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No Straight Path - Becoming Women Historians (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,307
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No Straight Path - Becoming Women Historians (Hardcover)
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No Straight Path tells the stories of ten successful female
historians who came of age in an era when it was unusual for women
to pursue careers in academia, especially in the field of history.
These first-person accounts illuminate the experiences women of the
post- World War II generation encountered when they chose to enter
this male-dominated professional world. None of the contributors
took a straight path into the profession; most first opted instead
for the more conventional pursuits of college, public-school
teaching, marriage, and motherhood. Despite these commonalities,
their stories are individually unique: one rose from poverty in
Arkansas to attend graduate school at Rutgers before earning the
chairmanship of the history department at the University of
Memphis; another pursued an archaeology degree, studied social
work, and served as a college administrator before becoming a
history professor at Tulane University; a third was a lobbyist who
attended seminary, then taught high school, entered the history
graduate program at Indiana University, and helped develop two
honors colleges before entering academia; and yet another grew up
in segregated Memphis and then worked in public schools in New
Jersey before earning a graduate degree in history at the
University of Memphis, where she now teaches. The experiences of
the other historians featured in this collection are equally varied
and distinctive. Several themes emerge in their collective stories.
Most assumed they would become teachers, nurses, secretaries, or
society ladies- the only ""respectable"" choices available to women
at the time. The obligations of marriage and family, they believed,
would far outweigh their careers outside the home. Upon making the
unusual decision, at the time, to move beyond high-school teaching
and attend graduate school, few grasped the extent to which men
dominated the field of history or that they would be perceived by
many as little more than objects of sexual desire. The work/home
balance proved problematic for them throughout their careers, as
they struggled to combine the needs and demands of their families
with the expectations of the profession. These women had no road
maps to follow. The giants who preceded them- Gerda Lerner, Anne
Firor Scott, Linda K. Kerber, Joan Wallach Scott, A. Elizabeth
Taylor, and others- had breached the gates but only with great
drive and determination. Few of the contributors to No Straight
Path expected to undertake such heroics or to rise to that level of
accomplishment. They may have had modest expectations when entering
the field, but with the help of female scholars past and present,
they kept climbing and reached a level of success within the
profession that holds great promise for the women who follow.
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