Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to writing the history of United States women. Buel and Buel’s biography of Mary Fish (1736-1818) makes little effort to place her story in the context of recent historiography on women. Lebsock, meanwhile, attempts not only to write the history of women in one southern community, but also to redirect two decades of historiographical debate as to whether women gained or lost status on the nineteenth century as compared with the eighteenth century. Although both books offer the reader the opportunity to assess this controversy regarding women’s status, only Lebsock’s deals with it directly. She examines several different aspects of women’s status, helping to refine and resolve the issues. She concludes that while women gained autonomy in some areas, especially in the private sphere, they lost it in many aspects of the economic sphere. More importantly, she shows that the debate itself depends on frame of reference: in many respects, women lost power in relation to men, for example, as certain jobs (delivering babies, supervising schools) were taken over by men. Yet women also gained power in comparison with their previous status, owning a higher proportion of real estate, for example. In contrast, Buel and Buel’s biography provides ample raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by some historians, of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century but does not give the reader much guidance in analyzing the controversy over women’s status.
1984年出版的两本书展现了描写美国女性历史所采用的两种截然不同的方式。在碧儿的自传《玛丽鱼》中，碧儿没有试图把自己的故事放在近来女性史学研究的背景下。相比之下，莱布斯克不仅描写了南部一地区的女性历史，还引述了关于女性在19世纪的地位与18世纪相比是提升了还是降低了这一历史学争论。尽管这两本书都向读者提供机会来了解关于女性地位的争议，但是只有莱布斯克直接涉及了这一争论。莱布斯克调查了女性在几个不同方面的地位问题，来帮助改善进而解决这一问题。并由调查得出，尽管女性在某些领域获得了自主权，尤其是在个人领域，但是在经济领域的许多方面女性却失去了自主权。更重要的是，她认为争论本身是建立在参照对比上的，例如， 在许多方面，女性相对于男性而言就失去了权利，某些工作(生孩子、看管学校)由男性接替。而女性与她们以前的地位相比获得了权利，例如，拥有不动产的比例提高了。与莱布斯克相比，碧儿在她的自传中引用了大量的原始资料来质疑一些历史学家提出的18世纪的殖民黄金时期，但是她没有引导读者分析关于女性地位的争议。
