Center for Women's History
Women’s history is American history. Bring it into your classroom with our new curriculum!
Major support for Women and the American Story provided by
Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation
Curriculum website and learning experience made possible through a grant from
This program is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.
Lead support for New-York Historical's teacher programs provided by
William Russell Birch, View in Third Street, from Spruce Street, Philadelphia, 1800. Hand-colored engraving. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., 2002718881.
Eliza Brock
A young white servant during Philadelphia’s yellow fever epidemic in 1793, she tended the dying John Todd, Dolley Madison’s first father-in-law. Later married to a well-off farmer, she faced financial and personal turmoil as a widow, and wrote to Dolley asking for help in 1844, unaware that Dolley was herself facing severe financial difficulties.