If there is no source of information about the past, there is no history. History is an account of the past based on surviving sources. UNH Today: Does it take making a commotion - misbehaving - for a woman to make history? To reconstruct the lives of women in “Good Wives” (1982), I sifted out details from hundreds of documents produced for other purposes, including funeral sermons. My comment was a gentle jab at the narrow interests of historians, but also at the difficulty of writing about people who did not leave much of a record. But I was interested in those women Cotton Mather called “the hidden ones,” the ones who sustained the colonies day by day. LTU: It was an article about Puritan funeral sermons! At the time, the few historians of early New England who had anything to say about women focused on dramatic events, like the Salem witch trials, an important topic to be sure. What was the article about and what did you mean?
UNH Today: The sentence “Well-behaved women seldom make history” came from an article you wrote when you were a graduate student at UNH in the 1970s. "The need for protests - and other concentrated efforts to bring about change - has not passed." That is a very old pattern in history and now a global one. Some of the most essential work in our society is done by immigrant women who have left their own children behind in order to provide income for their support. Who is caring for children, the sick and the elderly in our society? Although men are engaged in caregiving, women still predominate, especially at the lowest levels, in nursing, childcare, teaching and home services. LTU: Let’s begin at the most basic level. UNH Today: This year’s theme is “Be Bold For Change.” What do you see as the key changes still needed for women? The need for protests - and other concentrated efforts to bring about change - has not passed. The idea emerged, I believe, from working women’s protests in the early 20 th century. LTU: There are always things to celebrate, but I am not sure celebration has been the central focus of International Women’s Day.
Do you have a sense of how much there is to celebrate?
UNH Today: International Women's Day has been described as a time to celebrate women’s economic, political and social achievements. Here at UNH, recalling the steps taken to reach the day that is now celebrated around the world on March 8, we can’t help but think of the words written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, ’80 G: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” We asked her to share her thoughts on International Women’s Day. In 1917, International Women’s Day in Russia had women in Saint Petersburg demanding an end to food shortages and czarism. The history of International Women’s Day was built on the shoulders of those who supported women garment workers in New York City in 1909, and the 100 attendees of a women’s conference in Denmark a year later who wanted to advance equal rights and suffrage for women.
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