American Memory: American Women.
ThoughtCo. Women’s History
ThoughtCo’s guide to links. American Women’s History: A Research Guide This archived site offers you access to over 2,100 print and online sources (including primary sources like letters and diaries) for your research needs, as well as indexes organized by state and subject for easier browsing, as well as links leading to government documents, newspapers and oral history listings. The author suggests also visiting Discovering American Women’s History Online
Cyndi’s List — Female Ancestors offers over 100 links categorized as general resource, military, foremothers, societies/groups and women’s history resources. Ethnic Women of Cleveland Oral History Project and Feminist Chronicles from 1953-1993 can be found here, while Hearth’s Home Economics Archive as well as H-Women Archival and Manuscript Collection have further resources pertaining to women ancestry.
At the Literature on Women Immigrating to the United States
National Women’s History Alliance (formerly National Women’s History Project), visitors can take quizzes, access commemorative event details and profiles of National Women’s History Month honorees; shop for goodies like Robert P.J. Cooney’s Winning the Vote book from American Graphic; or get a Rosie the Riveter poster!
Notable Women Ancestors A database with hundreds of biographies on prominent and everyday female ancestors from history. Pathfinder for Women’s History at University of Arkansas Libraries’ Women’s Studies. What Did Grandma Do in World War Two?
Diane Haddad also contributed summaries.
Eleanor Roosevelt House and Center at Val-Kill; Susan B. Anthony House National Historic Park of Books
Narratives that examine women’s lives
One such narrative is Claudia L. Bushman’s A Good Poor Man’s Wife: Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family in 19th-Century New England (University Press of New England).
Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel Jr’s (W.W. Norton & Co) The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America is available now; similarly, Mary Custis Lee deButts edited Agnes Lee’s Journal in 1850s: Growing Up (University of North Carolina Press).
Rachel Calof’s Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains edited by J. Sanford Rikoon is published by Indiana University Press; The Murder of Helen Jewett: Life and Death of a Prostitute in 19th-Century New York by Patricia Cline Cohen is available through Vintage Books.
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). These books offer general guides for finding female ancestors.
Sharon DeBartolo Carmack of Betterway Books offers A Genealogist’s Guide to Uncovering Female Ancestors; Christina K Schaefer (Genealogical Publishing Co.) presents The Hidden Half of the Family: A Sourcebook for Women’s Genealogy as resources on female genealogy.
A version of this article appeared in Family Tree Magazine’s April 2001 edition.
