Two centuries of women's history in Williamstown is topic of project

12:00AM / Thursday, March 16, 2000Print Story | Email Story

When Fannie Tash was 11 years old, she started working as assistant in her father, John Tashâ€™s, grocery store on Water Street. That was in 1922, and she ran the store for more than 50 years, its candy counter serving as a magnet for generations of Williamstown children. And women in the family of Roxana Freeman Duncett were among the first African-American women to travel to Liberia as teachers in the 19th century, subsequently returning to Troy, N.Y., to work in the first school there for African-American children. These and other women in the work force in Williamstown, through 1953, are the focus of a research project sponsored by the House of Local History and underwritten with a $2,500 grant from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. The collaborative grant program is in conjunction with the Bay State Historical Society. Titled â€œBecoming Visible: Two Centuries of Womenâ€™s History in Williamstown,â€ the project will be presented at the HLH Sunday, March 26, at 2 p.m. Scholar-in-residence Marla Miller, with the assistance of Jill Mudgett, collaborating scholar, examined the lives of women in Williamstown as revealed in records through 1953, focusing on women and work. Miller is assistant professor of history at the UMass-Amherst; Mudgett is a graduate student in the history department. Miller, whose specialties include U.S. womenâ€™s history and the social history of Colonial America, completed a comprehensive inventory of the historical assets in the village center, a project in 1997-98 initiated by the Historical Commission and funded by the Mass. Historical Commission. In the course of that research, she noted that she found evidence of extensive entrepreneurial activity by women at the turn of the century â€” references to women who were shopkeepers, dressmakers, store managers, peddlers. She worked on a similar project at Historic Deerfield, where she developed a guide to womenâ€™s history that had been hidden within the manuscript collection because it was overlooked by traditional finding aids. Miller earned her Ph.D. in U.S. history in 1997 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where her dissertation was titled My Daily Bread Depends Upon my Labor: Craftswomen, Community and the Marketplace in Rural New England, 1740-1820. Miller also received her M.A. from UNC, and her B.A. in the History of Culture from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1988. Mudgett, a Ph.D. candidate at UMass, holds an M.S. in American and New England studies from the University of Southern Maine, and a B.A. in historic preservation and womenâ€™s studies from Goucher College. In her scholarâ€™s statement, Miller said that in her research, she â€œfound colonial gentlewomen who managed the townâ€™s most privileged households, freedwomen who migrated to Williamstown in the years following the Civil War, cotton (millworkers) who gambled on upward mobility by abandoning factory work to open their own dressmaking shops, and businesswomen who oversaw the day-to-day operations of stores owned â€” and so known in the historical records â€” by their husbands.â€ Miller wrote that the materials could potentially â€œcontinue dismantling longstanding myths about womenâ€™s participation in the public world of work. Calling Williamstown â€œan extraordinarily well-documented small-town community,â€ Miller wrote that the town â€œaffords an unusual opportunity to investigate not only the ways in which women in rural Massachusetts have entered the work force from the Colonial era to the mid-20th century, but also the means by which that activity has been obscured in the documentary record.â€ â€œPulling together and investigating further the clues and fragments ... yield[s] a picture of womenâ€™s labor history that will unsettle longstanding beliefs about women, work and business in rural Massachusetts communities,â€ she wrote. HLH curator Nancy Burstein, in the project description, wrote that the scholar-in-residence grant enables the organization â€œto begin the systematic documentation and interpretation of the role of minorities and other under-documented groups in the history of our community. â€œDespite the commonly held belief that married women did not enter the work force until the second half of the 20th century, documentary records from Williamstown â€” including newspaper clippings, census records, business directories, organizational records, and oral histories â€” indicate women in the work force far earlier, unsettling longstanding beliefs about the roles of women in rural Massachusetts communities.â€ â€œOne of the most significant changes in the current approach to history has been an attempt to make it more inclusive. In the past, the lives and contributions of minorities, whether African-American, Native American, immigrant groups or women, have been neglected, giving the appearance of a past inhabited solely by white, protestant males,â€ she wrote. And while academic institutions and large museums have tried to shift their focus to include formerly excluded groups, and to alter the way history is taught, that shift is â€œharder for small, local historical societies without resources. â€œIn order to present an accurate picture of a townâ€™s past, and to be meaningful and relevant to its entire audience, it is incumbent upon local historical societies to preserve and present history that is inclusive of all elements of the town.â€ This week, Burstein said the research is a matter of â€œfinding them and pulling them out.â€ â€œIâ€™m really excited by it. As a feminist myself, Iâ€™m delighted to learn what we have in the collection about the accomplishments of women in Williamstown at a time when we thought women were just sitting home.â€

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Weekend Outlook: Snow Days

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
12:25PM / Friday, January 23, 2026

Check out the events happening in Berkshire County this weekend including fundraisers, snow events, and more.

Editor's Pick

Community Free Day
Mass MoCA, North Adams
Time: Saturday, 10 to 5

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art opens its galleries for a community celebration. Includes thematic museum tours and art-making in Kidspace and a performance by devynn emory at 4 p.m. in Building 5 to activate Jeffrey Gibson's exhibition "Power Full Because We're Different.

More information here.

Friday

Nothing Birds with Eleanor Levine

Studio 9, River Street, North Adams

The Nothing Birds are a four-piece indie rock band from North Adams and Elenor Levine has been writing music for almost two decades, performing on stages including Mass MoCA.

Held in Studio 9 at the Porches inn. Tickets are $15 here.

Tunes for Tots
Lenox Community Center
Time: 10 a.m.

This weekly parent-child music program allows youngster to learn about instruments and move along to the beat. This is best suited for ages 1 to 5.

Registration is required at southbershirekids@gmail.com. More information here.

Common Craft Night
165 East Main St., North Adams
Time: 6 to 8 p.m.

Bring the craft you have been working on and join others to socialize.

More information here.

Saturday

Murder Mystery Dinner and Show
Greenock Country Club, Lee
Time: 6 p.m.

The Lee Middle and High School travel group is hosting an '80s murder-mystery fundraiser at the club. Buffet-style dinner and active participation in the show.

Tickets are $60, and only 75 tickets will be sold. Contact travel2027@leepublicschools.net for tickets.

More information here.

Bousquet Mountain Grommie Jam
Bousquet Mountain, Pittsfield
Time: 11 a.m.

Grommie Jam is a community get-together where skiers and riders ages 16 and younger come together. Open to all with a valid lift ticket or season pass; prizes from Berkshire Bike & Board.

More information here.

Family Friendly Outdoor Adventures
Mount Greylock Visitor Center, Lanesborough
Time: 1 to 3 p.m.

Enjoy winter at Mount Greylock with hot cocoa and campfires. Also enjoy outdoor activities like snow tubing, a snowshoe walk, and a mindfulness hike along the Bradley Farm trail.

Registration is required for the walk; call the visitor center at 413-499-4262.

More information here.

Ghost Tour with Robert Oakes
Ventfort Hall and Mansion, Lenox
Time: 7 to 9 p.m.

The Gilded Age mansion hosts a tour with "Ghosts of the Berkshires" author Robert Oakes, who will lead guests through the rooms and halls of the estate, sharing tales of its hauntings.

Admission is $30 and the minimum age to attend is age 12. Reservations are required. Purchase tickets here.

More information here.