Authors@Google: Laurel Ulrich December 11, 2008

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Laurel Ulrich visits Google's Cambridge, MA office to discuss her book "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History." This event took place on October 27, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.

In 1976, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich published an article that began as follows:

"Cotton Mather called them 'the hidden ones.' They never preached or sat in a deacon's bench. Nor did they vote or attend Harvard. Neither, because they were virtuous women, did they question God or the magistrates. They prayed secretly, read the Bible through at least once a year, and went to hear the minister preach even when it snowed. Hoping for an eternal crown, they never asked to be remembered on earth. And they haven't been. Well-behaved women seldom make history."

In her most recent book, Ulrich returns to this early statement, taking the sentence that became a feminist rallying cry as both her starting point and core thesis.
Laurel Ulrich is a professor at Harvard University, a leading historian of early America and the experiences of women. Besides 'Well-Behaved Women,' she is also the writer of 'The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth' (2001), 'All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir' (an essay collection coauthored with Emma Lou Thayne, 1995), 'A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785-1812' (1990), and Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750' (1982).