About Us

The once vital Upstate New York Women’s History Organization (UNYWHO) has recently
been resurrected. UNYWHO was originally formed in 1970s to provide support, an intellectual base, and a spirit of camaraderie to women’s historians throughout New York
State.  Early members included Judith Wellman, Kathryn Kish Sklar, Christopher Densmore, Carol Kammen, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Pat Haines, Mary Huth, among others.  As Wellman remembers, “it was life-saving, in those years of the 1970s when we on individual campuses were sometimes close to desperate for a sense of validation, purpose, and hope for the future of ourselves personally, for women in general, and
for women's history.”  Members recall the existence of an early newsletter (and current members would be delighted to locate extant copies).

From the 1970s through the early 1990s, UNYWHO also held regular conferences to facilitate personal and intellectual exchange. In the spirit of grassroots organizing, we are pleased to announce the revival of UNYWHO, which sadly lost momentum in the 1990s. At the November 2003 Researching New York conference at SUNY Albany, separately organized panels on women’s history happily joined together one evening for dinner.  The fellowship enjoyed that evening prompted the participants to propose reinvigorating UNYWHO.

Wellman, one of the original founders, is the moving spirit behind this resurgence.  With her usual enthusiasm and fierce dedication, Wellman made sure that the ideas sparked that evening in Albany were not lost.  She soon organized area women’s historians into a
newly reconstituted network.

The new incarnation of UNYWHO includes a host of original members as well as graduate
students, new faculty, independent scholars, documentary editors, and public historians.
UNYWHO has planned a number of initiatives on the local and national level.  Modeled
on the original association, members plan to meet informally to build the area community of women’s history.  The organization expects to organize regular regional conferences and support local women’s history projects.  These projects include an effort to place the Farmington Meeting House, where Frederick Douglass, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony spoke, on the National Register of Historic Places. This building, used as a meetinghouse from 1816-1925, is also in desperate need of  restoration, having been turned into a barn years ago.  We also hope to lobby in support of legislation promoting women’s history, including the Votes for Women History Trail Act of 2003, introduced in Congress by Representative Louise Slaughter. H.R. 1524 will create a commemorative travel route from Syracuse to Rochester in connection with
the Seneca Falls Women's Rights National Historical home economics and its impact on American society.

Interested in both academic and public history, UNYWHO promotes vigorous scholarship and its connection to a broader appreciation for women’s history.  We invite women’s historians in upstate New York, as well as those interested in the history of this region, to join our listserv, which serves as our membership list. 

- Carol Faulkner, CCWH Newsletter, Winter 2004