Realizing the breadth of the challenge in revising state standards, the Remedial Herstory Project recommends replacing individual standards related to women with one standard:
“Students analyze the social, political, cultural, and economic lives and interactions of diverse groups of women, including the ways they profoundly influenced, and were influenced by, the historical past in every era and theme.” If that's not enough, the National Women’s History Museum’s study identified the few women who regularly appeared in the state standards: ● Rosa Parks ● Susan B. Anthony ● Harriet Tubman ● Elizabeth Cady Stanton ● Sojourner Truth ● Abigail Adams ● Harriet Beecher Stowe ● Jane Addams ● Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) ● Ida B. Wells-Barnett ● Eleanor Roosevelt ● Sacagawea ● Phillis Wheatly ● Mercy Otis Warren ● Anne Hutchinson Certainly, these are not the only women, but they set a minimum standard for women who must be taught in schools.
To build on the work of the Women's History Museum, and necessarily include women from around the world, RHP created the following spreadsheets of every era and region of world history. This is not an exhaustive list, and it is certainly not supposed to represent “standards” of what teachers have to teach. The list merely represents a starting point for educators with women they could include for every unit they might teach in a history class. An effort was made to incorporate women from every race, region, class, and include the lives of queer people for every era.
Selected women were added because their stories overlap content already taught in social studies classes, although they may be lesser-known women. For example, Lozen was an Apache woman who fought alongside Geronimo against the US Army during the period of westward expansion. Or Mary Anna Custis Lee because her husband, Robert E. Lee, was so important to understanding the Civil War. Other women are included expressly because they do not parallel traditional history topics and should be included. For example, Olympe de Gouges who wrote the Women’s Declaration of Rights during the French Revolution and was executed for it, burying the struggles of women in that era against the patriarchy. Or Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood has defined the 20th and, so far, the 21st century. She should be taught in history classes. Names of women like Angela, whom little is known about other than she was on the 1619 ship of enslaved people who landed in Virginia, are included because her presence in the Americas is important and the lack of information about her also speaks to her status and life.
Women are placed in the era they most influenced American history. Women who cross multiple eras can be found in the era they first had an impact. For example, Eleanor Roosevelt is important to both the period of her husband’s administration, but also the Cold War era for her work in the UN. She appears only in the first era.
Why did we decide on a list of women? Dr. Camilla Townsend expressed on our podcast that when so little is known about women’s lives, knowing one woman well can illuminate the possible life experiences of other women who’s documents were not archived, story was left unrecorded, and personal reflections are lost. Contrasting different women’s experiences and ideas gives us windows into the range of challenges, interests, and opinions of women in a given time.
This document is still a work in progress and is updated regularly. Did we miss anyone? Have any critiques? Please contact us.