Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979)
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Mary Beard undertook in several of her books to trace the positive achievements of women, their social role, and their contributions to community life. Her concepts are most successfully reflected in The Rise of American Civilization, which she co-authored with her husband Charles Beard. In it the position of women is treated throughout in an integrated way with great attention to the economic contributions made by women. But the Beards' approach to the subject of women had little influence on the historical profession. Perhaps this was due to the fact that in the 1930s and 1940s both the general public and historians became somewhat disenchanted with the woman's rights movement.

— Gerda Lerner on Mary Ritter Beard

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Mary Beard undertook in several of her books to trace the positive achievements of women, their social role, and their contributions to community life. Her concepts are most successfully reflected in The Rise of American Civilization, which she co-authored with her husband Charles Beard. In it the position of women is treated throughout in an integrated way with great attention to the economic contributions made by women. But the Beards' approach to the subject of women had little influence on the historical profession. Perhaps this was due to the fact that in the 1930s and 1940s both the general public and historians became somewhat disenchanted with the woman's rights movement." in the context of "Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Mary Ritter Beard" (Quotes about Mary Ritter Beard) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Gerda Lerner

About Gerda Lerner

Gerda Lerner (30 April 1920 – 2 January 2013) was an Austrian-born American feminist, historian, author, and advocate of Women's History.