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.
The lecture offers an overview of women's public roles in the post-Civil War era, focusing on three ways in which organized groups of women took action to make themselves publicly visible: monument-building by heritage associations, reshaping city landscapes, and seeking partial or full suffrage.