The Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH) is a professional organization in the United States founded in 1970. It supports the study of women's and gender history of the American South, gives annual book and article prizes, and provides networking opportunities for its members, especially at its triennial conference.

Mission The Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH) is an American nonprofit professional association formed in 1970 in Louisville, Kentucky to support women historians living in the South and provide a forum for the study of southern women's history. Most of the organization's members study the American South but historians in any field who live in the southern states are encouraged to join. The SAWH welcomes public historians, independent scholars, and graduate students in addition to academic historians. The organization is known for its support and mentoring of graduate students. The SAWH “values individuals and their differences including race, economic status, gender expression and identity, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin, first language, religion, age, and ability status." The SAWH is governed by an Executive Council and its work is accomplished by committees made up of volunteers from among the membership.

History In December 1969, a group of women historians associated with the American Historical Association formed an independent association, the Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession. At a November 1970 meeting of the Southern Historical Association, several women who had attended that previous meeting formed the Southern Association of Women Historians in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1983, it was renamed to the Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH).

The organization's first conference was in June 1988 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The conference has been held every three years since then, except in 2021, when the conference was delayed to 2022 due to precautions against COVID-19.

The talks at these conferences have been well received. Several volumes of original scholarship have resulted from the conference papers, including: Sisterly Networks: Fifty Years of Southern Women's Histories (2020) Entering the Fray: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the New South (2009) Women Shaping the South: Creating and Confronting Change (2006) Clio’s Southern Sisters: Interviews with Leaders of the Southern Association for Women Historians (2004) Searching for Their Places: Women in the South Across Four Centuries (2003) Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers that Be (2000) Beyond Image and Convention: Explorations in Southern Women’s History (1998) Taking Off the White Gloves: Southern Women and Women Historians (1998) Hidden Histories of Women in the New South (1994) Southern Women: Histories and Identities (1988)

Prizes and fellowships In 1989, the organization established the A. Elizabeth Taylor Prize for the best scholarly article on Southern women's history, and in 1992 established the Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Prize for the best graduate student paper submitted to the triennial conference. In addition to these prizes, the SAWH gives two book awards annually: the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize for the best published book in southern women's history, broadly construed, and the Willie Lee Rose Prize, for the best book on any topic in southern history written by a woman (or women). Every other year, the SAWH awards the Anne Firor Scott Mid-Career Fellowship to support scholars who are working on a second book or similar project in southern and/or gender history.

50th Anniversary Due to restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SAWH hosted a celebratory meeting and annual lecture online during the annual Southern Historical Association meeting. The SAWH Annual Address and Awards Ceremony took place on November 20, 2020, hosted by SAWH President Jennifer L. Ritterhouse. The recording of the event is viewable on the SAWH website. During the Web conference, the 50th Anniversary Mentorship Wall of Fame was unveiled. Names of the mentors can be viewed by clicking on the image of the Wall of Fame.

In Baltimore in November 2022, the SAWH celebrated the organization's 50th anniversary in person at the Southern Historical Association annual meeting. After the Annual Address by Amy Murrell Taylor, members enjoyed a reception at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. The organization honored all fourteen past presidents who were in attendance. A special cake celebrated 2022 president Anne Rubin, 2021 president Diane Miller Sommerville, and 2020 president Jennifer Ritterhouse, as the latter two had not had the opportunity to have an in-person reception in their honor due to the pandemic.

Learning opportunity The Southern Association for Women Historians has created resources, such as the online Mentoring Toolkit and the Mentoring in Action webinar series, to assist women historians and graduate students. These resources provide insights and information from prominent scholars in the field.

Presidents of the Southern Association for Women Historians SAWH Presidents since 1970 Date First Name(s) Last Name Affiliation 1970–1972 Charlotte M. Davis (co-chair) Clark College 1970–1972 Mollie C. Davis (co-chair) West Georgia College 1973–1974 Constance Ashton Myers U. of South Carolina, Columbia 1975 Arnita Jones U. of Louisville and Indiana U. Southeast 1976 Rosemary Carroll Coe College 1977 Helena Lewis Harvard U. 1978 Martha Swain Texas Woman's University 1979 Judith Fenner Gentry U. of Southwestern Louisiana1980 Carol K. Bleser Colgate U.1981 Elizabeth Jacoway U. of Arkansas, Little Rock1982 JoAnn "Jody" Carrigan U. of Nebraska, Omaha 1983 Betty J. Brandon U. of South Alabama1984 Margaret Ripley Wolfe East Tennessee State U.1985 Darlene Clark Hine Michigan State U.1986 Theda Perdue Clemson U.1987 Joanne V. Hawks U. of Mississippi1988 Judith Jennings Appalshop, Inc.1989 Virginia "Ginger" Bernhard U. of St. Thomas, Houston1990 Julia Kirk Blackwelder U. of North Carolina, Charlotte1991 Marlene Hunt Rikard Samford U. 1992 Constance "Connie" B. Schulz U. of South Carolina1993 Elsa Barkley Brown SUNY, Binghamton1994 Janet L. Coryell Western Michigan U., Kalamazoo1995 Kathleen Berkeley U. North Carolina, Wilmington1996 Marjorie Spruill Wheeler U. of Southern Mississippi1997 Elizabeth Hayes Turner U. of North Texas1998 Catherine Clinton Wofford College1999 Drew Gilpin Faust U. of Pennsylvania2000 Amy Thompson McCandless College of Charleston2001 Jacqueline Anne Rouse Georgia State U.2002 Sandra Gioia Treadway Library of Virginia2003 Jane Turner Censer George Mason U.2004 Michele Gillespie Wake Forest U.2005 Stephanie Cole U. of Texas at Arlington2006 Glenda Gilmore Yale U.2007 Cynthia "Cindy" A. Kierner U. of North Carolina at Charlotte2008 Laura F. Edwards Duke U.2009 Melissa Walker Converse College2010 Jane Dailey U. of Chicago2011 Sally G. McMillen Davidson College2012 Beverly Greene Bond U. of Memphis2013 Rebecca Sharpless Texas Christian U.2014 Emily Clark Tulane U.2015 Lorri Glover St. Louis U.2016 Angela Boswell Henderson State (Arkansas) U.2017 Megan Taylor-Shockley Clemson U.2018 Barbara Krauthamer U. of Massachusetts, Amherst2019 Janet L. Allured McNeese State U.2020 Jennifer Ritterhouse George Mason U.2021 Diane Miller Sommerville Binghamton U. SUNY2022 Anne Sarah Rubin U. of Maryland, Baltimore County2023 Antoinette G. van Zelm Middle Tennessee State U. Center for Historic Preservation

In popular culture Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man (TV movie. May 2, 2001) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284330/?ref_=tt_urv

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