Three decades of women’s history in the United States

Mary Beard, too long relegated to the status of Charles’ wife, but now established in her right place as the founding mother of women’s history, whose emphasis on women as historical actors rather than victims has been tremendously influential to later generations.]]

However, women’s history had been largely ignored in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Thus most of us had no women teachers in our own departments to guide and oversee us, or even to serve as our models, and maybe that was a good thing in that we had to find our own ways. In the entire country, there were two established working scholars who inspired and encouraged us: