Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History

From admired historian—and coiner of one of feminism’s most popular slogans—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich explains what it means for women to make history.

In 1976, in an obscure scholarly article, Ulrich wrote, “Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History.” Ulrich explains how that happens and what it means by looking back at women of the past who challenged the way history was written ranging from the fifteenth-century writer, Christine de Pizan, who wrote The Book of the City of Ladies, to the twentieth century’s Virginia Woolf, author of A Room of One’s Own.  Ulrich updates their attempts to reimagine female possibilities and looks at the women who didn’t try to make history but did. And she concludes by showing how the 1970s activists who created “second-wave feminism” also created a renaissance in the study of history. Author: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Paperback; 320 pages.