Notable American Women, 1607–1950

Notable American Women was the first major modern reference book of women's biographies, although the genre was common in earlier eras, such as the 1804 A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women Of Every Age and Country by Matilda Betham.^[1] It appeared when Women's studies in U.S. universities had created great interest in understanding women's past.^[2] Upon its publication it was viewed by scholars as a magnificent contribution to understanding the role of women in U.S. history.^[3]

Writing of the changes in perspective on biography inspired by Notable American Women, 1607–1950 Susan Ware observed, "1,359 entries showed the range and depth of women’s contributions to American life, a pointed correction to women’s near-total exclusion from existing biographical dictionaries at the time and a dramatic spur to further research."^[4]

A 1973 review of Notable American Women, 1607-1950 by Mary Elizabeth Massey in The American Historical Review describes the work as "the most scholarly of all female reference works yet published", and notes, "As might be expected in a work of this kind, special attention is given to political activists, feminists, and suffragists, but the opponents of feminism and woman suffrage have not been ignored."^[8] In a 1973 review for The William and Mary Quarterly, Barbara Welter writes, "Although white middle-class women who were reformers and authors predominate, women of other ethnic groups, holding diverse occupations, also appear. The sources consulted for even the most obscure of the lives are impressive - manuscripts, archives, collateral accounts, as well as exhaustive secondary material."^[9]

Accordng to Marjorie F. Gutheim in a review for New England Quarterly, "There is someone here to interest everyone. If the longest articles seem a bit overpowering, or the more familiar ones too well known, turn to Mary Peck Butterworth, counterfeiter of colonial days; Margaret Hardenbrook Philipse, who carried on a mercantile business in her maiden name [...]; Kate Kennedy, who in the late 1860's fought for "equal pay for equal work"; Ellen Demorest who developed paper dress patterns; Alice Kober who helped decipher Linear B; Ida Lewis, a lighthouse keeper renowned for her rescues; Annie Peck, the mountain climber; Ann Eliza Young, a disaffected wife of Brigham Young; Emma Edmonds who served for two years in the Army of the Potomac disguised as a man."^[10]

In a review of the fifth volume, Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing The Twentieth Century, P. Palmer writes for Choice Reviews, "The entries emphasize achievement rather than fame. Ware selected knowledgeable authors to write the alphabetically arranged, signed entries; e.g., Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes about Burnita Shelton Matthews, the Mississippi native who was the first woman to become a lifetenured federal trial court judge. Throughout the work, writing is balanced and detailed."^[11] A review in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education states "Often historical compendiums assembled by white historians and editors tend to shortchange the contributions of members of minority groups. But this is not the case in the publication of Notable American Women", and 69 of the 442 biographies in the fifth volume are Black women, including "Black women from the fields of art, literature, sports, music, government, and entertainment", as well as "some of the most notable black women educators of the period".^[12] In a review for Feminist Collections, Mary Hitchcock writes, "One potential drawback to the structure of the books in this series is that without a comprehensive index to all the volumes, it could prove time-consuming to locate an entry for a particular woman if one is not certain when she died. Overall, however, the series and this volume in particular are very valuable resources, providing useful information about women whose lives might be glossed over or ignored completely by more general biographical dictionaries."^[13]