Julia Cherry Spruill (1899-1986), historian of Southern colonial women

Most famous for her 1938 book, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies, Julia Cherry Spruill’s research anticipated the methods and interests of later feminist and social historians. From her youth, she defied convention, playing basketball and standing out academically. Yet, although her abilities were recognized - she received an M.A. degree at the University of North Carolina, and was the first woman to win the William Jennings Bryan Prize for Excellence - she never held more than a part-time academic position. Her research was innovative in its detailed analysis of ordinary women’s lives, based on painstaking investigation into primary sources. She revealed many new aspects of colonial women’s experiences, and demonstrated that women had participated in public life in hitherto unexpected ways. Her work is still assigned in college classes, and is today considered a classic of historical analysis.