HISTORY 110/310
WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY
MW 12:15-1:30
KERN 3124
FALL 2002
Dr. Linda Pitelka
Office hours:
MW 2:00-4:00; TTh 8:30-10:30 and by appt.
Telephone:
(O) 529-9621 (H) 454-1489 (9AM-9PM)
Email: pitelka@maryville.edu
Fax: 529-9965
http://accweb.itr.maryville.edu/pitelka
"I
myself have never known what feminism is. I
only know
that
people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments
that
differentiate me from a doormat."
Rebecca
West, Clarion, November 14, 1913
Reporting from George Armstrong
Custer's camp in 1874, William Curtis states, "If Susan B. Anthony wants to
vote . . . let her take a scalp."
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Putting women at the center of
interpretation, this course explores the impact of historical events on the
lives of American women and, in turn, the many roles women played in shaping
American history. A major focus
will be to understand how class, ethnicity, and race influenced American women's
work, family life, and organized activities from the invasion of North America
by Europeans to the 1990s. Topics
include: Native American women's lives; gender and family life under slavery;
the impact of industrialization on women of different classes; the ideology of
separate spheres; women's political activities including the antislavery
movement, the suffrage movement, the 19th Amendment, and the resurgence of
feminism in the 1960s; and transformations in the lives of modern women
including work, politics, sexuality, consumption patterns, and leisure
activities.
The course is offered at both the 100 and the 300
level. While the schedule is the same, a higher level of accomplishment is
expected of upper-level students in all assignments and in class discussion and
preparation. In addition,
upper-level students will write a research paper instead of the two shorter
papers, and they will occasionally meet separately with Dr. Pitelka outside of
class.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. To examine American women's lives across time, paying
particular attention to the ways that race, class, and ethnicity shaped their
experiences; and to discern the social and political arrangements that
structured women's status and condition. The
course seeks also to understand the consciousness of women resisting and
accommodating to those conditions.
2. To gain familiarity with the kinds of sources historians of
women use in constructing their interpretations, and to evaluate the strengths
and weaknesses of those sources.
3. To analyze and evaluate the various historical explanations
for women's past experiences.
4. To consider the implications of feminist historical
scholarship for knowledge and for society.
METHODS OF INSTRUCTION:
The format of the course will
be a mixture of lecture and discussion, with students invited to participate at
any time with questions, comments, and arguments. The intention is to create dialogue within the class, between
instructor and students, and among students.
Students will read and learn to interpret primary sources, like diaries,
letters, and other documents. They
will also read, discuss, and analyze in writing some of the excellent recent
historical scholarship on women. Some
class periods will be completely devoted to discussion.
Students should come to class having read assigned materials and prepared
to discuss them.
BOOKS:
Nancy Woloch, Women
and the American Experience
Louisa May Alcott. Little
Women
Margaret Walker, Jubilee
Anzia Yezierska, Breadgivers
Ann Moody, Coming
of Age in Mississippi
Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in
History
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND
GRADING:
Students Taking Course at 100 Level:
Papers
(2)
40%
Midterm
examination 20%
Discussion/Participation
10%
Final
examination
30%
Students Taking Course at 300 Level:
Midterm
examination 15%
Discussion/Participation
20%
Final
examination
25%
Additional
meetings with Dr. Pitelka outside class
Grading
Scale
C (70-79) Average
attainment
D (60-69) Unsatisfactory,
but passing
F (Below 60) Failing
PAPERS:
Should follow the conventions of history papers, using endnotes or
footnotes. Refer to instructions in
Kate Turabian, A Manual for the Writing of Term
Papers, Theses, and Dissertations or the Chicago Manual of Style.
Both are available in the library and on the internet: Chicago Manual - http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/guides/chicagogd.html
Turabian - http://www.ithaca.edu/library/course/turabian.html
Students are required to keep all notes and
drafts of papers until the final paper has been returned with a grade or until
the course is over. I reserve the
right to ask you to show and discuss with me your notes and various drafts of
your papers.
Please note: Papers
without proper source citations and bibliographies will not be accepted.
SCHEDULE
READING ASSIGNMENTS
SHOULD BE COMPLETED BY MONDAY OF THE WEEK ASSIGNED.
Week
One: Introduction
Mon.
Aug 26: Introduction to Course; Discussion of Requirements; Introduction to
Women's History and Historiography
Wed.
Aug 28: American Indian women
Reading for
this week: Chapter 1: “Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity”
Begin reading Little
Women and Jubilee
Internet Site of the Week:
National Women's History
Project: http://www.nwhp.org/
Historical Text Archive: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9061/USA/women.html
Monday, Sept 2:
Labor Day – No class
Wednesday,
September 4: Colonial families
Reading
for this week: Woloch, Chapter 2 “The 17th Century: A Frontier
Society”; continue reading Little Women
and Jubilee
Internet Sites for Week Two:
Salem Massachusetts-What About
Witchcraft? http://www.salemweb.com/witches.htm
Salem Village Witchcraft
Victims' Memorial: http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/Commemoration.html
Sacajawea, the Native American
woman who guided Lewis and Clark to the Pacific:
Monday,
September 9: Video: “Mary
Silliman’s War”
Wednesday,
September 11: Republican Motherhood
Reading for this week: Woloch, Chapter 3: Eliza Pinckney and Republican Motherhood and Chapter 4:
The Eighteenth Century: The Eve of Modernity and finish Little
Women by Monday.
