Zyban. What is zyban. Taking chantix with zyban….

I too think that divide between gender/language and women/archival evidence is too strict, but I see what the commentor was getting at, although I think it holds more for modern history. (At least, I hope it’s not a strict divide! My book did a lot of study of languge, but much of my analysis was of unpublished documents that I had to dig out of archives, as well as some numbers-crunching.) I think it’s typical if you’re doing pre-1800 history in America (and perhaps pre-1700 history in Western Europe?) that you have to do archival work to uncover sufficient evidence–there just aren’t all that many newspapers, books, pamphlets, etc. to analyze, and so you go look for the letters, diaries, court records, etc. (I realize New Kid that you’re a medievalist, and so this probably seems like an embarassment of riches to you! I agree with you that 20th history blows my mind–I don’t think I could switch to having to rule OUT evidence, rather than desperately searching for evidence that I could rule IN. A different challenge alltogether!)

And that being said, I suspect that some of the other things that come with seniority – heading research centers, leading national scholarly associations – have also cut into her purely archival time.

(About gender vs. women’s history – I don’t think that the one *has* to be language and the other *has* to be behavior; I think you can do both either way, and would especially like to see the gender-as-behavior stuff. But I do think that it’s a rough-and-ready distinction that describes practice, in a very generalizing way.)

And yes, historiann, I agree about the greater ease of access for Americanists! Of course, you people tend to have so many MORE sources to deal with, too… (well, in some fields, anyway. I couldn’t be a 20th century person to save my life!) But the difference in access raises the question for me, too – will Europeanists get shortchanged or will American Europeanists (Africanists/Asianists/Latin Americanists/Antipodeanists etc.) end up writing a different kind of history than American Americanists do?

You’re right that in some ways, junior scholars and grad students are freer. But, as in life, it seems we either have the time (when we’re younger) or the money (when we’re older), but rarely both at the same time!

On the question of age/stage/status and the archives, it’s a pretty mixed picture, I think. Around here, you could literally stalk the relevant floors [4 and 5] for history in the area’s preeminent research university library, or the reading room of one of the country’s most major historical societies, often without seeing ANY senior scholars. (Truly senior ones, I mean). Maybe we should posit that archival work crests at the dissertation stage of (SOME) first projects, and then early on in (MANY) second book projects, but beyond there the transcendent impulse is to synthesize, pontificate, and/or criticize or re-read “big argument” issues in the field in question? Not sure. Like many of the themes on this blog, family status and obligations may be as relevant as institutional research budgets or demand-reward structures.

Thanks for the cowboygirl pics, afraid I have nothing to add to this thread other than Mercurius is a sad sad human being, hope he posts soon though, it has been a rough morning and I’m looking to vent some frustration.

As to the issue of having a crush, I will only own up to being glad that the IT guys at work see this as a stricltly academic site and Mrs Fratguy may be receiving some non traditional western wear come next Feb 14th.

Notorious: yes, the “foes of women’s history” like Miss Mary Rumphius are just silly, it’s the ones who *mean so well* when they try to school the girls who are more of an irritation. Why didn’t those totally obvious things occur to us before??? How wonderful that Susan Stuard, Judith Bennett, Connie Berman, and Merry Wiesner-Hanks now have the benefit of all twenty-four years of your wisdom! PRAY TO JESUS TO THANK HIM FOR THIS GRADUATE STUDENT, WHO HAS SHOWN US THE LIGHT!