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.

Focuses on the social and intellectual lives of early women historians from 1890-1970, to assess what encouraged them to study history

Considers women who worked on the outskirts of the profession, as well as those women working within universities or who wrote popular works

Provides a close analysis of women historians' lives and works, utilizing surviving manuscripts from their personal and professional papers

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 McArthur: 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.