“It is important for us to remember that black people have been patriotic and have fought for that American dream in every American war.”

That makes history so appealing and so central to what I am trying to do.

There has always been a tendency – race notwithstanding.

Ultimately a historian has to put together a cohesive work.

There is always more to tell.

Women have more often worked within the home, working equally as hard

If you want to have a finished product, at some point you have to say “enough.”

I would argue, but not always out there where they’re counted, not always up there in the labor unions, certainly not in leadership positions.

When we look at women, we have to look at the significance of their work in a different way from the way we look at it with men.

What first intrigued me was this desire to understand my family and put it in the context of American history.

I have to throw in on a personal note that I didn’t like history when I was in high school.

That doesn’t mean that your curiosity is ever totally satisfied.

To believe that women’s contributions have been less important than men’s contributions because women are usually less public people.

For all kinds of reasons, it is more difficult to track women’s lives. Women’s words have simply been considered less important, so they have been preserved less often.

I didn’t study history when I was in college, none at all, and only started to do graduate study when my children were going to graduate school.

You have to decide what is extraneous and what is central.

And how those stories relate to the larger picture of American history.