The assertion about ladies’s conduct and their historic impression is steadily attributed to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian. Her 1976 scholarly article, “Vertuous Girls Discovered…,” about Puritan funeral companies, contained the phrase “well-behaved ladies seldom make historical past.” This phrase, initially concerning the shortage of documented info on strange ladies within the historic document, developed into a well-liked, albeit typically misinterpreted, feminist slogan.
The expression’s resonance lies in its difficult of conventional societal expectations for ladies. It highlights the historic neglect of ladies who didn’t conform to prescribed norms. It additionally means that impactful social and political change typically necessitates breaking with established conventions. The quote gained additional prominence by way of Ulrich’s later guide, “A Midwife’s Story,” which gained the Pulitzer Prize for Historical past in 1991. This recognition cemented the phrase’s place in standard tradition and scholarly discussions about ladies’s roles all through historical past.
