The assertion about girls’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 providers, contained the phrase “well-behaved girls seldom make historical past.” This phrase, initially in regards to the shortage of documented info on abnormal girls within the historic document, developed into a well-liked, albeit usually misinterpreted, feminist slogan.
The expression’s resonance lies in its difficult of conventional societal expectations for girls. It highlights the historic neglect of girls who didn’t conform to prescribed norms. It additionally means that impactful social and political change usually necessitates breaking with established conventions. The quote gained additional prominence by Ulrich’s later guide, “A Midwife’s Story,” which received the Pulitzer Prize for Historical past in 1991. This recognition cemented the phrase’s place in in style tradition and scholarly discussions about girls’s roles all through historical past.
