Gilded-Age Chicago Women:
A Cultural History of the late
LaShonda Katrice Barnett, Ph.D.
The Newberry
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Spring Seminar, 2016
When in 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley
Warner entitled their co-authored novel The
Gilded Age, they gave the late nineteenth
century its popular name. The term reflected
the combination of outward wealth and dazzle
with inner corruption and poverty. Given the
period’s absence of powerful and charismatic
presidents, its lack of a dominant political event,
and its sometimes tawdry history, historians
have often defined the period by negatives.
They stress greed, scandals, and corruption of
the Gilded Age.
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Seminar Description
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During the Gilded Age, ideas of gender and gender relationships shifted
drastically in both public and private spheres. The largest wave of immit
gration from Europe mixed into a population that had been primarily
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Anglo-and-African American. Add to this heady current, the development of mass-consumption, leisure and the working-class response.
Relations between different ethnic groups of women, different classes,
and the way power dynamics shaped those interactions complicated
women’s social and political struggles.
In this seminar we place the lives of Gilded-Age Chicago women
in the interpretive center of U.S. history. Our study is framed by the oftcompeting concepts of capitalism and democracy, especially the sociopolitical movements to which women’s participation laid claim and
enabled them to assert power in American public life. Tracing workingclass, middle-class and leisure-class women’s experiences as activists,
laborers, club women, professionals, and artists, we will analyze the
intersections of race, class and gender. Examining Chicago’s industrialization and urbanization, we focus on women’s unsung roles in these
arenas. Drawing on an array of primary sources, including letters,
speeches, photographs, as well as women’s print culture, music, and
secondary sources, we will pay particular attention to: (1) women and
progressive reform; (2) the meaning of freedom for black women living
in the shadow of slavery and the strategies they employed to thrive in the
context of urbanization, with a focus on black migration to Chicago’s
South Side; (3) women’s roles in the development of businesses and
corporations; (4) urban planning and politics. Seminar discussions are
augmented by field experiences at Chicago’s Dreihaus Museum (one of
Chicago’s few remaining Gilded-Age mansions) and the Hull House
museum.
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Never be deceived that the rich will
allow you to vote away their wealth.
—Lucy Parsons
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lashonda@lashondabarnett.com
Course Website: http://www.lashondabarnett.com/ChicagoGildedAge.html
Requirements:
Weekly Questions: In addition to the required weekly readings, students are expected to bring to
class a written question about the reading. The questions, written on index cards, will be pooled in
class. Each student will select a question to address.
Presentation With Paper (3-to-5 pages): Each week a participant will present the reading(s) of
their choice. Weekly participant-led discussions will focus on clarifying, commenting, and
elaborating on the reading(s). You are not expected to be the authority on that week’s topic, but
you should demonstrate an understanding of the readings by articulating conceptual themes and
links to other works and defend your position with evidence. The best presentations are delivered
ex tempore (i.e. not read but spoken). Think about the main points you want to make; explain your
topic and the questions that motivated you, and what conclusions you drew. Please, do not read
your presentation. Instead, prepare well enough so that you can speak cogently about your topic in
a spontaneous but organized way. Keep your presentations to 10 minutes.
Response Essay—2 (RE): For one RE, you will peruse issues of the Journal of the Gilded Age
and Progressive Era, and write a two-page essay on the articles’ tone. While writing consider the
big question: What’s at stake? For the second RE, you will select one of the (Primary Source)
Excerpts from and write a critique or evaluation of the document. Unlike a summary, your RE is
composed of your opinions; it examines ideas that you agree or disagree with and exposes the
source’s strengths and weaknesses through sound reasoning bolstered by supporting examples,
solid organization and persuasive style. The RE should draw on facts, examples and personal
experience.
Primary Source Analysis (PSA) 1-to-3 pages: You are responsible for choosing a primary
source from the Newberry Library’s Gilded-Age collection to analyze. When analyzing
primary sources, historians consider the type of primary source under study. We will discuss the
different types during the first class session since primary sources are created for varying reasons.
Knowing the different types of primary sources will help you evaluate their reliability. During
your analysis consider the following:
• What type of source is this? (Photograph, newspaper article, audio recording, sheet music, film,
manuscript, memoir, letter, speech, or specify other).
• Identify the author or creator of the source.
• When was the source created?
• Describe any unique qualities in the source.
• Record all possible observations about the source’s content, images, text, and style.
• Does the source represent a particular bias or point of view? Point to evidence in the
source to explain your answer.
• Why do you think this source was created?
• What questions are left unanswered by this source?
• How does this source broaden or enrich your understanding of the topic you are studying?
Book/Film/Documentary Review (R): The point of a scholarly review is not to summarize the
content of the book or source under review, but to posit the historical merit of the book and to
evaluate critically the author's purpose, thesis, contentions, and methods of analysis. Your review
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essay will be an evaluation of the author's presentation of his/her thesis, and a commentary on the
book's contribution to one's understanding of important issues in Gilded-Age Chicago history.
