Baylor prof offers resources for learning more about women’s history
March is Women’s History Month, a time for intentionally celebrating and studying the vital roles women have played in American history. That makes this the perfect time to dive into new books, podcasts and other resources to learn more about this often under-considered side of our country’s past.
Dr. Andrea Turpin is an associate professor of history at Baylor, specializing in American women’s history, American religious history, and the history of U.S. higher education. Among her course assignments are a 2000-level course on women’s and gender history and 4000-level courses on the history of the American woman — which is why we asked her to share some resources with the Baylor Family for those who are wanting to learn more about women’s history. She suggested the books, podcasts and other resources below from those she uses in her classes and her knowledge of the subject.
“My hope is that people will listen to women of the past and to their experiences,” Turpin says. “Women are 50% of the population, but until about the 1960s, were a far, far, far smaller percentage of the people included in history books, so we have not had an accurate portrait of the past… Women’s History Month is a way of placing the emphasis on the actors in human history who have been essential, but frequently overlooked.”
Books:
- Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich)
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs)
- Elizabeth Seton: American Saint (Catherine O’Donnell)
- The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past (Catherine Brekus)
- Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (Cathleen Cahill)
Podcasts:
- Dead Ladies Show (“celebrating ladies who were in some way fabulous during their lifetimes”)
- Encyclopedia Womannica (“in just 5 minutes a day, learn about different incredible women from throughout history”)
- What’sHerName (“the stories of fascinating women you’ve never heard of, but should have”)
- Women of the Church (“exploring the ways Christian women have been Gospel influencers throughout time”)
Websites:
- National Women’s History Museum (an online museum telling “the stories of women who transformed our nation”)
- Women in the National Archives (a database of women’s history websites, sorted by subject)
- College Women (documenting the history of women in higher education)
- Women Also Know History (a database of women historians and their research)
Online panels:
- 19: 100 Years of Preserving Voters’ Rights (a Baylor panel discussion marking the 19th Amendment’s 100th anniversary)
- Persistence and Perspective: Current Trends in Women’s History (A panel of Christian historians of women’s history)
Sic ’em, Women’s History Month!