Reviews:

. Created and maintained by the National Women’s History Museum Board of Directors, Annandale, VA. Reviewed December 1 – December 12, 2004.

The National Women’s History Museum is an exhibit website that is also the beginning of an actual museum, proposed to be built in D.C. The Board of Directors, as well as the whole organization, is filled with influential and motivated women who want to create a place for women’s history to be told. The homepage is filled with ways for people to be involve, and lists many announcements of upcoming events and activities. There are also sections for volunteers and new members, as well as sponsors and a museum store. The homepage is filled with news, events, fundraisers, and two cyber exhibits. The exhibits, about women’s suffrage and women athletes, offer two different ways of presenting the information. The target audience is the general public, but it is written in a scholarly format. The site also includes a timeline, but only contains the major events of the movement.

The suffrage history exhibit contains two different ways of viewing the same information: an image tour or a textual tour, each based on their tour’s title. The textual tour has footnotes to good primary and secondary sources, as well as some images illustrating the paragraphs. The image tour has small factoids relevant to the topic, though perhaps not as imperative to the story. There are also sound clips available of speeches and songs made in the early 1900s. This section is very clean, and the information is organized well. There is a lot of information being given, but the user does not feel overwhelmed by it. The layout of both versions of the suffrage tour helps the reading and navigating easy for everyone to go at their own pace. When possible, the exhibit offers external links that open in a separate window, so the user is not sidetracked from the original page. The exhibit ends with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Perhaps if the story is continued past that point, more new media features could be available. The television soon gained importance, and footage could possibly be incorporated into the exhibit as well.

The athletic exhibit focuses on American women in the Olympics, but also includes background on public thought on women in general participating sports. It has a table of all the Summer Olympics, how many women participated, how many events were open to them, and what new events were added for each of the Games. In the text areas of the exhibit, key parts are highlighted in a different color to accent their importance. The text and images are footnoted, and the images also have captions. The information is organized into short paragraphs that are easy to manage, although the color scheme is somewhat difficult to read. When a record is discussed, a short bio of the woman is also included, expanding on their athletic career. Continuity between the exhibits and the main informational pages could be tighter. The only real way the user knows the pages are from the same place is the naming at the top of the pages. Color, style, and layout are all different.

Women's History Network. http://www.womenshistorynetwork.org/. Maintained by Claire Jones. Reviewed December 1 – December 12, 2004

The Women's History Network is very appropriately named. It is an informational place for members and those interested in activites of the organization, and women’s history. This site lists the members, new books and articles, as well as conferences. The site is aimed at academics and is scholarly in its outlook. The Network offers a magazine, newsletters, and an area for discussion. Although the discussion is through a list-serv instead of a more chat orientated forum, it is one of the few sites I found to offer such a service. The Women's History Network is based in England, and they have regional groups all over the United Kingdom. They host an annual conference in September, call for papers, and award a prize to the winner. There are also speakers and lecture sessions. They encourage new scholarship and discussion among their members, and those of the community. The organizers have an established method for submitting peer reviews and book reviews. The group itself seems to be well organized and managed. They have a Steering Committee that meets often to attend to the Network’s business. More relevant to their English members, but interesting to others, is a jobs area that lists current openings and fellowship opportunities. In addition to the jobs, they also highlight universities that offer courses in women’s history or a related field.

The site is clean and fairly easy to navigate. The layout and continuity between the pages is identical, and has a good color scheme. The intended audiences are their own members, to relay information, and prospective members. They are strictly a source of group news and events. They reach their audience, promoting their members, activities and women’s history. They don’t have any new media features on the website, and could perhaps have audio excerpts from the conferences, although this does not seem fit with their site goals.

Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture. http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/. Created by Ginny Daley and maintained by Amy Leigh. Reviewed December 1 – December 12, 2004.

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture is located in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. Since it is apart of the Special Collections Library, the focus is on the primary sources of women’s history. Their goals are to make the sources accessible to more people than have physical access to the library. They offer bibliographies and guides to their archives, as well as internships for those interested in gaining work experience on women’s history documents. Their main areas of concentration are African-American Women, Civil War Women, and the Women’s Liberation Movement from 1969-1974. The creators of each section are careful to note the participants of the project and what their tasks were, as well as give an email address to comments or suggestions. Also listed is the equipment that was used, and the resolutions of the images.

The area on the Women’s Liberation Movement is organized by topic, has a search feature, and several external links. The topical areas are comprised of essays and book excerpt pertaining to a particular subject. The text is often accompanied by an image of the original publication, and includes a full bibliographic detail.

