In honor of Women s History Month, I have decided to write a slightly different column. Several years ago, I interviewed the women in my family in order to compile a family history. What follows is an excerpt from that history, tracing my family from the immigration of my great-great grandparents up to the childhood of my mother and her sister.
Traditional history is a curious matter.
Using the advantage of hindsight, many historians extrapolate major events or people who they believe had a great impact on society or culture. Studying only the heroes or antiheroes leaves us with a distorted collective memory one that remembers the names of generals and Presidents but not the names of those men and women who were not in the spotlight. The narrowness of this perspective ignores the depth and width of a history that includes shadows as well as spotlight. This phenomenon holds trued even in attempts to return agency through minority history. The research for this column reflects a shadow history, illustrating an oral tradition that exists among the women in my family, and many other families.