By Taylor Grzesiek, Archives Services Intern

Hello and welcome back! My name is Taylor Grzesiek, and I’m an intern in the Archives Services Department. If you read my last blog post, I discussed my work processing the Columbus Citizen-Journal's vast photograph collection. [Check out Taylor's introduction to the collection and her work to make it accessible here!]

The Citizen-Journal (and its predecessor papers) operated through most of the 20th century. So, it's no surprise that its photo archive contains a little of everything from this era, including people, culture, politics, sports, local to global events and more. The items are organized in alphabetical order by subject. While working through these entries, I couldn’t help but notice dozens, if not hundreds, of women in the collection were listed under their husband’s names. In the finding aid, they were referred to only as “Mrs. husband’s name.” This practice applied to all women, including the well-known actress Flower Parry (previously listed as Mrs. Jackie Coogan), and influential local figure Hattie Lazarus (previously listed as Mrs. Robert Lazarus).

This naming practice made them not only more difficult to find, but it also has the effect of obscuring their work and very contributions that brought the press to write about them in the first place. This inspired my effort to research and restore the names of every woman in this collection who was instead listed under their spouse’s name.

Searching for Women's Names

To find these women, I used a few different tools. If I was lucky, there would be an address and a date written on the backs of these photos alongside the names. In that case, I could check old city directories or the Franklin County Auditor website to see who lived at that address at that point in time. Often, the woman’s first name was in one of those two places. If not, I could also check obituaries or digitized newspaper articles and crosscheck those with FindAGrave.com. In many instances, I was able to refile these women’s images under their full names. I transferred the previous listing under their spouse’s name into a catalog note so that it remained searchable.

Want to Learn More?

While these examples are only a few of many, hopefully they help convey the importance of referring to women by their full names in archives and recordkeeping. It helps us locate them more quickly and with ease, and more importantly, it restores their autonomy and status as individuals with their own stories, not merely counterparts of their spouses.

The phenomenon of “Mrs. Husband’s name” is not new. You’ve likely encountered it in our modern society, even though it was much more common in previous centuries. Have you ever wondered why? This practice is a relic of English “coverture” laws, in which a woman’s assets and were acquired by her husband upon marriage and her identity became “covered” by her husband’s. Essentially, a married woman was placed under the “ownership” of her husband. Henceforth, her identity was defined by her relationship to him. Many old documents, photos, and newspapers refer to women in this manner, often eclipsing their lives, contributions, achievements, or even hardships under their spouse’s name. Its side effect is erasure. They are shrouded in an extra layer of obscurity. It becomes difficult to track them in historical documentation. This makes research, or even simply learning about them, more difficult.

By restoring their names, we can make these women visible again. It makes it easier for their descendants to locate them in genealogical research. For professional researchers, it becomes easier to locate an individual and tie her to her contributions or historic events. Additionally, if a man married multiple times, the women would end up sharing an identity under their husband’s name. Adding their full names clears up any ambiguity and restores their individual identities.