​​The study examines early women's history in France and challenges the notion that it emerged in the 1970s. Drawing on an analysis of around one hundred works by approximately fifty women writers, it traces writing on women's history from the late 1700s through the 1940s. It identifies significant shifts: while collective biographical dictionaries and biographical compilations dominated the early 1800s, focused on women's presence in authority, intellectual life, religion, and the arts, this gradually gave way to individual biographies and thematic studies. During the interwar period, interest in the history of feminism grew, reflected in university theses. This study identifies three categories of women historians: literary writers, amateurs, and academically trained scholars, thereby raising questions about the concept of the "historian". It concludes that, although these writings remained largely outside the academic establishment and were often classified as literature, they helped solidify women's presence and challenge their subordinate status. They thus constituted a formative stage that paved the way for the emergence of women's history in France from the 1970s onward.