How American Biographies Treat Women:

1
How American Biographies Treat Women

• A Comparison of the Dictionary of American
  Biography and the American National Biography.

2
National Biographies of the United States

• Dictionary of American Biography (DAB)
• 20 original volumes
• Published in 1937 project started in 1926.
• Additional supplements cover figures that died
  after 1937.
• Written by 2,243 authors.

• American National Biography (ANB)
• 24 volumes
• Published in 1999 project started in 1986.
• Written by 61,000 authors.

3
Authority

• Dictionary of American Biography
• Published by Scribner Sons.
• Project directed by (newly created) American
  Council of Learned Societies.
• Editorial Board consisted of leading historians
  and members of the Carnegie Institution.
• Mostly men contributed to the entries with women
  serving as library assistant and copy editors.

4
Authority

• American National Biography
• Published by Oxford University Press.
• Chief Editors- John A. Garraty-Prof. Emeritus of
  history -Columbia University Mark C. Carnes-
  Prof of History- Barnard College.
• Project directed by American Council of Learned
  Societies. Stanley Katz, the president emeritus
  of the council helped with the publication of the
  new source and states in his forward that it is
  the major reference work of American biography
  of our generation.
• The editorial board consisted of 14 renowned
  American Historians including 4 women.
• Women were among senior editors, contributors,
  project editors and copy editors.

5
Scope

• Dictionary of American Biography
• Focused on people who had lived in the U.S. and
  made significant contributions to this country.
• Made efforts to expand coverage of older
  biographies and include people in the sciences,
  social sciences, arts, and literature.
• Although it included many women the introduction
  shows a male dominated philosophy.
• The length of the article has not been
  determined solely by the relative importance of
  the man, but also by the amount of available
  authentic material, by the nature of his career
• Yet, it shortchanged women by omitting important
  aspects of their careers.

6
Scope

• American National Biography
• Included 17,500 biographies.
• The goal was to replace the DAB with a fresh
  source that included many people that were
  overlooked.
• Focused on ordinary men and women who made some
  contribution to the countys history.
• The ANB brings together the diverse voices of
  the past without claiming that they blend
  harmoniouslypriority was given to persons,
  especially women and minorities, about whom
  information or new ways of interpreting old data
  had become available.

7
Praise for American National Biography

• It won the Dartmouth Medal in 1999- This is
  presented by RUSA for reference works of
  outstanding quality and significance.
• Many reviewers praised the efforts to include
  previously underrepresented people.
• In addition to the icons of American history we
  find biographies of women from all walks of life
  first ladies, midwives, suffragists and
  scientists. -
  Dudley Barlow
• This is the charm of our craft The search to
  reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated
  by those ever changing prisms that continually
  place old questions in new light. To this search
  the ANB makes a dazzling contribution. It tells
  us about the American past, and it tells us about
  ourselves. -Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

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Results

• The ANB included detailed biographies of all 24
  women selected.
• Women left out of the DAB
• Ida Barnett-Wells- editor and antilynching
  activist
• Sojourner Truth- Black abolitionist and womens
  rights activist.
• Sallie Holley- abolitionist and educator.
• Angelina Grimke- leading abolitionist (The DAB
  includes her under the entry of her sister and
  leaves out her major contributions.)
• Ellen Gates Starr- co-founder of Hull House.

10
Results

• While the entries for the other women are in the
  DAB, the biographies in this work are shorter and
  neglect major contributions.
• Entries on these women generally include
  chauvinistic language, information unrelated to
  the womans contribution and have a condescending
  tone.

11
Jane Addams- DAB

• This mentions her frail health frequently. Also
  notes Her tact in handling people, and social
  situations, her affection for childrendisarmed
  criticism and attracted love, and her physical
  disability and precarious health made it natural
  for friends to want to protect her.
• It suggests that as a spinster she was
  unconventional.

12
Jane Addams- ANB

• This work focuses on her many important
  achievements.
• At College, she was class president, editor of
  the schools magazine, president of the literary
  society and valedictorian.
• She became the first woman president of the
  National Conference of charities and Correction,
  a vice president of the National-American Woman
  Suffrage Assoc., a founding member of the NAACP
  and the first U.S. woman to win the Nobel Peace
  Prize.
• In two newspaper polls in 1913, Addams was listed
  first or second as providing the most value to
  the country.

13
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell- DAB

• This notes that the world considered Dr.
  Blackwell as either mad or bad because she
  became a doctor.
• Comments that her influential work helping to
  organize field nurses during the Civil War did
  much to help win sympathy for the feministic
  movement in medicine.

14
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell- ANB

• This work provides a more expanded view of her
  achievements with a more modern analysis.
• In 1849, she received her medical degree and was
  the first woman in the U.S. or Europe to
  accomplish this.
• Her conception of her gender influenced how she
  thought about and later taught medicine.
• Opposing the increased use of gynecological
  surgery to cure women, she accused male doctors
  of being irresponsible and claimed they were
  making women sterile unnecessarily.

15
Dorthea Dix- DAB

• This sources describes her as only a
  humanitarian.
• After listing the many books that she wrote, it
  adds She was, however, nervous, overstrained,
  and delicate, with incipient lung trouble.
• It includes the quote I am naturally timid and
  diffident, like all my sex.

16
Dorthea Dix- ANB

• This work gives a vastly different portrayal
  describing her as a strong social reformer.
• This work includes the quote I implore. I
  demand pity and protection for those of my
  suffering , outraged sex.
• This account describes how her far reaching
  reforms changed the way the mentally ill were
  treated in the United States and Europe.
• It also notes her many other reform initiatives
  on behalf of other causes.

