Women's History Through Family History

A Variation On A Theme

Abstract

The undergraduate family history project has become a standard assignment in survey courses around the country over the last twenty years-sometimes as an optional project and sometimes as a required assignment. This activity, which documents the lives of two or more generations of a family or evaluates a family member in light of a historical event, has become popular in part because it has several advantages over typical undergraduate research papers-it generates a high level of student interest, it is more difficult to plagiarize, it builds a deeper relationship between professors and their students, and it allows students to connect personally with the material presented in class.¹ In teaching a U.S. women's history course for undergraduate majors, I have modified this project to take advantage of these benefits, while at the same time using it to introduce higher-level research skills.²