Anne M. Boylan is an emeritus professor of history and women and gender studies at the University of Delaware, where she taught and did research on women's history, social history, and historical memory. The author of Votes for Delaware Women (2021), Women's Rights in the United States: A History in Documents (2015), The Origins of Women's Activism: New York and Boston, 1797-1840 (2002), and Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution (1988), she is currently working on two projects: biographical profiles of Delaware's women suffrage leaders; and an article on popular presentations of women's history in the 1930s and 1940s. She has worked extensively with teachers of grades 3-12 through federal Teaching American History grants.
This lecture contrasts the "old" history of women's rights and women's rights movements with the "new" history that scholars have produced over the past thirty years. It focuses on broad themes in conceptualizing "women's rights" and uses specific examples to develop the themes.