CCS 300
Glave and Stoll Discussion Questions
Chapter 4
1. Regarding the topic of African American women gardener’s, what criticism does the author
have about academe?
2. Why did African American women garden?
3. What were some differences between African American gardens and gardens of white
people?
4. What’s a truck garden?
5. What kinds of ornamental plants were chosen for gardens?
6. What were the gender lines created regarding growing after the emacipation?
7. What was the Progressive movement all about?
8. Which of the three core values (listed at the bottom of page 41) most effected African
American women?
9. What are some examples of the progressive movement interacting with the Southern rural
women?
10. How did the Cooperative Extension help African Americans? How did it not help African
Americans?
11. How did the Negro Cooperative Extension Service differ?
12. What did the Home Demonstration Service of the above (NCES) do?
13. Did the government support African American gardens? How so?
14. What types of gardening did African Americans do that conflicted with the Progressive
Movement?
15. What are some instances of conservation in this gardening tradition?
16. What were schools like for African Americans after the emancipation? Did they learn
gardening?
17. What sorts of classes were taught?
18. According to the author, what are some questions that remain regarding African American
women and their gardens?
Chapter 7 – Women, Environmental Rationale, and Activism during the Progressive Era
19. Again a reflection on Progressive desires. Particularly, how did the Progressives view
science?
20. How did Progressives feel about industrialism and capitalism?
21. How did women interact in the Progressive era politically?
22. How did the women of this Progressive era view nature?
23. How did many of the middle-class women involved in this movement view lower class
women?
24. What were the two stereotypical roles of African American women during this time?
25. Did African American women follow the roles played by white women?
26. Who made up the National Association of Colored Women?
27. What were some of the focus issues of this group?
28. The author states that the NACW saw nature in Jeffersonian concept. What does this mean?
29. NACW “generally defined nature by what the city was not.”
30. Author states that many women also saw nature in a transcendentalist point of view, middle
of page 84. How so?
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31. What did the NACW support monetarily that reflected their transcendentalist values?
32. What should children do instead of work for wages?
33. Explain “municipal housekeeping” as it relates to women of the Progressive Era.
34. What was the “swat that fly” campaign all about?
35. Describe the differences between the focus of middle-class white women and middle-class
African American women in terms of environmental activism.
36. Both these groups criticized poorer classes and comment that the poor neighborhoods lack
cleanliness. Is this because of the people who lived there? What really causes
neighborhoods to look the way they do? Do we hear examples of this kind of bias today?
37. The author says that white women worked within their stereotype, but that African
American women had to remold their stereotype. How so?
38. How relates to Progressive movement?
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