Ruthe Lewin Winegarten

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Notable

American author, activist, and historian, who compiled an oral history of Annie Mae Hunt in the 1970s at the University of Texas at Dallas. Later she and collaborators would edit these conversations, including Hunt's recollections of her grandparents' histories of slavery, into a popular book, I am Annie Mae: A Black Texas Woman in Her Own Words and then subsequently into a musical drama. Winegarten was director of Austin's Women's Center. In 1979, she was appointed as Curator of the Texas Women's History Project, which developed the touring exhibit "Texas Women: A Celebration of History" (now housed at Texas Woman's University). Winegarten twice won the Liz Carpenter Award, for her books Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph, and Capitol Women: Texas Female Legislators 1923–1999 (with Nancy Baker Jones). Winegarten bore three children, Martha Frances Addington, (1952–2007), Marc David Sanders (1954–), and Debra Lou Winegarten (1957–). Winegarten died on 14 June 2004, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She had been living at an assisted-living facility and was in the early stages of dementia. Link to Wikipedia biography