Hilda L. Smith & Melinda S. Zook 
Generations of Women Historians [PDF ebook] 
Within and Beyond the Academy

This collection focuses on generations of early women historians, seeking to identify the intellectual milieu and professional realities that framed their lives. It moves beyond treating them as simply individuals and looks to the social and intellectual forces that encouraged them to study history and, at the same time, would often limit the reach and define the nature of their study.  





This collection of essays speaks to female practitioners of history over the past four centuries that published original histories, some within a university setting and some outside. By analysing the values these early women scholars faced, readers can understand the broader social values that led women historians to exist as a unit apart from the career path of their male colleagues.

Table of Content

Chapter 1: Introduction: Women’s Scholarship Within and Outside the Academy, 1870-1960; Hilda L. Smith.- Part I. Women and the Medieval and Early Modern Economy.- Chapter 2: Ellen Annette Mc Arthur: Establishing a Presence in the  Academy; Amy Erickson.- Chapter 3: Alice Clark’s Critique of Capitalism; Tim Stretton.- Chapter 4: Julia Cherry Spruill, Historian of Southern Colonial Women; Anna Suranyi.- Part II. Politics and Citizenship in Early Modern Britain.- Chapter 5: ‘No Leisure for Myself:’ C.C. Stopes and British Freewomen; Hilda L. Smith.- Chapter 6: C.V. Wedgwood: The Historian and the World;  Melinda S. Zook.- Chapter 7: Caroline Robbins: Anglo-American Historian; Lois G. Schwoerer.- Part III. Women and Modern Politics.- Chapter 8: The Historian and the Empress: Isabel de Madariaga’s Catherine the Great; Willard Sunderland.- Chapter 9: Arvède Barine: History, Modernity, and Feminism; Whitney Walton.- Chapter 10: Eleanor Flexner:  Civil Rights and Feminist Activism; M. Christine Anderson.- Part IV. Alternate Paths to Historical Scholarship.- Chapter 11: Women’s Literary History in Late Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France: Louise de Kéralio and Henriette Guizot de Witt; Mihoko Suzuki.- Chapter 12: Ruth Benedict: An Anthropologist’s Historical Writings; Tracy Teslow.- Chapter 13: Nancy Mitford: Lessons for Historians from a Best-Selling Author; Judith Zinsser.- Part V. Conclusion.- Chapter 14: Bonnie Smith, Conclusion: Understanding Women Historians’ Lives and Scholarly Reputations both within and outside the Academy.- Index.

About the author

Hilda L. Smith is Emerita Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati, USA.




Melinda S. Zook is Professor of History at Purdue University, USA.