The section on Civil War Women contains the diary of Alice Williamson, a young girl in Tennessee, and the letters from Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a secessionist from Maryland, and Sarah E. Thompson, a unionist from Tennessee. All of the documents have been transcribe, and offer a small biography of each woman as an introduction. Accompanying each transcription is an image of the page. There are also several links to other related websites at Duke and external resources. The layout of the page is clear, and fairly consistent, and the color scheme is easy to read. There aren’t any new media features, but given the time frame, anything other than photographs and letters would be difficult to obtain.

The African-American Women’s section incorporates the letters of three slaves, Vilet Lester, Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson, as well as the writings of Elizabeth Johnson Harris, a post-war daughter of former slaves. These documents offer a unique perspective into the antebellum world of slaves, and post-war Reconstruction. The letter from Vilet is short, but in an informal tone tells of a specific time in her life. She describes the time she has been away from her friend, her many sales, and final setting into a permanent home. She confides her longing to see her old friends and family, and mentions her daughter and hopes that her master will find her and bring them together again.

Hanna Valentine and Lethe Jackson were on the same plantation in Abingdon, Virginia in the late 1830s. They wrote to their families, and mistresses, about plantation business and personal news. In contrast to Vilet Lester’s letter, Hanna and Lethe seem to be more educated, and were given more authority over daily plantation matters, and stayed with the Campbell family at Montcalm for a substantial amount of time.
Elizabeth Johnson Harris was born shortly after the Civil War, and lived until halfway through World War II. In her memoirs, begun in 1925, she relates how it was to grow up during Reconstruction and life at the turn of the Century. Also included in her memoirs are several poems and vignettes.

This site has good continuity and flow between the sections. The list of related sites, both at Duke and on the web, are smaller than the Civil War page, but still offer good suggestions. The main page has links to several related library departments at Duke, as well as a reference section for researchers.

American Women's History: A Research Guide. http://www.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html. Maintained by Ken Middleton. Reviewed December 1 – December 12, 2004.

The American Women's History research guide is an archive of online primary source materials, maintained by Ken Middleton, a specialist in the Middle Tennessee State University. The site is fairly consistent in its layout, although the further into the site the user travels, the less consistent it becomes. This could be due to the site being active for a while, and under the maintenance of several people. However inconsistent the layout may be, the text and pattern of wording is quite consistent. Throughout the site, Middleton uses the same terms in the same manner, which helps to emphasize methodology to those just beginning. Additionally, the color scheme and text type is easy to view and read. The audience appears to be college and high school students, as well as adults, who are interested in researching various aspects of women’s history. Middleton offers both relevant books and websites available to the general public. Almost all of the links are active, and the ones that are not are accessible another way. The caption information for each link has enough information to get to the source.
The site is broken into four main methods of finding sources on the site, and some shortcuts to the more popular areas. Each section offers links that are most relevant to a subject or state that is being searched by. Many of a particular state’s main or important area universities are linked, as well as the state historical society. Also mentioned in several different places are various H-net.org lists, such as H-Ohio, H-Women, and H-Rural. Much of the information on the site overlaps several times, but this helps the user to cross-reference items and research methods. If the user finds something interesting in the “Finding Primary Sources” option, and then searches by state, the sources already viewed appear in a different color that sources that have not been viewed.

Addition resources for information:

Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History

Linda K. Kerber

The Journal of American History , Vol. 75, No. 1. (Jun., 1988), pp. 9-39.

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8723%28198806%2975%3A1%3C9%3ASSFWWP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film (in AHR Forum)

Robert A. Rosenstone

The American Historical Review , Vol. 93, No. 5. (Dec., 1988), pp. 1173-1185.

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28198812%2993%3A5%3C1173%3AHIIIWR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P

Brave New Worlds: Women's and Gender History (in Forum: The Future of Early American History)

Kathleen M. Brown

The William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd Ser., Vol. 50, No. 2, Early American History: Its Past and Future. (Apr., 1993), pp. 311-328.

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28199304%293%3A50%3A2%3C311%3ABNWWAG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D

The Evolution of White Women's Experience in Early America

Mary Beth Norton

The American Historical Review , Vol. 89, No. 3. (Jun., 1984), pp. 593-619.

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28198406%2989%3A3%3C593%3ATEOWWE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

Forham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html.

This site is an excellent source of transcribed materials.

Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/womhm.html.

A good information site, although difficult to navigate at times.

http://www.feminist.org/

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