Gena's Genealogy
I'm a proud
presenter of 22 Legacy Family Tree Webinars (and counting!). Legacy has reached an important milestone, their 500th
Webinar and they are inviting you to help celebrate.
Not a Legacy Webinar subscriber? That's ok, for this weekend only you can watch any webinar in the Legacy webinar library for
FREE. To celebrate, for the first time ever, they are opening up the webinar library for a Free Access Weekend. The free access will begin Friday (April 14) and will conclude Sunday night (April 16).
There's no special link or code. Just visit
www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com anytime between Friday and Sunday and enjoy free access to the webinar videos in the library. Watch 1, 50, or binge watch all 500! During the weekend you can watch the #1 webinar for March, my presentation on
50 Websites Every Genealogist Should Know. I know after watching just a few, you'll want to subscribe to Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
Learn more about Legacy Webinars from their
blog.
 |
| Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/wwipos/item/2002708941/ |
Thank you so much for joining me for this month long look at our World War I era female ancestors. I hope you found something of use and are inspired to tell the story of your female ancestor's lives. Below is a bibliography for additional resources and history.
Brown, Carrie.
Rosie's Mom: Forgotten Women Workers of the First World War. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 2002.
Brown, Nikki L. M.
Private Politics and Public Voices: Black Women's Activism from World War I to the New Deal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Early, Frances H, and Frances H. Early.
A World Without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 1997.
Ebbert, Jean, and Marie-Beth Hall.
The First, the Few, the Forgotten: Navy and Marine Corps Women in World War I. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002.
Gavin, Lettie.
American Women in World War I: They Also Served. Niwot, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1997.
Graham, John W.
The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s: Overseas Grave Visitations by Mothers and Widows of Fallen U.S. World War I Soldiers. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2005.
Greenwald, Maurine W.
Women, War, and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women Workers in the United States. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1980.
Hall, Margaret, Margaret R. Higonnet, and Susan Solomon.
Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: The World War I Memoir of Margaret Hall. , 2014.
Hayden-Smith, Rose.
Sowing the Seeds of Victory: American Gardening Programs of World War I. Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014.
Haytock, Jennifer A.
At Home, at War: Domesticity and World War I in American Literature. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003.
Higonnet, Margaret R.
Lines of Fire: Women Writers of World War I. New York, N.Y: Plume, 1999.
Jensen, Kimberly.
Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Kennedy, Kathleen.
Disloyal Mothers and Scurrilous Citizens: Women and Subversion During World War I. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
Schneider, Dorothy, and Carl J. Schneider.
Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I. New York: Viking, 1991.
Steinson, Barbara J.
American Women's Activism in World War I. New York: Garland Pub, 1982.
Thom, Deborah.
Nice Girls and Rude Girls: Women Workers in World War I. London: New York, 1998.
By 1920 the Great War was over and life was getting back to normal. Change was in the air and the Roaring 20's were on the horizon.
The 1920 US Census provides a look at our ancestor's life after the war and provides the opportunity to better understand their place in time.
I realize all family historians have used the 1920 census but I urge you to explore some of the books and websites below that provide analysis of census data. So many times we just use certain records without a full understanding of them. The following should help.
Additional Resources:Websites
US Census Bureau –
1920 Overview US Census Bureau –
Census of Population and Housing, 1920Cyndi’s List –
1920 US Federal Census United States Department of Agriculture –
1920 Census PublicationsUniversity of Minnesota – Minnesota Population Schedule –
1920 Census: Instructions to EnumeratorsSlate The Vault –
Vintage Infographics: Where Women Worked In 1920Facts About Working Women (1925) ICPSR –
Puerto Rico Census Project , 1920 Racial Reorganization and the United States Census 1850-1930: Mulattoes, Half-Breeds, Mixed Parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican Race Princeton University Library -
The United States Economic Census: 1920s
Books
The Blind Population of the United States, 1920: A Statistical Analysis of the Data Obtained at the Fourteenth Decennial Census. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off, 1928.
Carpenter, Niles.
Immigrants and Their Children, 1920: A Study Based on Census Statistics Relative to the Foreign Born and the Native White of Foreign or Mixed Parentage. Washington: Govt. Print. Off, 1927.
Goldenweiser, E A, and Leon E. Truesdell.
Farm Tenancy in the United States: An Analysis of the Results of the 1920 Census Relative to Farms Classified by Tenure Supplemented by Pertinent Data from Other Sources. Washington: G.P.O, 1924.
