Dr. Linda Grant De Pauw
Founder and President
The MINERVA Center, Inc.
I was born in New York City on January l9, l940 and attended public schools there and in Leonia, New Jersey. In l96l, I received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and, in l964, a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University.
My first book, The Eleventh Pillar: New York State and the Federal Constitution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, l966) won the Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association. Another of my books, Founding Mothers: Women of America in the Revolutionary Era (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, l975), was honored as an American Library Association “Notable Book” and named “Best Book of the Year” by School Library Journal. In 1982, my Seafaring Women (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, l982), was nominated for the American Book Award. Battle Cries and Lullabies: A Brief History of Women in War from Prehistory to the Present, my primary personal research interest since 1990 was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 1998.
For more than twenty-five years, I have focused my professional life on supporting the development of the field I call women’s military studies. Instead of continuing to focus on my own writing, I have concentrated my efforts on supporting the work of other scholars, especially those with no academic affiliation. I remain the only senior academic historian who identifies with the field as a primary research and teaching interest. In 1983, I created MINERVA: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military, which I continue to edit and publish; and in 1986 I founded The MINERVA Center. In December, 1987, the Center began to produce “Minerva on the Air,” a daily radio program, which was distributed by American Communications for broadcast over Armed Forces Radio from January 1988 through October 1989. In March of 1988, the Center launched a second periodical: Minerva’s Bulletin Board, an international news magazine on women and the military. The Center published its first book, Baptism of Fire, in 1992. This paperback publication was wish fulfillment: my science fiction tale of young female officer in a space Navy in which “gender prejudice has disappeared from memory.” The Center released its first hard-cover book in 1994: Lauren Cook Burgess, ed., An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, Alias Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers, which Library Journal honored as “Highly Recommended.” In 1995 we released another paperback: C. Kay Larson, ‘Til I Come Marching Home: A Brief History of American Women in World War II. The newest Center project is H-MINERVA, a list affiliated with H-NET. I serve as the list editor.
My articles, published in both scholarly and popular periodicals, include: “The Anticlimax of Antifederalism: the Abortive Second Convention Movement, l788- l789,” Prologue II (1970) 98-ll4; “Land of the Unfree: Legal Limitations on Liberty in Pre-Revolutionary America,” Maryland Historical Magazine LXVIII (1973) 355-368 ; “Forgotten Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six,” Ms. III (July, l974) pp. 51-56, l00-l02; “Women and the Law: the Colonial Period,” Human Rights VI (l977) 107- ll3; “Our Women Have Always Been in Combat,” The Washington Post, April 6, 1980, E-1,2; “Women in Combat: the Revolutionary War Experience,” Armed Forces and Society VII (1981) 209-226; and “Women’s Military History: A Reading Course for Graduate Students,” Women’s Studies Quarterly, XII (Summer, 1984) pp. 39-40.
I am the author of two pamphlets for popular audiences: Four Traditions: Women of New York in the Era of the American Revolution (Albany, l974) and Fortunes of War: New Jersey Women and the American Revolution (Trenton, 1976). I have also contributed to anthologies: “The American Revolution and the Rights of Women: the Feminist Theory of Abigail Adams,” in Legacies of the American Revolution (University of Utah Press, l978) and “Politicizing the Politically Inert: the Problem of Leadership in the American Revolution,” in The American Revolution: New Perspectives (Northeastern University Press, l979) and “The Roots of American Federalism,” in Federalism: the Legacy of George Mason (George Mason University Press, 1988). Among my unpublished projects are an eighth grade American history textbook entitled Young America, and I have written articles on colonial America and the Revolutionary War for Young Reader’s Companion to American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994).
I have taught since 1962 and for thirty-three years was a member of the History Department at the George Washington University where since my retirement in December 1998 I hold the rank of Professor Emeritus of American History. I taught advanced lecture courses and directed graduate study in early American history, military history and women’s history. I offered the only graduate program anywhere focused on women’s military history. From 1965-1984, I was director of the First Federal Congress Project, which is producing the multivolume Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, 1789-1791 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1972- ). I now serve as chair of the project’s board of advisors.
In addition to participation in the conventions of national scholarly organizations and in lecture programs at many colleges and universities, I have addressed such audiences as the American Bar Association, American Women in Radio and Television, docents of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Smithsonian Institution, National Park Service interpreters, Congressional military caseworkers, branches of the Colonial Dames, the National Organization for Women, and the Women’s Equity Action League, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U. S. Air War College, the U. S. Army Military History Institute, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. I have been interviewed on national radio and television on a variety of topics and made taped presentations for the British Broadcasting Company, the Finish Broadcasting Company and the Voice of America.
I have served as consultant to the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, the National Archives, the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic, the National Park Service, National Public Radio, U. S. News and World Report, and Coach House Games, for whom I developed “Herstory,” an educational board game. I was concept developer and chief historian for the museum exhibit “Remember the Ladies,” which traveled to six cities in 1976 and 1977 under the auspices of the Pilgrim Society. I also wrote the text for the exhibit catalog: “Remember the Ladies”: Women in America 1750-1815 (New York: the Viking Press, l976). During the bicentennial of the Constitution, I served as chief historical consultant to the New York State Bar Association Committee on the Federal Constitution, which produced the public television show “Empire of Reason” that aired in July, 1988. In 1993 I participated in the Working Group on Revision of the National Park Service Thematic Framework coordinated by the Organization of American Historians. I currently serve on the Advisory Board of the American Bibliographical Center.
I am listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Education, Who’s Who in the East, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders in America.
Dr. Linda Grant De Pauw
President, The MINERVA Center, Inc.
20 Granada Road
Pasadena, MD 21122
410-437-5379
Email Linda Depauw
For the Holiday Season Linda Grant De Pauw is offer for free a book she wrote in 1972. The 30th Anniversary edition of the “Story of Mary Christmas“. Now available from Peacock Press in PDF format. This is a great children’s story about 20 pages.
Download HERE