Ruthe Lewin Winegarten: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Ruthe Lewin Winegarten was a American author, activist, and historian. Born in Dallas, Texas in 1930, Winegarten attended James Madison High School, receiving a scholarship to attend Southern Methodist University. She also attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she received her bachelor's degree in anthropology in 1950. She later earned a master's degree in social work from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Before moving to Austin, Texas in 1978, Winegarten worked for various social causes in Dallas, includeing serving as the southwest regional director of the Anti-defamation league of the B'nai B'rith, and as assitant director of the Jewish Welfare Federation in Dallas.

While researching a thesis paper in the 1970s at the University of Texas at Dallas, she compiled an oral history of Annie Mae Hunt. These conversations, including Hunt's recollections of her grandparents' histories of slavery, became Winegarten's first book, I am Annie Mae. Afterwards, she became director of Austin's Women's Center, and in 1979, was a researcher foor the Texas Women's History Project, creating the exhibit "Texas Women: A Celebration of History".

Winegarten twice won the Liz Carpenter Award by the Texas State Historical Association, for her books Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph, and Capitol Women: Texas Female Legislators 1923-1999.

Winegarten died on June 14 2004, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She had been living at an assisted-living facility and was in the early stages of dementia.