Peg A. Lamphier - Women in American History

Women in American History

Women in American History

A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection

VOLUME ONE: PRECOLONIAL NORTH AMERICA TO THE EARLY REPUBLIC

PEG A. LAMPHIER AND ROSANNE WELCH, EDITORS

Copyright 2017 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The editors and publishers will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lamphier, Peg A., editor. | Welch, Rosanne, editor.

Title: Women in American history : a social, political, and cultural encyclopedia and document collection / Peg A. Lamphier and Rosanne Welch, editors.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : ABC-CLIO, [2017] Contents: Volume 1. Precolonial North America to the Early RepublicVolume 2. Antebellum America through the Gilded AgeVolume 3. Progressive Era through World War IIVolume 4. Cold War America to today. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016021767 (print) | LCCN 2016036285 (ebook) | ISBN 9781610696029 (set : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440846045 (volume 1 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440846052 (volume 2 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440846069 (volume 3 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440846076 (volume 4 : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781610696036 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: WomenUnited StatesHistoryEncyclopedias. | WomenUnited StatesHistorySources.

Classification: LCC HQ1410 .W6468 2017 (print) | LCC HQ1410 (ebook) | DDC 305.40973dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021767

ISBN: 978-1-61069-602-9 (set)

978-1-4408-4604-5 (vol. 1)

978-1-4408-4605-2 (vol. 2)

978-1-4408-4606-9 (vol. 3)

978-1-4408-4607-6 (vol. 4)

EISBN: 978-1-61069-603-6

21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

Choosing the entries for Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection was both a huge task and an immense privilege. The editors understood from the start that the work on these volumes would be largely a labor of love and historical archaeology. Along the way, we have enjoyed envisioning the young people who would first be introduced to these accomplished role models by perusing these volumes. It is for the readers as well as for these historically significant and yet largely unknown women and organizations that we took on this task. Along the way, we made a number of editorial decisions that are explained here.

Containing more than 750 entries and more than 195 primary documents, Women in American History is arranged chronologically, with each of the its four volumes divided into three chronological sections:

Volume 1: Precolonial North America to the Early Republic

Precolonial North America (Pre-1607)

Colonial North America (16071754)

Revolutionary America and the New Republic (17541819)

Volume 2: Antebellum America through the Gilded Age

The Antebellum Era (18201860)

The Civil War and Reconstruction (18611877)

The Gilded Age (18781899)

Volume 3: Progressive Era through World War II

The Progressive Era (19001929)

The Great Depression and the New Deal (19301941)

World War II (19391945)

Volume 4: Cold War America to Today

Cold War America (19461962)

Second-Wave Feminism (19631989)

Third-Wave Feminism (1990Present)

Each section has its own primary documents following relevant entries and bibliography as well as a historical overview and thematic issues essays. The historical overview explores the general history of the period, while the thematic issues essays cover the following 10 categories for each section:

Childbirth and child rearing

Clothing and fashion

Courtship, marriage, and divorce

Education

Fertility and fertility control

Gender roles

Immigration and migration

Legal and political power

Violence, domestic and sexual

Work, waged and unwaged

The intention with these essays was to avoid repetition of entries on their broad topics in each section and to instead cover all these categories in one place for each section.

In the entries, the editors decided to use a womans best-known last name to identify her even if she did not use that name over the course of her entire life. Thus, Abigail Adams is referred to as Adams in her entry before she married John Adams, though her birth name was Abigail Smith. Historians, for example, would never refer to Thomas Jefferson as Thomas or Tom. Women, on the other hand, are commonly referred to by their first names; Abigail Adams, for instance, might be called Abigail in a biography of John Adams. In the case where the woman had a famous husband, as in John and Abigail Adams, we refer to Abigail Adams as Adams and to John Adams either by his full name or by his first name. More problematically, women change their last names, sometimes multiple times, throughout their lives. Using a womans best-known name consistently throughout an entry, regardless of which name an individual used at an particular time, avoids confusion.

This volume is not a comprehensive biographical encyclopedia but instead is a historical and cultural collection of the history of American women, and as such, some women of note may be missing. Oftentimes the editors chose a representative woman or topic entry and ensured that other women or organizations of note were mentioned in that entry. For example, the encyclopedia has an entry for both the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and Josephine Ruffin, a founder of the NACW, but no entry for notable NACW founders Margaret Murray Washington and Victoria Earle Matthews.

Also, some fairly obscure women or organizations are included in this encyclopedia so that the editors could include women of all types. Because heterosexual, middle-class, or elite-class white Protestant women are more likely to be well known in American history than non-Protestants, lesbians, or women of color, the editors took great care to be inclusive so as to introduce readers to women who represent a wider spectrum of the American experience. This range of coverage includes women from various ethnic, cultural, economic, and religious backgrounds as well as LGBTQ women. Some might call this being politically correct, but we would argue that the second word in that phrasecorrectis precisely what we are about. Minority womens achievements have been particularly ignored in American history so as to make it seem that they never existed. By bringing them into the story, we are correcting that error.

In most cases, the editors chose traditional scholarly sources for an entrys Further Reading bibliography, but the 21st century has given both historians and students access to comprehensive scholarly online archives. These archives provide readers and students with easy access to primary sources, and so in the cases where the archives are maintained by a university or other institution of long standing, it seemed both safe and prudent to use them.