Dr. Karin ZipfOffice: Brewster A-219
Office Hours: By Appt.Telephone: 328-1024
Email: web site:
HIS 3140
Spring 2011
Women in American History
Section 1: 9:30am-10:45am, TTh, BB 203
Reading Assignments:
DuBois and Dumenil,Through Women's Eyes: An American History with Documents
Skinner, Women and the National Experience: Primary Sources in American History
Reserve Materials and Required Readings on the Web
Course Description: This class explores the historical significance of women’s experiences in the United States. But this course is more than a historical study of America and its women. Rather, this course takes a more comprehensive and, surely, more provocative approach. This course will explore women’s achievements, women’s and men’s relations, and shifting definitions of womanhood and manhood in the United States. Although American men and women experienced historical events in tandem, each sex often perceived these events in different ways. We will explore American historical events through the lenses of women. Our study will examine the impact of colonialism, independence, slavery, reconstruction, suffrage, reproduction politics, feminism, civil rights, and the enduring effects of racism on America’s women.
Course Requirements: History requires skills in critical reading and thinking. This course requires intensive and focused concentration on reading and writing. You MUST read the assigned material. Thinking critically requires active listening and note-taking. Discussion (oral participation by all students) is crucial in every class. In addition, you must take one ID quiz, write three papers, and complete a cumulative final essays exam.
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances, such as an accident or a death in the family, require students to miss class. Therefore, this professor allows students three class absences without penalty. But, students must use their absences wisely. Students exceeding three absences will by penalized 1% of their final grade for each absence exceeding three. If you miss an assignment due to unexpected illness you must provide a doctor’s note. Students are expected to come to class ON TIME.
Papers: In addition to attending lecture, students will write 3 papers.
Paper 1: Essay on Defining Feminism. Students must develop a definition for the word “feminism.” But this definition will not come from a dictionary or encyclopedia. Rather, students must develop an experiential definition based upon oral history interviews and historical sources. Given this, each student will interview one woman born between 1965-1980 and another woman born before 1965 to ascertain their individual views of feminism. Oral history subjects may include relatives, ECU teachers and staff, and any other willing volunteers from the community. Then, students must find three secondary sources from the library and one from the internet to help them contextualize (to find historical sources that help explain the interviewees’ experiences) these interviews and construct a definition for the word “feminism.” Because successful writing is crucial towards understanding and expressing complex historical ideas, students will participate in at least two writing labs during the course of the semester.
Papers 2 & 3: Analytical Debate Papers. These papers will conclude students’ participation in two role-playing exercises. Twice during the semester students will assume the character of a prominent individual who participated in critical twentieth-century events, namely, the passage of women’s suffrage in 1919 and Congress’ failure to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in 1983. For each exercise we will participate in our own debate during which you will assume the personality and ideas of your assigned character. Afterwards, each student will write a 3-5 page paper analyzing the primary issues debated.
Here is the grade distribution:
Class participation10%
Papers45%(15% each)
ID Quiz15%
Cumulative Essays Final Exam30%
Websites: Students must consult the sites included in the syllabus in preparation for the week’s discussion. These websites illuminate the complex ideas and events of Women in American History. Images, maps, biographies, essays, video games, literature, and chronologies on the sites will provide students with a more comprehensive understanding of relevant issues.
Reserve Materials and Other Readings: Students must read several articles or book chapters that are located in the library or available through blackboard. Three items are on reserve at the Reserve Desk (see weeks 1-3). Several articles are accessible by links on this syllabus. Others are available through NC LIVE – Academic Search Elite. Just type in the article title at the search window.
Disability Services Notice:EastCarolinaUniversity seeks to comply fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodations based on a covered disability must go to the Department for Disability Support Services, located in Brewster A-117, to verify the disability before any accommodations can occur. The telephone number is 252-328-6799.
Schedule of Classes:
Week 1:Introduction:History in Gender Perspective
Jan. 11&13Terms
Method
Sexual Politics
Reading: Jane Sherron De Hart and Linda K. Kerber
“Introduction: Gender and the New Women’s History,” pps. 3-24
On Blackboard
Website:“Talking About Women’s History,” [AUDIO]
How do you interpret thisimage?.
Week 2:Frontier Diversity
Jan. 18&20Native American
European
African American
Reading: DuBois, ch. 1
Perdue, Cherokee Women, chapter 1 on Blackboard
Origins of Slavery
Website:Native American Beadwork
Week 3:Colonial Law and Household Relations
Jan. 25&27Religion
Witchcraft
Marriage
Property
Reading:Skinner, ch. 1
Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, pps 77-116 on Blackboard and
Norton, In The Devil's Snare, pps. 112-155 on Blackboard
Website:UMC Famous Trials Witchcraft Website
Week 4:Revolution and Constitution
Feb. 1&3Independence
Social Contract
Republican Motherhood
Reading:Skinner, ch. 2
DuBois, ch. 2
See introduction to Hannah Glasse's the Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1805) on BB
Assignment: Paper 1 due, September 17
Websites: Abigail Adams to John Adams
31 March 1776
John Adams to Abigail Adams
14 April 1776
Abigail Adams to John Adams
7 May 1776
Feeding America: American Cookery, 1798
Godey’s Ladies Book fashion plates
Week 5:Industrialization
Feb. 8&10Mill Women
Labor Conflict
Women’s Sphere
Reading:Skinner, ch. 3
DuBois, ch. 3
Website:“Uses of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill Girls”
Week 6:Benevolence and Reform
Feb. 15&17Middle Class Women
Slave Women
Cult of Domesticity
Reform Movements
Reading:Skinner, ch. 4
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, chs. 4&5
Documenting the American South, electronic edition
Slide Show:Women, Evangelicalism and Reform
Website:Women and Social Movements in the U.S.
