Women. I went to graduate school not planning to do womens history but it was 1970 and the Womens Movement had begun to affect my life. Person to belucky in that first generation of grad students who had isolated wonderful mentors just beginning to do womens history. I assisted the first class in womens history at the university of michigan. The first year i was in grad school, i kept getting assigned the womens papers. About the wonderful, brilliant women. Thosented being given. Standing in the halls and said to a friend of mine, girly getting into womens history. As im really getting into womens history. A prominent historian stuck his head outside the door and said womens history, that is the history of dishwashing. My first reaction was i was really angry. Women have done all the great things men have. Been ught, they everything ive thought of as history. Three months later, i decided he was right. He thought dishwashing was trivial and not historical. To do waslly wanted look at the history of what most women had done and how that has changed over time. That kept me engaged ever since. What have those stories contributed to the understanding of western history . Lot. Contributed a my work included doing oral histories with women in mining towns, homesteading women. I also do labor history. I was very interested in womens work initially. It adds is that we have to rethink the whole story of how western economies were built. Womens unpaid labor or paid labor. You could cook at home or cook in a restaurant, washed dishes that home or wash dishes in a restaurant. You could have sex with your husband or sell sex in the marketplace. You could grow vegetables. Every single western economy, if you start looking at what women did, they did essential things in the traditional frontier west. Men to go out and work everyday by cooking and making sure they had energy to to work or write a horse or whatever. They also manufactured. Traders and for ur traders fo women thats married processed the heights. Hides. Women took milk and turned it into butter. They made clothing, they manufactured. We need to think about the value of womens labor. When the government provided for to build railroads people to have homesteads, we call that infrastructure. Womens labor was part of the essential infrastructure at the american west. They also take us past the traditional frontier period. ,n those stereotypical frontier mining, ranching, whatever, they usually characterize very few ratios theres lots more men than women. Women show up later. We have to stop thinking about frontiers and looking at what they did to build communities. What they did to reestablish Civilized Society in the west. In your address to this aboutence, you talk a lot unmarried and widowed women. Why did you focus on those . Because they are in the records. In women im talking about the project im working on now were independent women homesteaders. In the United States, unmarried women could claim land in their own name under the homestead act of 1862. Married women could not. The other thing that is sort of interesting about that is that in canada, women could claim land in their own name under exceptional circumstances. It was very hard for them to do so. A number of Canadian Women came south to claim land is a were singled or widowed. Under the homestead act, you could get married after you file for your homestead and some women did that. But not the majority. Partly, its because homesteading was a way for a woman to be independent, to get some equity. She may or may not stay on her homestead. Andmight sell it or rent it use the money to open a business or go to college. Sold her homestead and used it as a dowry to join a convent. It gave them options. On the other hand, it really illustrates how government assumption skews the record. I cant find the same kinds of records for married women because of the assumption that if a man was present, he was the head of the household, he filed for the homestead, he got the title. The you think that americans have many stereotypes of women in the west . Evidencefound lots of of these stereotypes . Yes. 1975. Ago, in they identify the common stereotypes. Civilizer she ended the good times of the wonderful frontier by making men bathe and shave and go to church and settle down. Then there was the women drag to there was the bad women. Sex workers in particular. That got associated with women of color. Those are caricatures. Work forces you to shake up the stereotypes. ,o go back to the civilizer i like having hospitals and schools and libraries. Always drunkmen and shooting each other. As the romantic stereotype would have it. Help made, she was not a partner on the ranch or farm but was legally. We have to look at how she does not have the title to something she labored for. Look at sex workers, they were mostly poor women. Choiceve them a bit more , but they are not romantic. It is a hard way to make a living. You start thinking about the stereotypes of men is women take us too. I also teach in canada. The stereotypical man has to be independent. He has to not be tied down. A man has to do with a man has to do. He cleans up the town and writes off alone into the sunset without getting tied down by some woman. Women makes us think about community and interdependence. The west was not just full of rugged individuals. It was full of families building committees who were trying to make the world better for their kids. Women take us to those realities. Has it been a challenge for you to argue that the stories of these women are as important as the male figures we learn about in history textbooks . Lewis and clark, for instance. It is not a struggle for me to argue it. Its a struggle to win the argument. It is hard because it is an internal argument. I learned a certain kind of history. That going out to work for wages was more important than washing dishes. I have to rethink my own assumptions. If it is hard enough for me to argue with myself come imagine arguing with the state of texas with the textbooks. Some of theseeach stories because our students dont know what to listen for. They have learned to listen for getting the dizziness activism can start with a woman you help wash the dishes. You change the diapers. Getting them to think of activism. It takes a wild when you are teaching it to get your students to think a little bit differently. And to go home and talked of their grandmas about what they did. The theme of this years conference, walls and bridges, who came up with that theme . Did you have a role as the president . I did. Can you talk about what that means . I am a metaphor junkie. Bridges, a bridge divides. They can Bridge National borders, social boundaries. Walls are impediments that stop people. That might have prevented interracial couples from marrying or samesex couples from being openly together. There are also conceptual walls. Dishwashing as trivial. It is only things that happen in public and are done by men our history. You have to rethink that. Wonderful is this place a possibility we can also see a scary. As you leave one place and go to another. You leave your house and go into the public sphere. You move across an international order. You learn to talk to people who are different from you. Metaphor in terms of what i talk about is that the scholarship of over four decades now brings us to a New Historical threshold where we have to rethink what are the important stories to tell. What has your job been as president of the association . Do you have goals at the beginning of the year . Are you able to achieve them . I have a number of goals. I wanted a really vital conference that includes conversations about race and gender and sexuality. The west extends throughout north america. I wanted it to excite people and we got a Record Number of submissions. We have wonderful panels. I oweergy is terrific and a lot of that to my programs committee. The most important thing a president does is form committees and Pick Committee chairs, particularly for the programs committee. You get tooint recognize people who accomplish things. I got to choose five distinguished speakers and three lifetime members. Stuffis no nittygritty that comes up there is nittygritty stuff that comes up. The western historical quarterly had to be moved. Putng my presidency, we together a committee to find us a new institutional home. That all came out wonderfully. That was a lot of behind the scenes kind of work that had to happen. Participants at this conference and members of these associations come from . Are they mostly professors of western history . About a third to a fourth of our members are students. That is a wonderful thing. The majority are professors. Or independent researchers. Also people who are simply interest in the field. Interested in the field. Folks who just really love western history. We have a wonderful initiative through the library of congress to involve history teachers from junior and Senior High School to come here to talk about doing western history using primary sources. They come to panels and get new ideas. A sense of what works in their classrooms and what does not. Looking at the college and historyties, is western widely taught or is it mostly in the west . Is that they feel that is growing . A field that is growing . The founding narrative was about the movement westward. In a sense, westward movement has driven the narrative of the nation. Western history courses today are taught mostly in the west, but on exclusively. Yale has had a vital program. I taught at duke. A number of universities, but more commonly in the west. You reflected a little bit west learning about the yourself. What would you like to see change . Have you seen many changes in the last few decades in the way western history and womens history is taught in the schools . I would like to see it become a common focus. We began adding new characters as we were covered women stories. Thats recovered womens stories. We started with a female counterparts of the men whose stories we knew. Sacagawea to lewis and clark. President s wives. We had to start thinking about what womens work was come about women of color. When we think about the westward movement, we had to thinking about Indigenous Women and how their lives changed differently from the incoming white women settlers. Womens history in particular is mostly taught in history classes. Women have not been easily integrated into the stories of the nation or the region. That will be a dialogue back and forth in the field to think about how it matters to people and People Matter informing communities in different places. Are their borders in the west . , is people think the west that just subjective or is there an actual order border . It is historically constructed per from a frontier perspective, the west moved starting on the east coast. If you think it from an environmental perspective, some people say it was the arid west. , canadian historians are more pragmatic. They say the three prairie providences and british columbia. West of the imagination, thene more prominent the west ability. Of reality. When you say texas, people immediately think cowboys. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. Tv thiscan history weekend. Boundaries,ut political boundaries, state boundaries, committee boundaries for the future. And for this territory going for it. Lectures in history with Iowa State University professor carlton on the 1787 northwest ordinance, and not by congress to organize and governor leo wired territory from ohio to the mississippi. Govern reacquired territory. You all told me to sit facing the coke machine. I just do what im told. A look back at the 1992 president ial campaign of bill clinton during a visit to Franklin High School in new hampshire. On real america, marking the 70 anniversary of the nuremberg trials. The 1945 u. S. Documentary and not to concentration in prison camps and continuing on oral histories a couple of days after dday when they had enough beach land , my captain who was a new captain on that jobs that you stay here. Was one of those times when somebody reached out and i was left. Off they went. Beforeseveral days later i went across and rejoined my outfit. An interview with a former chief prosecutor for the United States born in transylvania to a jewish family, immigrated to america. He reflects on enlisting in the u. S. Army after all school and being assigned to set up a War Crimes Branch to investigate nazi atrocities. Allh American History tv weekend, every weekend on cspan3. Get our complete schedule at www. Cspan. Org. Two things are very different today. We have a justice system. These trials were not held according to what we would consider to be modern law. Innocent until Proven Guilty had not yet been in place. There were no lawyers. The courtroom is the extremely unruly place. We dont happen to believe in witchcraft or prosecute witchcraft today. Witches, on q a, the salem 6092. The scope and effect of the on theions and trials massachusetts community. Salem 1692. Wealthy merchants were accused as witches, sea captains were accused as witches, homeless fiveyearold girls were accused to be witches. Victims,ive male including a minister. We dont burn the witch is, we hang them. So much encrusted in myth and so much misunderstanding here that i felt it was important to dispel. Q a. Nday night on cspans weeks, the next few cspans American History tv will air oral histories. The project explorations in black leadership was a collaboration between uva professors phyllis and julian. Next, we hear from Supreme Court Justice Clarence thomas. He talks about his upbringing in the segregated south and the influence of his grandfather on his career. This program is about 90 minutes. Mr. Bond justice thomas, thank your for being with us on explorations in black leadership. I want to begin with a question about brown v board. Did you have some sense that this was a big deal . Justice thomas well, not at the time. The big deal was learning the multiplication table and how to add, but as the years went on, particularly 1956, 1957, you got a sense of it because there was quite a bit of talk about it. My grandfather was very involved in the naacp, for example. So you heard that. You also heard, as i mentioned when i wrote my memoirs, that we saw the impeach earl warren signs along the highway. I always wondered who earl warren was. Later on, i would figure it out that it was the chief justice of the United States and he was in trouble. Mr. Bond i guess there is no way i could ever say would you ever think youd be sitting at the building where earl warren worked
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