Internet Site for the Week: Godey's
Ladies Book http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/godeytitle.html
Monday, September 16: Cult of Domesticity
Wednesday,
September 18: Women and Slavery
Reading for this week: Chapter 5: Sarah Hale and the
Ladies Magazine
Chapter
6: Promoting Woman’s Sphere, 1800-1860. Discuss first part of Jubilee
Internet Sites of the Week:
Read some slave narratives,
particularly those by women at: http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm
The Slave Community: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/slavery/
FIRST PAPER DUE
MONDAY
Monday,
September 23: Resistance & Reform
Wednesday,
September 25: -"One Woman, One
Vote" (first half)
Reading for this week: Chapter 7: Frances Wright at Nashoba
Chapter
8: Benevolence, Reform, and Slavery, 1800-1860
Internet Sites of the Week:
Read the Seneca Falls
"Declaration of Sentiments" and explore the site at http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1116/seneca.html
"Report of the Women's Rights Convention" http://www.nps.gov/wori/convent.htm
Week
Six: Working Women/Westward Expansion
Monday,
September 30: Antislavery
Wednesday,
October 2: Women in the West
"Women in the West"
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~amerstu/mw/women.html
Monday, October
7: MIDTERM EXAMINATION
Wednesday,
October 9: Immigration and Work
Reading: Chapter
9: The Shirtwaist Strike of 1909
Chapter
10: Women at Work, 1860-1920
Begin
reading Breadgiver
Internet site for the week:
"Valley of the Shadow: Two
Communities in the Civil War" - http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
The Civil War and Sex Roles: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/civil-war-women.html
Monday, October
14: Social Housekeeping
Wednesday,
October 16: Ida B.Wells biography
Reading: Evans, Chapter
11: The Founding of Hull-House
Chapter
12: The Rise of the New Woman, 1860-1920.
Internet sites for the week:
"Women and Social
Movements in the United States, 1830-1930" http://womhist.binghamton.edu/projectmap.htm
Women and Prohibition: http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/history/projects/prohibition/crusade.htm
Read two of Ida B. Wells's
antilynching pamphlets at: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?aap:1:./temp/~ammem_IpdE::
and http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/murray:@field(FLD001+91898209+):@@@$REF$
Week
Nine: Suffrage and the New Woman
Monday,
October 21: Woman's Suffrage Movement – Finish “One Woman One Vote”
Wednesday,
October 23: Flappers and Other Revolutionaries
Reading: Chapter
14: Feminism and Suffrage, 1860-1920. Finish and discuss Breadgiver
Chapter
15: Direct Action: Margaret Sanger’s Crusade
Chapter
16: Cross-Currents: The 1920s
Internet Sites for the Week:
Triangle Strike and Fire:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
Monday, October
28: The Great Depression
Wednesday,
October 30: Women in WWII
Reading: Chapter
17: Humanizing the New Deal; Chapter 18: Emergencies: The 1930s and 1940s; begin
Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
Internet Sites of the Week:
Women in the Great Depression: http://rs6.loc.gov/fsowhome.html
Monday,
November 4: Containing the Family
Wednesday,
November 6: Middle Class Life
Reading: Woloch, Chapter 20; continue Moody
Internet Site of the Week:
FiftiesWeb: http://www.fiftiesweb.com/index.htm
PAPER #2 IS DUE
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Monday,
November 11: Women in the Civil Rights Movement
Wednesday,
November 13: Discuss Moody
Reading: Chapter 19: Turning Points: The 1960s
Internet Sites of the Week:
American Cultural History,
1960-1969: http://www.nhmccd.cc.tx.us/contracts/lrc/kc/decade60.html
Week
Thirteen: Women and the Natural
World
Monday,
November 18: Video-"Silent Spring" & discuss
Wednesday,
November 20-
Internet Site of the
Week:
White House Tribute to Rachel
Carson: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/24hours/carson.html
Week Fourteen: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAYS
Week
Fifteen: The Women's Movement
Monday,
December 2:
Wednesday,
December 4:
Reading: Woloch, Chapter
21: The Thomas Hearings: Responses to Anita Hill, 1991;
Chapter 22: In Search of
Equality: Since 1975
Internet Sites for
the Week:
International Archives of the
Second Wave of Feminism: http://www.wenet.net/~celesten/2ndwave.html
Monday,
December 9 – Last day of class
Wednesday, December 11: FINAL EXAMINATION:
THIS
SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT THE DISCRETION OF THE INSTRUCTOR TO ACCOMMODATE
INSTRUCTIONAL AND/OR STUDENT NEEDS