RBB Archive Weekly Peek
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
For Women’s History Month I’m taking a look at a few important women’s history reference sources.
Back in 1971, Harvard University Press published the landmark Notable American Women, 1607-1950. The project had been proposed as early as 1955 as a companion but also a corrective to Dictionary of American Biography, which included only 706 women among its nearly 15,000 entries. Notable American Women covered 1,359 individuals, and Notable American Women: The Modern Period (1980) added another 442.
Fast forward 30 years to publication of Women in World History (Gale). A whole new generation of scholarship and research had gone by, and women were better represented in biographical reference works of all stripes. But Women in World History was exceptional both in size and scope. It profiled nearly 10,000 women around the world from 3100 BCE to the modern period. Taking an expansive and inclusive view of women’s historical roles, the editors were “determined not to leave a mother, wife, duchess, or daughter unturned.” So we find information not only on women who were notable in their own right, but also consorts, royal mistresses, and others generally viewed as appendages to notable men. This is one of my all-time favorite reference sets, one of the very few that I’ve kept in my office.
Though by far the largest, when it was published Women in World History was not by any means the only reference set devoted to women. There were many smaller titles that took a more focused view. Some standout examples include The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century, published by Routledge; and Women Building Chicago, 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary, published by Indiana University.
March 18th, 2011 at 8:50 am
[...] of reference works on women. Last week, in honor of Women’s History Month, I wrote a post about some key women’s history resources. Here are a few [...]