Early American Women

Dr. Karen Manners Smith
AH 300 E -- Fall 2000
MWF 9:00 - 9:50 (PH 316)
 
Office: PH 411O, ext. 5570
Office Hours MWF 2-4 p.m.
 
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is the first half of a two-semester sequence in American women's history, and focuses on the social history of American women of many ethnicities from the colonial era to 1890. We begin with a general discussion of culture and gender and progress to the history of colonial white women, Native American women, and African American women of the 16th and 17th centuries. Women as witches and midwives are early topics for reading and discussion.  Other topics include the women's suffrage movement, women and labor, women immigrants, women in the Civil War, women and the law, women and politics, and women's reform initiatives of the late 19th century. The 19th century feminist critique of marriage and women's legal inequality is a significant focus of this course. Our major text is Glenda Riley’s Inventing the American Woman, a history of the period chosen to provide a background for lecture and discussion. Lectures will supply the theoretical framework and narrative continuity for the course.  We will spend several periods of the course on student reports.
Women's history is the story of women's shared experiences -- those experiences that are shaped by their sex or gender alone  -- but it is also the story of differences between women that are determined by their race, region, religion, ethnicity, and social class.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES
You will learn the detailed narrative of early American women’s history, and you will come to understand the historical experiences of women of many ethnicities, slave and free, immigrant and native-born.  You will become familiar with the major issues in women’s lives in early America, including women’s legal and social inequality, specific disabilities and persecutions associated with gender, and women’s long struggle to gain basic rights and equality of opportunity in education and employment. You will also become familiar with the major figures of the era, including but not limited to Anne Hutchinson, Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Clara Barton, Frances Willard, Jane Addams, and Ida B. Wells. You will be introduced to current historical interpretations in American women’s history, and to the work of leading historians in the field. By the end of the semester, you will have read and discussed three of the most important women’s novels of the 19th century, and, finally, you will be fully prepared to begin the study of modern American women in a subsequent semester.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
     The format of each class period includes both lecture and discussion.  Always complete reading assignments in advance and bring relevant books and articles to class with you.  BE PREPARED TO TALK.  You may miss 6 classes without penalty.  After that, absences will affect your grade.
There will be a mid-term and a final in this course, two short papers based on books, and a presentation to the class, with script or outline submitted for grading.
    All ESU rules regarding academic honesty apply in this course. Plagiarism (using the work of another writer without appropriate citation or acknowledgment) is a serious academic offense, and may result in failing the course. Please ask me if you are unsure about the correct way to quote or paraphrase the work of other writers.

REQUIRED READINGS (available at Campus Bookstore or Textbook Corner)

Riley: Inventing the American Woman, Vol. I
Karlson: The Devil in the Shape of a Woman
Ulrich: A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on her Diaries 1785-1812.
White, Deborah Gray: Ar’N’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South
DuBois: Feminism and Suffrage
Oates:  A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War
 

RECOMMENDED READING
(CHOOSE ONE AFTER CONSULTATION WITH INSTRUCTOR)

Alcott: Little Women
Blake: Fettered for Life
Fern:  Ruth Hall

Additional required readings may be distributed in class or placed on reserve in the library.  Generally, they will be available at least two class periods before they are scheduled for discussion.

CLASS SCHEDULE (tentative)

Week 1:  The theory of women’s history. Cultural Contact: White, black and Native American women. Riley Ch. 1.  Additional article(s).

Week 2: Colonial Women I The "Goodwife," the law. Additional readings.  Begin Karlsen

Week 3: Colonial Women II  Salem.  Film possible. Discuss Karlsen
Friday 8th: film.

Week 4:  Women in the American Revolution.  Film.  Riley Ch. 2
Begin reading Ulrich.

Week 5:  The New Republic.  Republican Motherhood.  Discuss Ulrich. Film on Ulrich, Friday 22nd.  Paper on Ulrich or Karlsen due October 2.  Midterm will be October 6.

Week 6:  Film concludes, Mon. 25th. The School and the Mill.  Riley Ch. 3  Additional article(s) on reserve. Begin Gray.

Week 7.  Women and the Institution of Slavery.  Discuss Gray, pp. TBA, Review for midterm.  Midterm

Week 8:  Finish Gray discussion. Women in the West.  Additional readings on reserve.  Begin reading DuBois.

Week 9:  Women and Reform:  Abolition and Suffrage.  Riley Ch. 4 DuBois pp TBA.  Begin reading Oates.

Week 10: DuBois discussion, pages TBA. Women in the Civil War.  Riley, Ch. 5.  Film.

Week 11: Discuss Oates. Women in the Post Civil War eras: Temperance, Suffrage, labor.  Finish discussing DuBois

Week 12:  1870s and 1880s:  Women in Education slide lecture. Begin Alcott, Blake, and Fern books and meet with groups. Paper on Oates due Nov. 8th.

Week 13:  Women and Reform: Settlements, Labor and immigration. Additional readings. Second paper Due.

Week 14:  Loose ends meeting or film.  Thanksgiving Vacation.

Week 15: Student group reports.

Week 16: Suffrage reunification.  Women’s pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Additional readings.

Final Exam  Tuesday, December 12 at 10:10.


For more information, contact:
Professor Karen Manners Smith
phone: (316) 341-5570


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Last Updated 11 September 2000
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