Women's History Month 2019: Directories After The Fact

We tend to think of directories as something that are published/created to help a specific audience find individuals. Obviously, that is one purpose of a directory. Church directories help church members contact each other outside of church. Sorority directories help sorority sisters find and stay in contact with each other.

But there are also directories created years after the fact. These directories are meant to be a historical reference to help you find individuals who had something in common. Sometimes these directories are found on index cards and other times they are published in books. They are usually the labor of love of some historian or other interested person looking to have a one-stop resource for finding everyone who shared some particular connection.

One such example is Shadowcatchers : a directory of women in California photography by Peter E. Palmquest. Over 850 women photographs prior to 1901 are chronicled with biographical information and in some cases a photo of her and her work. You can find this book in a library by searching WorldCat. It's also at the Southern California Genealogy Society Library. 

Make sure to conduct Place searches in catalogs you use. In this case, this particular book can be found by doing a Place search for California and a Keyword Search for Women in the FamilySearch Catalog.