ENCYCLOPEDIA OFFERS FIRST HISTORY OF BLACK WOMEN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 16, 1993                   TAG: 9303160246
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ELINOR J. BRECHER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
ENCYCLOPEDIA OFFERS FIRST HISTORY OF BLACK WOMEN
Mention black women in the arts, sports, science, literature, academia, politics, law, religion or civil rights, and just about anyone can reel off a list of big names spanning a century.
Blues singer Billie Holiday. Cosmetics magnate Madam C.J. Walker. Olympian Florence Griffith Joyner. Astronaut Mae Jemison. Poet Maya Angelou. Florida educator Mary McLeod Bethune. Senator Carol Moseley Braun. Law-school professor Anita Hill. Barbara Harris, the country's first female Episcopalian bishop. And desegregation pioneer Rosa Parks.
But just inches off the well-worn paths of common knowledge, the fields of American history are rich with the deeds of women in these fields and many others, who have gone largely unrecognized for nearly 400 years.
How many Americans have even heard of Sallie Martin, the "mother of gospel music"? The 19th-century San Francisco businesswoman and abolitionist Mary Ellen Pleasant? Susan McKinney Steward, who became New York State's first black woman doctor in 1870? Crystal Bird Fauset of Pennsylvania, who in 1938 became the first black woman ever elected to a state legislature?
For the first time, information about black women, famous and obscure, has been collected in a single, comprehensive work: "Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia." The two-volume, 1,500-page set was edited by Michigan State University history professor Darlene Clark Hine, with associate editors Elsa Barkley Brown, who teaches in the Department of History and Center for Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan, and Morgan State University history professor Rosalyn Terborg-Penn.
From the Abolition Movement to Zeta Phi Beta sorority, the encyclopedia includes more than 800 entries and 400 photos - many of which have never been published - and a chronology of black women's history in the United States. It was assembled with help from 414 scholars, Pulitzer Prize winners to graduate students, and published by Carlson Publishing of Brooklyn.
Hine, 46, spent 12 years compiling the information, a task she never imagined she'd take on. She was all but dragged into it in 1980 while teaching at Purdue University in Indiana.
It began with a call from Indianapolis high-school teacher Shirley Herd, who wanted her to write a history of black women in Indiana.
Hine told Herd she couldn't simply order a book from a historian the way you would order a Wendy's hamburger. Besides, she had never studied the history of black women, and her knowledge of the subject was limited
When Herd called, Hine was working on a history of blacks in the medical profession, focused on black male doctors, with a mere chapter on nurses.
"I thought I was so progressive having that chapter!" she laughs.
But Herd was unshakable. She told Hine that the local section of the National Council of Negro Women had collected material from all over the state, and that she would bring it to her.
Herd showed up with a pile of letters, photographs, newspaper clippings and other documents. Hine says that after six months of immersion in the material, she "discovered a new universe."
After 18 months of work, she produced "When the Truth Is Told: A History of Black Women's Culture and Community in Indiana, 1875-1950."
Then something unpredictable happened. She had been thinking about how historians determine what is history, and what counts as "legitimate evidence" in the writing of it.
"My conscience bothered me terribly," she said. "I called Shirley Herd and said, `We have to do this all over again, and we have to do it with adequate funds and structure.' "
Her aim was to create a black women's archive. And her way was to seek a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. She asked for $300,000 for three years to cover five states, and ended up with $150,000 for 18 months.
In 1987, Ralph Carlson, president of Carlson Publishing, asked her to edit a series of essays on black women's history. Two years later, Hine published "Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950."
From there, the encyclopedia was the next logical step.
Hine winces at some of the omissions, including singer Gladys Knight, and women who have more recently entered the national consciousness such as Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary.
"In another two to three years, we will put out a supplement," she said. The encyclopedia costs $195 plus 5 percent shipping. To order, call (800) 336-7460.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB