Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 1978
Abstract
Over twelve hundred people attended the Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, which took place on August 23-25, 1978, at Mt. Holyoke College. The program included more than eighty different papers, topics, and presentations. Clearly, the Berkshire Conference, which this year celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the original group, has come of age. It has become an acceptable way for historians to make their reputations in the profession, and people are eager to list their participation on their resumes. Since 1973, when the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians orchestrated the first of these gatherings at Douglass College and four hundred persons met to share their research and ideas concerning the history of women, the "Berks" has become the third largest meeting of its kind (after the AHA annual meeting and the OAH conference) in the country. I am both thrilled by the conference's success and simultaneously uneasy about it. What does coming of age mean given the current state of the historical profession?