Caroline F. Ware

Caroline Farrar Ware (1899–1990) was a professor of history and a New Deal activist. Her work focused on community development, consumer protection, industrial development, civil rights, and women's issues.

Biography

Family and early years Caroline "Lina" Ware was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her family belonged to the New England Unitarian church, and had a history of social concern. Caroline's father, also named Henry Ware, was a municipal judge, lawyer, and member of the Brookline town meeting. At Vassar, Ware became a student of Lucy Maynard Salmon, a professor of history. Salmon emphasized the importance of observing ordinary people's lives and thinking independently. While she was teaching, Ware continued to hold advocacy positions in various government agencies. She regularly testified about consumer protection issues at congressional hearings (Scott, p. 10). President Roosevelt appointed Ware to be deputy to Harriet Elliott, the consumer representative of a National Defense Advisory Commission. Means and Ware shared a common interest in studying factories. Means, who was four years older than Ware, had been a pilot in World War I.

Ware thought that the social consequences the changes brought about by industrialization were not yet fully understood by historians. She addressed the work culture of industrial mills, and its effect on women. These topics were, at the time, unaddressed by historians.

Greenwich Village was written in the early 1930s, and dealt with the Irish, Italian, Spanish, and Jewish populations in the area, rather than the bohemian writers and artists that the area was famous for. Ware described the social structure of the multiracial, multiethnic neighborhood. The book is an early example of a new type of social history in which the lives of previously invisible people was documented.

The Cultural Approach to History was a collection of papers Ware organized to present at the American History Association's annual meeting. Ware's introductory essay discussed "the problem of objectivity," which refers to the unconscious biases historians have. Ware called on historians to recognize these biases and to recognize that these biases affect the premises in their writings.

History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind was a six-volume book Ware wrote for the United Nations' Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

The Modern Economy in Action was a collaboration between Ware and her husband, Gardiner Means.