Mary Reynolds, “Oral History of Her Days as a Slave”
North American Slave Narratives
Currier & Ives: Portraits of the “Happy Family”
Assignment:Paper 1 due February 17
Week 7:Origins of Women’s Rights
Feb. 22&24Seneca Falls
Declaration of Sentiments
15th Amendment
NWSA & AWSA
Reading:Skinner, ch. 5
DuBois, pps. 202-228, 236-251
Slide Show:Women’s Rights Movement – First Wave
Websites:The Trial of Susan B. Anthony
How do you interpret this image?
Exercise:Writing Lab, February 22
MARCH 2LAST DAY TO DROP COURSE
Week 8:Civil War Women and Reconstruction
March 1&3Homefront
Women and Industry
Black Women
Picking up the Pieces
Reading:Skinner, ch. 6
DuBois, pps. 228-236, 251-269, and ch. 5
Slide Show:Women and the Civil War
Website:Hearts at Home: Southern Women in the Civil War
The Letter of "Miss Mollie E.," September 9, 1864, "Mr Abram Lincen"
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
Dawes Act, 1887
MARCH 6-13SPRING BREAK
Week 9:Manliness, Womanliness and Civilization
March 15&17Jim Crow
Imperialism
Lynching
Reading:Skinner, ch. 7
1898: Wilmington, North Carolina
Pauline E. Hopkins, “Ch. 8: The Sewing Circle,” from Contending Forces, 1900
Websites:“You Don’t Know Me:” Georgia Sutton & Olivia Cherry
“Big House/Little House:” Ann Pointer & Otis Pinkard
“Black People’s Day:” Charles Gratton, Ann Pointer, Amelia Robinson
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
“Anti-Negro Cartoon” from the RaleighNews and Observer, 1900
Exercise:ID Quiz, March 17
Week 10:Progressivism
March 22&24Protective Legislaton
Women’s Suffrage
Origins of Welfare
Reading:Skinner, chs. 8&9, and pps. 182-183
DuBois, chs. 6&7
Exercise:Women’s Suffrage Debate, March 24
Assignment:Handout due, March 24
Website:The Triangle Factory Fire
“The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911,” [AUDIO]
Scroll to and click on March 30, 2000, Segment 1
Household Words: Women Write From and For the Kitchen
Gunnar Almgren, et.al. article
Week 11:Sexuality and Reproduction
March 29&31Birth Control
Abortion
ERA
Reading:Skinner, ch. 10
DuBois, pps. 481-497&519-526
Comstock Law, 1873
Margaret Sanger, “What Every Girl Should Know” 1920
Birth Control Pills and Black Children
“I Limited My Own Family”: Memoir of a 1920s Birth Control Activist
(Audio)
“A Less Reliable Form of Birth Control”: Miriam Allen deFord Describes Her Introduction to Contraception in 1914
(Audio)
Assignment:Paper 2 due March 31
Website:Conversations with Alice Paul: The Equal Rights Amendment
Week 12:Great Depression and Hard Times
April 5&7Labor
Eleanor Roosevelt
Rituals of Youth
Reading:Skinner, ch. 11
DuBois, pps. 497-507, 526-534
Slide Show:Causes of the Great Depression
Website:Making Do: Women and Work
Eleanor Roosevelt: in her own words
on her DAR resignation
on women
on the ERA
Week 13:World War II and the Origins of Feminism
April 12&14Japanese-American Women
Factory Women
Title VII
Friedan and Schlafly
Reading:Skinner, chs. 12 &13
DuBois, pps. 507-519, 534-550
Slide Show:Women and World War II
Website:Title VII
Powers of Persuasion: World War II Posters
“Working-Class Feminism: The Other Women’s Movement”
Scroll down and click on June 8, 2000 – Segment 1
Betty Friedan on C-Span
Porn Movie Screening: Academic Freedom vs. Censorship?The Washington Post, April 6, 2009
Friedan, "The Problem That Has No Name," chapter 1 of The Feminine Mystique
Week 14 &15:Sexual Revolution and Social Protest
April 19&21ERA
Title IX
Roe vs. Wade
Lesbianism
Reading:Skinner, chs. 14&15
DuBois, chs. 9&10
Website:National Organization of Women: 1960’s Documents
Vacuum Aspiration Abortion
Radicalesbians: The Woman-Identified Woman
Exercise:ERA Debate April 21
Assignment: Handout due April 21
FINAL ESSAYS EXAM:Section 1: MondayMay 3, 8:00am-10:30am
(Paper 3 is due!)