17
Abigail Kelly Foster- DAB

• Despite the fact that she was a strong advocate
  for womens rights and abolition, this source
  includes a quote describing her appearance She
  is described by those who knew her as an
  attractive, kindly person with unassuming
  manners, and a good housekeeper.

18
Abigail Kelly Foster- ANB

• Describing Foster as more radical this source
  contradicts the analysis included in the DAB by
  noting that she found staying at home for an
  extended period of time perfectly killing.
• This source also explores her radical views in
  more detail.
• Whatever ways and means are right for men to
  adopt in reforming the world are right also for
  women to adopt in pursuing the same object.
• It notes that she asserted that women could only
  become free of their reliance on men by becoming
  self-supporting.

19
Angelina and Sarah Grimke- DAB

• This source attempts to describe the
  contributions of both sisters in the same entry.
  
• In this way, it neglects important contributions
  of both sisters and fails to depict them as
  important abolitionists on their own.
• This source also states that Sarah influenced
  Angelina to take up the abolitionist cause. This
  is incorrect.

20
Angelina Grimke- ANB

• Notes her remarkable achievements.
• Was the first white Southern woman to speak up
  publicly against slavery, she persuaded Sarah to
  join her in the anti-slavery crusade, was the
  first woman to speak at the Massachusetts State
  House- spoke for 3 days.
• She was a strong proponent of womens rights and
  wrote Women should be allowed not only help
  write the laws of the land but to sit in the
  seats of its government.
• She was one of the first reformers to link the
  ideas of abolitionism and feminism.

21
Sarah Grimke- ANB

• This source notes that her Epistle to the Clergy
  of Southern States provided a strong refutation
  of the Southern arguments for slavery.
• The explanation of her other works shows that she
  was a serious historian and had an acute
  understanding of the current conditions of women
  in the U.S. and in Europe.
• The notions that she asserts in her works shows
  that she voiced radical views on womens rights
  calling upon women to rise to the degree of
  dignityand to maintain those rights and exercise
  those privileges which every womans common
  sensetells her are inalienable.

22
Elizabeth Cady Stanton- DAB

• This source glosses over her many activities on
  behalf of womans suffrage and only describes
  them generally.
• It then adds a description of her physical
  appearance which serves to diminish her
  achievements. Her strong and undaunted manner
  made her very impressive, though she was short in
  stature, not exceeding five feet three inches.
  Her skin was fresh and fair, and the good-natured
  expression of her face was accentuated by the
  merry twinkle rarely absent from her clear, light
  blue eyes.

23
Elizabeth Cady Stanton- ANB

• This source offers a more detailed perspective on
  Stantons complex views on womens rights and
  reveals her denouncement of black suffrage.
• She demanded rights for married women, including
  rights to property, wages and the ability to
  leave an abusive marriage. She argued that women
  should have the right to decide with whom and
  when to bear children.
• She urged women to reject churches and ministers
  who insisted on asserting their inequality.
• Through she was a leading advocate for womens
  suffrage, she suggested that allowing black men
  to vote endangered white women and questioned why
  black men should obtain suffrage before white
  women.

24
Ida M. Tarbell- DAB

• Here she is identified as only a writer.
• The source describes her as Tall, grave sturdy
  and alert.Never a profound political analyst,
  but a remarkably sensitive reporter to an early
  twentieth-century audience eager for ethical
  instruction and includes her as part of the
  secular clergy of the age.
• This source underestimates her contribution as
  well as her skill as a leading muckraker.

25
Ida M. Tarbell-ANB

• Identified as an investigative journalist and
  historian, this source praises her as the most
  outstanding female investigative journalist that
  America has ever produced.
• It notes that she was the only woman in her
  freshman class at Alleghney College.
• This describes her exposé of Standard Oil as
  contributing to the companys dissolution and
  encouraging government legislation.
• It credits her Life of Abraham Lincoln series for
  helping McCluress magazine prosper.

26
Susan B. Anthony-DAB

• This source provides a short description, devoid
  of important details.
• It includes a newspaper reporters description of
  her appearance in her thirties and follows this
  by noting that in her later years, her face was
  lined, angular, and somewhat austere, but lighted
  with the spiritual beauty which life-long
  devotion to high purposes often imparts. She was
  of the militant type, andshe not infrequently
  displayed some of the less pleasant
  characteristics which such warfare is likely to
  produce in a soldier.
• This condescending description fails to do
  justice to her achievements.

27
Susan B. Anthony- ANB

• Exploring her activities more in depth, this
  source describes her tireless efforts as she
  constantly traveled throughout the country to
  deliver lectures.
• It also remarks that she went beyond womens
  suffrage by using her fame to give any womens
  organization access to a national platform. She
  also promoted the idea of universal suffrage.
• It asserts that she dedicated herself to ensuring
  that the history of the womens movement
  survived. She accomplished this through her
  biography, based on a large archive she
  accumulated, and the 3 volume, History of Woman
  Suffrage, to which she contributed. She
  personally sent these works to thousands of
  academic and public libraries.

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Conclusion

• In many ways the modern American National
  Biography gives American women the historical
  credit they deserve.
• It not only includes more women, but offers
  biographies that explore their full
  accomplishments and contributions.
• It uses modern scholarship to include the most
  important details on the figures that it
  portrays.
• The extensive bibliographies, that follow each
  entry, list most primary sources available, as
  well as their locations. They also include
  accessible and current secondary source treatment
  of each figure.