ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the writing of historians of women from 1969 to 1999. The title reflects a change in the angle from which the history of women has been viewed during this period. It explores the emergence of 'gender history' from 'women's history'. Bonnie Smith and other historians of women have been concerned to trace the roots of their practice in an earlier age. Smith's goal in doing this was to 'link women scholars to the historiography of women' by tracing 'a kind of genealogy of women's historiography parallel to that of better-known men'. The connection of women with moral developments did not disappear. Georgiana Hill was a suffragist: the Victorian women's movement, provided an impetus for historians of women. The suffrage movement led to a degree of panic that women might lose their qualities as moral arbiters and protectors of the home.