Hill, Joseph A.
Women in Gainful Occupations, 1870 to 1920: A Study of the Trend of Recent Changes in the Numbers, Occupational Distribution, and Family Relationship of Women Reported in the Census As Following a Gainful Occupation. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Office, 1929.
 |
| Life, July 1915 |
What does having full citizenship mean? For family historians, a woman's lack of full citizenship can mean fewer records for documenting female ancestors. In the years after the Great War, women were still fighting for their citizenship rights including the right to vote.
The fight for the right to vote had been a long battle. Women had been fighting for suffrage (since at least 1848) and after all they did for the war effort, support for their cause increased. But, there was still some more fighting to be done.
A look at the fight for suffrage in the few years after the war until women were granted the right to vote could be covered in a book or movie (and it has). Suffice it to say that US women gained the national right to vote in 1920 with the passing of the 19th amendment. However, women in US territories didn't get the vote until later (For example, some Puerto Rican women received the right to vote in 1929 and full suffrage was granted in 1935).Women in the UK received partial suffrage in 1918 (they had to be 30 years of age and either have property or university degree) and full suffrage in 1928. Starting in 1916 and continuing until 1940 women in Canada started voting depending on the Province they lived in (and various qualifications).
An important aspect of researching a female ancestor in this time period should be learning more about voting rights where she lived and extant voting records.
- When was the first election your female ancestor voted in? Was it a local or national election?
- Do you have any home sources that suggest membership in a Suffrage (or Anti-Suffrage) organization?
Additional Resources:Gena's Genealogy - Women's History Month 2015:
Women's SuffrageGena's Genealogy - Women's History Month 2016:
Tip #17 When Did She Vote?National Women's History Museum -
Reforming Their World: Women in the Progressive Era
 |
| Influenza! How to avoid it! How to care for those who have it! ... What to do until the doctor comes! / Oakland Health Dept., Vault B-168, courtesy, California Historical Society, Vault_B-168.jpg. https://flic.kr/p/itmLN2 |
I had a little bird
Its name was Enza
I opened the window
And in-flu-enza
According to Flu.gov, the Spanish flu of 1918 killed “an approximate 50 million people, nearly 675,000 in the United States alone. 20%-40% of the worldwide population grew ill.”
“Illness from the 1918 flu pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu, came on quickly. Some people felt fine in the morning but died by nightfall. People who caught the Spanish flu but did not die from it often died from complications caused by bacteria, such as pneumonia.” Mortality rates among healthy adults between the ages of 20-50 were the highest.
How did the Influenza pandemic of 1918 affect your family? Did your family have a soldier who died from the flu? What about those on the home front? Local newspapers will tell the story of how bad the flu was in your ancestor's community. Everyone knew someone with the flu and precautions became an everyday part of life. Avoiding group settings and wearing masks became routine.
Have you thought about telling your family's influenza story?
Timeline
March 11, 1918 In the morning, a soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas reports of having fever, sore throat, and headache. By noon that day 100 soldiers are ill. By the end of the week 500.*
September 28, 1918 First Alabama case reported in Huntsville.**
October 13 1918 Huntsville, Alabama left with one pharmacist and no physicians because of the flu**
October 31, 1918 “The crime rate in Chicago drops by 43 percent. Authorities attributed the drop to the toll that influenza was taking on the city’s potential lawbreakers.”*
December 4, 1918 An estimated 300,000 to 350,000 civilian deaths can be attributed to the influenza and pneumonia since September 15. The War Department indicates 20,000 soldiers have died from the epidemic.*
1919 The epidemic continues.*
Additional Resources:
Websites
Books
Barry, John M. The Great Influenza:The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. New York:Penguin Books, 2005.
Crosby, Alfred W. America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. New York:Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Collier, Richard. The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. London:Macmillan, 1974.
Kolata, Gina. Flu:The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It. New York:Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
Phillips, Howard and Killingray, David (eds). The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19:New Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Gena Philibert Ortega posted a note
Mary Ellen Rohrer Dexter joined Gena Philibert Ortega's group
Patricia Desmond Biallas joined Gena Philibert Ortega's group
Susi (Susan C Jones) Pentico left a comment for Gena Philibert Ortega
Joe said… 
Erin Bradford (freeaainnc) said… 
Hal Horrocks said… 
James P. LaLone said… 
Lawrence Wright said… 
Ellen Healy said… 
Sharon Rollins Pustejovsky said… 
