources of research materials!
Cyndi’s List — Female Ancestors Nearly 100 links organized into categories for general resources, military resources, foremothers and societies/groups associated with them as well as women’s history resources are featured here. Some noteworthy ones include the Ethnic Women of Cleveland Oral History Project; Feminist Chronicles 1953-1993 and Home Economics Archive from Hearth. There is also the H-Women Archival and Manuscript Collection and H-Women Archival and Manuscript Collection to consider
National Women’s History Alliance (formerly the National Women’s History Project). Here you can take quizzes, get information about commemorative events and profiles of this group’s National Women’s History Month honorees; as well as shopping for goodies such as Robert P.J. Cooney’s book Winning the Vote (American Graphic) or Rosie the Riveter posters.
Notable Women Ancestors This database includes hundreds of biographies on prominent and everyday female ancestors from across time and space, such as Pathfinder for Women’s History from University of Arkansas Libraries: Women’s Studies. What Did Your Grandmother Do in World War Two, Grandma?
Diane Haddad also contributed summaries.
Eleanor Roosevelt House and Center at Val-Kill and Susan B. Anthony House National Historic Park of Women’s Rights National Historic Park (books available ) are among these sites of historic interest.
Narratives that emphasize women’s lives
“A Good Poor Man’s Wife: Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family in 19th-Century New England by Claudia L. Bushman (University Press of New England).
Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel Jr’s book The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America by W.W. Norton & Co. is another valuable source. Likewise, Growing Up in the 1850s: Agnes Lee Journal Edited by Mary Custis Lee deButts at University of North Carolina Press is another fantastic resource.
Rachel Calof’s Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains edited by J. Sanford Rikoon at Indiana University Press is another account. Patricia Cline Cohen wrote “The Murder of Helen Jewett” by recounting her life and death during 19th-Century New York.
Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England from 1650-1750 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Vintage Books) and Separate Lives: Mary Rippon by Silvia Pettem (The Book Lode). Both these works provide general guides for finding female ancestors.
Sharon DeBartolo Carmack of Betterway Books offers two excellent resources on female ancestry research: A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your Female Ancestors and Christina K. Schaefer’s Sourcebook for Women’s Genealogy (Genealogical Publishing Co.).
A version of this article first appeared in Family Tree Magazine’s April 2001 edition.
