Application for Pathways to Knowledge: Social, Cultural and Historical Designation
History 139: Multicultural History of American Women
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Date of Application: 10-01-2013
Name/Department of Proposer: Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo
Name of Department Housing Course: History
Name of Chair: Myrna Santiago
How Often is the Course Taught: every other year
Course Prerequisites: none
Unit Value of Course: 1
Normal Class Size: 25
Number of Sections Expected Fall 2014: 1
Number of Sections Expected Spring 2015: none
Is the course appropriate for first year students: not normally
Relevant learning goals: Social, Cultural and Historical Understanding
Chair will oversee submission of student work: yes
Chair will oversee instructor participation in norming/asst: yes
Teaching: Learning outcome #1 of Social, Cultural and Historical Understanding courses is to
“examine human activity from a . . . historical perspective.” Through lectures, discussions, films,
debates, and group presentations students explore U.S. women’s history from the pre-colonial
period to the present. As we journey through time, three major themes provide a common,
unifying thread for the course: shifting gender constructs, diversity of experience, and women’s
activism/agency. In each major era, for example, we examine prevailing gender norms and
expectations (including their associated limits and/or opportunities), how region, race/ethnicity,
class, age, ability, sexual orientation—as well as gender—have shaped women’s experience, and
individual and collective responses to category-based discrimination and prejudice. In brief, the
course content emphasizes (over time) how a majority of women have occupied more than one
category, experienced multiple forms of oppression, juggled multiple identities and loyalties,
and waged an ongoing struggle for full equality. Through close analysis of primary and
secondary sources—sources that reflect multiple and competing interpretations of historical
eras and events—students fulfill learning outcome #2. For example, in examining the colonial
era, students compare and contrast daily life in British, French, Dutch, and Spanish settlements,
the impact of colonization on Native Americans, the transition from indentured servitude to
race-based slavery, and regional variations in slave systems—all through the lens of women’s
experience. In the process, they interrogate the factors (causal and contingent) that produced
and maintained gendered relations of power, and explore how female agency precipitated
change. Throughout the course, students are actively engaged in interpreting historical
evidence. However, the final assignment (in keeping with outcome #3) requires students to (1)
collect and interpret the life stories of three generations of women in their families
(supplemented with library based research), or (2) collect and interpret evidence necessary to
reconstruct how women contributed to the genesis and development to their hometowns. In
both cases, students must produce a 10-15 page research paper.
16. Learning: Social, Cultural and Historical Understanding learning goals are assessed in several
ways. In requiring and closely monitoring student participation in debates, small group, and
large group discussions, I can assess students’ interpretive skills, grasp of chronology, ability to
think historically, and understanding of historical causation, contingency, and agency. The two
essay exams ask students to identify the most significant turning points/transitions in U.S.
women’s history, establishing “significance” on the basis of the greatest impact on the greatest
number of women. If, for example, they choose the Progressive Era, they must move beyond a
simple narrative of the suffrage movement and include an analysis of nativism and eugenics, the
downside of gender-specific protective legislation, the class-specific characteristics of the “New
Woman,” heightened racial prejudice, discrimination and violence, the black women’s club
movement and anti-lynching campaign, the efforts of working class women to forge a viable
labor movement, and the gendered implications of renewed efforts to “civilize” Native
Americans. This not only entails examining human experience in historical perspective and from
multiple points of view, it requires accurate periodization and proper attribution of causation,
contingency, and agency. Their final paper, as mentioned above and detailed in the attached
syllabus, involves collecting and interpreting primary and secondary sources to create a family
or community history.
17. Syllabus:
Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo
History 139
Office: Galileo 310
MWF 10:20-11:20
Office Hours: MWF 7:00-7:45; 9:15- 10:10; 12:351:35, and Tuesdays by appointment
Multicultural History of American Women
Disability Policy
Reasonable and appropriate accommodations, that take into account the context of the course and
its essential elements, for individuals with qualifying disabilities, are extended through the office of
Student Disability Services. Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact the Student
Disability Services Coordinator at (925) 631-4164 to set up a confidential appointment to discuss
accommodation guidelines and available services.
Academic Honesty Policy
Any work that a student undertakes as part of the progress toward a degree or certification must be
the student’s own, unless the instructor specifies otherwise. That work may include examinations,
whether written or oral, oral presentations, laboratory exercises, papers, reports and other written
assignments. In written work other than examinations, students must clearly indicate the sources of
information, ideas, opinions and quotations that are not their own. Under the Academic Honor
Code, a student takes responsibility for the correctness and authenticity of all work submitted by that
student. Detailed regulations concerning the Academic Honor Code and the penalties for breach of
academic honesty are published in full in the Student Handbook. Each student is held responsible
for being acquainted with these regulations.
