Three members of the NCWHS Research & Interpretation Committee are publishing books of interest to NCWHS members.
Beyond Bars and Brothels: Discovering Women’s Roles in One Mining Community
Jean Ellis’s recently published book, Beyond Bars and Brothels: Discovering Women’s Roles in One Mining Community provides rich insights about women in the copper mining area of northern Michigan. This book which originated with a women’s history exhibit at the Keweenaw Heritage Center uses the 1910 US Census as well as many other sources to give a different and enriching perspective. Available at http://www.calumetcopper.com/books-dvds/u-p-miscelllaneous/beyond-brothels-bars/ for $24.99. (ISBN 13-978-1-66132-135-2), 2020.
Doing Women’s History in Public: A Handbook for Interpretation at Museums and Historic Sites
NCWHS Charter Member and former President, Heather Huyck has now been published (not great timing!). Doing Women’s History in Public: A Handbook for Interpretation at Museums and Historic Sites which argues for the full interpretation of women’s history and provides the resources and tools to do just that.
Doing Women’s History in Public: A Handbook for Interpretation at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 978-1-4422-6418-5 for paperback; 978-1-4422-6418-8 cloth). https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442264168/Doing-Women’s-History-in-Public-A-Handbook-for-Interpretation-at-Museums-and-Historic-Sites
Doing Women’s History in Public is designed to be a complete resource guide that consolidates key aspects of sharing women’s history in one place. It discusses
- the significance of women’s history,
- diverse research sources and methods, using written, oral, visual sources; and the tangible resources of landscapes, buildings and objects;
- preservation strategies for its tangible resources;
- interpretation of women’s history with the public at our special places.
- Includes bibliography, Tools, and is designed as a one-stop shop.
Doing Women’s History in Public places between two covers key varieties of sources for women’s history– everything from genealogy to lunch buckets, photographs to recipes, always centering on women but applicable to everyone. Each chapter includes tools and sources. Published by Rowman and Littlefield in hardback and paperback. She has promised to sign your copy when we come together again. Covers public and private institutions, from Massachusetts to Hawaii, with women from many backgrounds.
A Companion to Women’s History
Many of us have long used Nancy Hewitt’s A Companion to American Women’s History to find key research sources. The good news is that a revised version of A Companion to American Women’s History will be published this summer, edited by Nancy Hewitt, co-chair of the NCWHS Research & Interpretation Committee and author of Radical Friend: Amy Kirby Post and Her Activist Worlds and Anne Valk, CUNY Graduate Center, an expert in oral history and public history and author of Radical Sisters: Second-Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, DC, 1968-1980. A Companion significantly updates the extensive scholarship, emphasizing articles and monographs and expanding the coverage to recognize the full diversity of American women. It provides intellectual grist for our mills. Publication slated for Summer 2020.
