Winegarten, Ruthe.

Ruthe Winegarten was born on August 26, 1929, in Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with her Master’s in Social Work and was ABD (all but dissertation) in history. She forewent the ABD and became a historian.

Winegarten was an advocate for women and minorities, author and historian. She had been a radical from her early teens and was a member of the Texas Communist Party and the Dallas Labor Zionist Party. As an adult she was politically active, a member of the League of Women Voters, the Jewish Welfare Federation and the North Dallas Democratic Women’s Club.

Early on she joined forces with Ann Richards, creating a sketch comedy group called “Political Paranoia.” She later rejoined forces with Ann Richards, who founded the Texas Women’s History Project in 1974, to become the curator and research director of the Texas Women’s History Project.

She fought to get women into the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum and helped get more women and minorities into the Handbook of Texas. Winegarten searched and gathered information about women for bibliographies, data, oral histories, artifacts and pictures, organizing the information she gathered from around the state into timelines and collection files which later became books and exhibits.

Winegarten authored or co-authored 18 books, “rediscovering almost everything ever forgotten about the history of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and Jews in Texas” (Austin Chronicle). Some of her books include Texas Women’s History Bibliography and its follow up, Texas Women: A Celebration of History and Capital Women: Texas Female Legislators, 1923-1999 . Other works include a pictorial history of the Jews, and I Am Annie Mae, the oral history and script for a musical about Annie Mae Prosper McDade Hunt.

She was a valued public speaker and won many awards and honors. Her papers can be found at the Center of American History at The University of Texas at Austin.

Ruthe Winegarten died in June of 2004, she was 74.

Sources:

Werden, Frieda. Ruthe Winegarten, Historian and Author, 1930-2004.Find Articles at BNET | News Articles, Magazine Back Issues & Reference Articles on All Topics. July and August 2004. Accessed August 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3693/is_200407/ai_n9430195/print?tag=artBody;coll.

Pyle, Emily.Remembering Ruthe Winegarten.The Austin Chronicle. 24 June 2004. Accessed August 2008. http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid-oid%3A217566.

From the guide to the Inventory of the Ruthe Winegarten papers, MS 90., 1991-1997, (University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections)