Mrs. A.D. Warner, Jr. posing with her vacuum, 
March 12, 1941

Generations of women have vanished from the historical record, without leaving so much as their names for their descendents and for historians to uncover. Our written history traditionally does not celebrate the contribution of women to the history of the state. Forgotten are the many contributions by women like Mary Ann Sorden Stuart, Annie Jump Cannon and Cecile Steele to name just a few. But women’s history is rich in the achievements of ordinary women also. It is only within the last generation that historians have begun to fill in the gaps, researching and writing the history of the lives of women. Certainly there is much to learn from their stories, and so much more research waits to be done to uncover their past. We at the Historical Society of Delaware are dedicated to preserving the history of those women who accomplish great things, but are also interested in telling the stories of the women who ran grocery stores, and millinery shops, who taught school, and who ran their households.