Learning Outcomes
1. Thoughtfully examine and identify major political, economic, cultural and social themes/issues
in American women’s history pre-colonization-present
2. Understand interpretations of historical causation and change by examining historical
issues/problems within their period-appropriate context, and from multiple points of view
3. Learn how to collect evidence about the past using historical methodology
4. Learn how to interpret evidence about the past using historical methodology
5. Analyze the ways that social categories such as race, class, gender, age, ability, sexual
orientation, religion, cultural/ethnic identity, and political affiliation shaped women’s individual
and collective experience, public policy, and public/private institutions
6. Understand the significance/effectiveness of individual and collective responses to social
category-based prejudice and discrimination
Readings
Mari Jo Buhle, Women and the Making of America
Katherine Kish Sklar, Women and Power in History
Grading
Class Participation and Attendance
Midterm Exam
Final Exam
Research Paper
25%
25%
25%
25%
Schedule of Readings and Discussions
M, Aug. 27
Course Introduction
W, Aug. 29
Worlds Apart, Buhle, pp. 3-31
F, Aug. 31
Contact and Conquest, Buhle, pp. 32-63
M, Sept. 3
Labor Day Holiday
W, Sept. 5
Contact and Conquest, Sklar, pp. 11-51
F, Sept. 7
18th Century Revolutions, Buhle, pp. 64-77; Sklar, pp. 52-59
M, Sept. 10
18th Century Revolutions Debate
W, Sept. 12
Film: Midwife’s Tale
F, Sept. 14
Film: Midwife’s Tale; Discussion: Class and Caste in the New Republic
M, Sept. 17
Frontiers of Trade and Empire, Buhle, pp. 98-129
W, Sept. 19
Frontiers of Trade and Empire, Sklar, pp. 112-121
F, Sept. 21
Domestic Economies and Northern Lives, Film: Daughters of Free Men, Buhle, pp. 130137; Sklar, pp. 60-70;
M, Sept. 24
Domestic Economies and Northern Lives, Buhle, pp. 138-142, 152-154, Sklar, pp. 71-81
W, Sept. 26
Domestic Economies and Northern Lives, Buhle, pp. 142-152, 154-163
F, Sept. 28
Family Business: Slavery and Patriarchy, Buhle, pp. 164-195, Skalr, pp. 82-94
M, Oct. 1
Film: Doing as We Can; Discussion: Women’s Modes of Resistance
W, Oct. 3
Religion and Reform, Buhle, pp. 196-220
F, Oct. 5
Religion and Reform, Buhle, pp. 220-227, Sklar, pp. 95-111
M, Oct. 8
Politics and Power: Debate, Buhle, pp. 229-259, A1-A5, Skalr, pp. 122-133
W, Oct. 10
Film: Life and Legend of Sojourner Truth; Discussion: Black Female Abolitionists
F, Oct. 12
Civil War, Buhle, pp. 260-293
M, Oct. 15
Midterm Exam
W, Oct. 17
Discussion: Divided Loyalties, Diverse Outcomes
F, Oct. 19
Midterm Holiday
M, Oct. 22
Paper Consultations (my office)
W, Oct. 24
Paper Consultations (my office)
F, Oct. 26
In the Age of Slave Emancipation, Buhle, pp. 294-329
M, Oct. 29
Women in the TransMississippi West, Buhle. pp. 330-361
W, Oct. 31
Film: Thousand Pieces of Gold
F, Nov. 2
Discussion: Women and Racism in the West
M, Nov. 5
The New Woman, Buhle, pp. 362-397, Sklar, pp. 150-160
W, Nov. 7
The Woman Movement, Buhle, pp. 398-431, Sklar, pp. 162-183
F, Nov. 9
The New Morality, Buhle, pp. 432-463, Sklar, pp. 192-205
M, Nov. 12
The Progessive Movement, Buhle, pp. 464-501, Sklar, pp. 184-195, 206-215
W, Nov. 14
The Jazz Age: Debate, Buhle, pp. 502-539, Sklar, pp. 216-241
F, Nov. 16
The Great Depression: Lecture, Buhle, pp. 540-575
M, Nov. 19
World War II, Buhle, pp. 567-615; Sklar, pp. 242-262
W, Nov. 21
Thanksgiving
F, Nov. 23
Thanksgiving
M, Nov. 26
Film: Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
W, Nov. 28
The Cold War and Feminine Mystique, Buhle, pp. 616-651
F, Nov. 30
Civil Rights and Liberal Activism, Buhle, pp. 652-687, A7-A12, Sklar, pp. 263-290
M, Dec. 3
The Personal is Political, Buhle, pp. 688-723
W, Dec. 5
Film: Step By Step; Discussion: Multiple Feminisms
F, Dec. 7
Endings and Beginnings, Buhle, pp. 724-767; Sklar, pp. 291-326
M, Dec. 10
Final, 11:30-1:30
Exams
The midterm, scheduled on Monday, October 15, will consist of two essay questions. Study questions,
from which the exam will be drawn, will be passed out in class one week prior to the test. Please bring
blue books to class on the appointed day. Make-up exams will be administered only if scheduled one
week in advance of the test date, or with a doctor’s excuse. The final, a take home exam, is due on
Monday, December 10. Again, the questions will be distributed one week in advance.
Research Paper
Option 1: For this paper you will need to gather and analyze the life stories of three generations of
women in your family: you (or a sister/cousin if you’re a man), your mother, and your grandmother.
Focusing on the theme of shifting gender roles, explore generational change in regard to early
socialization, education, career expectations, paid employment, domestic labor, sexuality, courtship,
marriage, reproduction and child rearing, leisure, and sport. Supplement your oral interviews with at
least four book-length sources. Your paper should be 10-15 pages in length, and include a bibliography.
Option 2: For this paper you will need to investigate how women contributed to the birth and evolution
of your home town in economic, political, cultural, and environmental terms. If, by chance, a single
woman stands out as an extraordinarily influential figure, you may (if there are sufficient sources and
with my advance permission) craft a biography. Your paper should be 10-15 pages in length and
reference at least four book-length sources in addition to oral interviews. A complete bibliography
should be attached to your paper.