Women’s history flourishes today as a robust field that has profoundly reshaped historical traditions once written almost exclusively by, for, and about men. Not only has this still relatively recent field enabled more than half the population to see themselves reflected in historical narratives, but in decentering men as default historical actors, women’s historians have enriched how scholars think about periodization; reconsidered interpretations of political, social, and economic movements; and pressed the discipline toward fuller engagement with intersecting identities such as race, class, and sexuality.
The rapid institutionalization and expansion of women’s history occurred most visibly from the late 1960s through the end of the century. However, as Jennifer Banning Tomás demonstrates in her important new book, Reclaiming Clio: Making American Women’s History, 1900-2000, the movement’s roots extend much deeper. She persuasively traces precursors from the early twentieth century when individual historians of women produced scholarship, though such work lacked collective legitimacy in the larger historical profession. She follows by exploring how these initial efforts converged with midcentury projects that elevated attention to women’s historical presence, including the establishment of archives and the collaborative production of the landmark Notable American Women (1971) volumes. Then, she links these developments to the field’s later expansion and consolidation as women’s historians developed organizational infrastructure to support their work, devised new scholarly approaches while honoring historical craft traditions, and coupled their efforts with social and political movements that vitalized their work. In the end, Tomás arguably has produced the most comprehensive account yet of women’s history’s emergence as a scholarly enterprise.
Among the multiple strands of analysis running through Tomás’s detailed account, three are especially significant. First, she highlights the collective, sustained effort required to build the social and institutional infrastructure that enabled women’s history to thrive. Second, she examines the field’s ongoing negotiation between deep commitments to social and political movements and adherence to rigorous standards of historical scholarship. And third, she traces how women’s historians increasingly expanded the scope of inquiry to include a wider diversity of women’s lives and intersectional experiences, even as the historians worked, sometimes contentiously, to forge an intellectual community capable of sustaining such breadth.
In terms of infrastructure, Tomás underscores the importance of scholarly mentoring, including her own formation with the guidance of Kathryn Kish Sklar, while situating such relationships in a broader culture of intellectual sponsorship. Throughout the book, she demonstrates how women’s historians and their allies cultivated both informal networks and formal institutions that nurtured emerging scholars. These efforts ranged from conferences like the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, to regional and national professional associations, to the creation of archives, documentary projects, journals, and academic programs devoted to women’s history. By reconstructing these developments, Tomás shows that the field’s growth was neither accidental nor purely ideological; it depended upon strategic institution-building, finding and using resources, and persistent efforts to secure legitimacy within a sometimes skeptical discipline.
Tomás also explores the extent to which women’s historians grounded their work in the social and political movements of their eras. Engagement with feminism and related struggles for expanded rights often enlivened scholars’ sense that historical recovery could contribute to broader claims about women’s full humanity and citizenship. However, Tomás is careful to demonstrate that activism and scholarship were not synonymous. Many practitioners insisted upon meticulous archival research, methodological transparency, and interpretive rigor, in part to counter critiques that their work was merely provocative. In this respect, the field’s political energy did not displace standards of craft. Instead, it often intensified commitments to evidentiary depth and analytical precision.
Finally, Tomás emphasizes that the expansion of women’s history required sustained self-examination. As scholars incorporated analyses of race, class, sexuality, and other dimensions of identity, they confronted internal disagreements over scope, terminology, and priorities. The effort to build a field attentive to difference—while also maintaining intellectual cohesion—remains, as Tomás suggests, an unfinished project. For instance, as women’s history has expanded to more fully encompass gender/trans history, how has the field shifted? By examining achievements and tensions, she presents women’s (and gender) history not as a static accomplishment but as an evolving endeavor shaped by ongoing debate and revision. Still, despite giving attention to this particular topic, she could have explored it more fully while remaining within the scope of the book.
Tomás grounds her analysis in a wide and carefully curated body of sources that enables her to reconstruct women’s history not just as a set of ideas, but as a professional and institutional project. Drawing extensively on archival collections, including the personal papers and oral histories of key founders, she situates individual actors within the networks that sustained the field’s development. Her attention to early women’s historical archives further underscores the material conditions that made scholarly recovery possible.
In addition, Tomás analyzes journals, conference proceedings, and the records of regional and national historical associations to trace shifts in priorities over time. Through close reading of correspondence among leading figures, she illuminates the collaborative energies, strategic disagreements, and sometimes subtle power dynamics that shaped the field’s trajectory. This layered source base allows her to write a history that is at once institutional, intellectual, and collective—revealing how women’s history emerged through sustained interpersonal labor as much as through published scholarship.
As her narrative approaches the late twentieth century and beyond, Tomás writes with the perspective of a scholar formed within many of the networks she describes. Rather than diminishing the study, this closeness lends texture to her account, even as she maintains a clear commitment to documentary grounding and analytical distance.
Reclaiming Clio will resonate most immediately with scholars who have helped build women’s history and related fields. Many will recognize themselves in Tomás’s reconstruction of the networks, debates, and labors that shaped the discipline, and may be prompted to add further layers of interpretation to its evolving story. The book will also speak to public historians, including those working in museums and in institutions such as the National Park Service, who translate women’s history for broader audiences and continue the work of expanding its reach beyond the academy.
For readers seeking an introduction to women’s and gender history, Tomás provides essential context for understanding the field. Higher education scholars will find a compelling case study of how new areas of inquiry emerge—sustained by mentorship, strategic alliances, and institutional creativity, yet also shaped by indifference, resistance, and open conflict. K-12 educators may see in this history both evidence of progress and reminders of how unevenly women’s history has been incorporated into school curricula.
Ultimately, Tomás frames her study as more than an account of disciplinary formation. As she writes, “As the history of the majority, women’s history must continue to serve contemporary women as they face the challenge of maintaining the human rights for which women before us fought long and hard” (p. xiv). With this call, Tomás underscores that women’s history remains not only an academic enterprise but also a vital civic project.
