Thanks Donna! You pretty much covered some of the things I was going to add! I am glad this thread was started! Lots of great replies so far!
I am certainly no expert on women historians and would never claim to be but, in my opinion, I think there could be an unawareness of how many women are actually in the field. The Western Association of Women Historians (WAWH), the Southern Association of Woman Historians (SAWH) and the Association of Black Women Historian (ABWH), are organizations that encourage, support, offer scholarships and mentoring and many other resources. As far as how many women in these groups have an specialized interest in CW studies, I would not know. It would be great to have some numbers! Maybe someone could locate that information for us!
I have stated before, I despised history until I found my own Civil War connections! I finally had information to connect with concerning my family. For me, it became personal, but I did and still do need lots of help and encouragement in my studies as it is very overwhelming at times. Technology has been a wonderful tool in making so much history easily accessible. The UDC has been a great resource for me! Each chapter has an historian. We have presentations and programs at every meeting and I am now knowledgeable enough that I have been asked to present several times (how cool is that?!). Our UDC Chapter is closely tied to the DAR ladies (I am also trying to work on that too Donna) and we share our love of history.
I was happy to state that while attending local CW events there has been a large presence of women, actively participating and engaged. Woman who are dedicated and eager to teach and share their experiences! I certainly love to hear that perspective of the war and time period and continue to look forward to learning more!