Women Chemung County NY

Etta WOLCOTT Park 1881

Home Page Section of Antique Quilt photographed by Joyce M. Tice at Endless Mountains Quilt Guild Show 1999 On loan from Tioga Point Museum

It wasn't until I became involved in genealogy that I understood the need for Women's History as a separate discipline. I had always believed that since women were a part of history from the very beginning, that developing a separate study was condescending and demeaning.  However, when I started researching my own family and the families of the community of my study area, I discovered a lot of information about the men and very little, or more often nothing, about the women. It was an eye opener.

In earlier times women were blocked from participating in many of the public institutions and processes which would have created records for them. Early historians tended to dscount their contributions and simply left them out of the histories altogether or hid them in the shadows of their husbands or fathers. At marriage, any identity they might have had as an individual was taken from them in the form of a name change. A married woman did not even have a legal identity in the earliest days of our government. Her econominc contributions in the farm or small business partnership were attributed to her husband. In extreme cases, and we have all seen these in the history books, even childbirth was attributed to her husband.

We can't go back and change history. We can't rewrite the old history books to include the half of the population that was left out when they were first written. However, we can write those histories now and bring the women of our past out from the shadows and record their lives and contributions now. I find that even in the present day, many of the family histories that are submited to this site are written following the old examples, with a male centered focus. To bring this issue and this continued discounting of the role of women to the forefront, I am creating the Women's Page here at Tri-Counties. This will give all of us the opportunity to focus on women and show our ancestors the respect they have long been denied. They live only through us now and only we can right the wrong done to them. This defecit in the knowledge base will not fill itself in. We must do it. It is up to us. We have a long way to go to fill in those massive blanks, but one woman at a time, we can do it.

Entirely different research methods and sources have to be tapped to learn about the women who were partners in founding the society we live in. Diaries and letters, when they can be found are invaluable. Please submit your ancestral women's histories to me. Microsoft Word or rtf files preferred. These can be attached to your email. Do NOT use a lot of tabs or spacing in your write-ups as they will all collapse together in conversion to HTML. If you have to use columnar sections, insert a table for them.

This will be fun - Include photos where you can. I am looking forward to them all and I have a lot I want to do also. I am going to use this opportunity to display a lot of the photographs I have collected of these people for my Sullivan-Rutland Genealogy Project.

Bishop James H. Darlington of this Episcopal Diocese, told the Pennsylvania Suffrage League at a meeting in Philadelphia one day last week why he favored woman suffrage. Bishop Darlington urged from the ground of giving womankind a chance. Because women are less busy than men and are often better posted on the topics of the day, he believed that they would improve matters if given a hand in the government.
"Be patient," was his advice, "not too patient, but just reasonably so. Be good-natured, and above all things don't become hysterical, and you will get what you want."

Chemung County NY

Published On 19 SEP 1999 By Joyce M. Tice You are our welcome visitor since 19 SEP 1999 Happy Women's Day