Once you start teaching for a program like Osher, you’re never quite sure where it’s going to take you. This Thursday, I’m doing a presentation based on an Osher class I taught last spring – Forgotten Founders: The Pinckney Family of South Carolina at Colonial Heritage ( a 55+ community in Williamsburg. Here’s how this came about: a few months ago, I got a call from a woman who was in my Pinckney class, asking me if I could do a presentation on Eliza Lucas Pinckney as a spinoff from my Osher class. I said “Sure,” because – why not? They’ll feed me lunch!
The group I’m presenting to is the Colonial Dames. I didn’t know anything about this organization before I agreed to do the presentation, but here’s how their website describes the organization:
The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America promotes appreciation for the people, places and events that led to the formation and development of our country. We are an unincorporated association of 44 Corporate Societies with more than 15,000 members. The NSCDA has been a leader in the field of historic preservation, restoration and the interpretation of historic sites since its New York Society first undertook the preservation of the Van Cortlandt House in 1897. The National Society headquarters is located at Dumbarton House, a Federal period house museum in Washington, D.C.
Here’s a description of who’s entitled to apply for membership:
The Corporate Societies shall be composed entirely of women who are lineal bloodline descendants from an ancestor of worthy life who, residing in an American colony, rendered efficient service to our country during the Colonial period, either in the founding of a State or Commonwealth, or of an institution which has survived and developed into importance, or who shall have held an important position in a Colonial government, or who by distinguished services, shall have contributed to the founding of our nation
I’ve tailored my presentation to focus on the women who were important to the Pinckney story – Eliza Luca Pinckney, Rebecca Brewton Motte, and several of their female children. Here are the names of the people I’ll be talking about.
These smart, interesting, and creative women kept the home fires burning while their husbands were away at war or while they held public office. Sometimes they were left to their own devices for years. At a time when women had few political or economic rights beyond the status of their husbands, these women were political and economic powerhouses in their own right.
Sometimes people discount women’s history (or the history of any other group that is not made up of white men) as somehow “lesser” history. Okay to consider once you’ve figured out the “main” story, but somehow not as important. In the past, historians (who were largely white and male) looked to documents to provide the basis of the historical edifices they built with their research, writing, and teaching. But there was an inherent bias in this – men had a monopoly on the positions of influence that created written records. When they couldn’t find written documents reflecting the roles played by anyone other than white men, they concluded that these folks clearly didn’t play a role.
Now that historians have broadened their understanding of history, white men are still loath to accept the accomplishments of women or people of color as anything other than adjuncts to the “main” narrative.
Eliza and the women around her would like a word.
Darned right!
As they say in Texas, “You go, girl!”