Reviews will be approximately 500 words (roughly 2-typed pages) in length. An essential feature
of a good book review is the reviewer's ability to write concisely so that a comprehensive
evaluation of the book can be obtained from a brief reading. So, do not write more, write more
concisely -find creative ways to communicate your critical evaluation of the book in a short essay.
Great Expectations
Attendance and Class Participation: As with all seminars, attendance is essential in order for
students to discuss works critically and analytically. Arrival more than 15 minutes late without
prior consent from the instructor will be considered an absence. A pattern of unexcused absences
will result in reduced credit.
Required Materials
4x6 white index cards and 5x7 multicolor index cards.
Spring 2016 Texts
Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian
Department Store 01995071425
Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age: 1865-1905 Isbn: 0195147286
Janet Thomas Greenwood, The Gilded Age: A History in Documents Isbn: 0195105230
Novels
Renée Rosen, What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age
Isbn: 0451466713
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie: A Novel Isbn: 0451531140
Book Chapters and Journal Articles (Provided by instructor)
Christopher Robert Reed, “Gilded-Age Chicago, 1880-1892,” in Black Chicago’s First Century
(Columbia: University of Missouri, 2005): 228-336.
Roberta M. Feldman, “The Community Household: The Foundation of Everyday Resistance,” in
The Dignity of Resistance: Women Residents’ Activism in Chicago Public Housing (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010): 91-114.
Patricia Kelleher, “Maternal Strategies: Irish Women’s Headship of Families in Gilded Age
Chicago,” in Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 2001, pp. 80-106.
Micah Childress, “Life Beyond the Big Top: African American and Female Circusfolk, 18601920,” in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, available on CJO2015.
doi:10.1017/S1537781415000250.
Linda K. Kerber, “Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman’s Place: The Rhetoric of Women’s
History,” The Journal of American History 75, no. 1 (June 1, 1988): 9-39.
Kathy Peiss. “‘Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working-class Sexuality,
1880-1920” in Unequal Sisters, First Edition.
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**Note: Prior to the first class meeting, please read essay: Linda K. Kerber, “Separate Spheres,
Female Worlds, Woman’s Place: The Rhetoric of Women’s History,” The Journal of American
History 75, no. 1 (June 1, 1988): 9-39. Found on the course website
Spring 2016 SCHEDULE:
Week 1
2/15
Central Issues for Researching and Writing Women’s History In the Gilded
Read the short essays listed below all housed at The women Building
Chicago Index, found here: http://www.chicagohistoryfair.org/historyfair/history-fair-a-nhd-theme/subject-essays/chicago-women-historytopics.html
“Women Contribute to the Commercial and Social Development of Chicago,
1790- 1860”; “Women and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871”; “Women and Wage
Labor” and “Middle Class Women Advance A Reform Agenda For The City”
Week 2
2/22
Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age: 1865-1905
(pp. 99-110; 114-122)
(The following list comprises mini-speeches by Lucy Parsons)
Lucy Parson’s Excerpts: “The Negative of Government”; “A Stroll Through the
Streets of Chicago”; “The Haymarket Meeting: A Graphic Description”;
“What Anarchy Means”; “Our Label: The IWW Label”; “The Importance of A
Press”
Week 3 (RE) Renée Rosen, What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age
2/29 Response Essay Due
Week 4
3/7
Cont. Renée Rosen, What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the
Gilded Age
How to Use: Janet Thomas Greenwood’s The Gilded Age: A History in
Documents
Week 5
• Jane Addams, “A Decade of Economic Discussion in Twelve Years at Hull
House”
(original publ., 1910; New York: Penguin, 1961), pp. 138-147. Jane
Addams, “A Decade of Economic Discussion in Twelve Years at Hull House
3/14
•Ellen Skerrett, “The Irish of Chicago’s Hull-House Neighborhood.”
•Patricia Kelleher, “Maternal Strategies: Irish Women’s Headship of Families in
Gilded Age Chicago”
•Natalie Walker, “Chicago Housing Conditions X: Greeks and Italians in the
Neighborhood of Hull House.” The American Journal of Sociology 21, no. 3. (Nov.
1915): 285-316. Call # H 07 .033. Also available in the library through
JSTOR.
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(origina
Week 6 (PSA) Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Women and Economics”;
3/21
Kathy Peiss, “‘Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working-class
Sexuality, 1880-1920”; Edward O’Donnell,
“Women as Bread Winners—The Error of the Age (1887)”
Primary Source Analysis Due
Week 7 (RE) Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the
3/28
Victorian Department Store (Chapters 1, 2, 6 & 7)
2nd Response Essay Due
Week 8
4/4
Theordore Dreiser, Sister Carrie pp. 1-89
Week 9
4/11
Theordore Dreiser, Sister Carrie pp. 90-End.
Week 10 (R)
4/18
Christopher Robert Reed, “Gilded-Age Chicago, 1880-1892,” in Black Chicago’s
First Century pp. 228-336.
Micah Childress, “Life Beyond the Big Top: African American and Female
Circusfolk, 1860-1920.”
Review Due
Week 11
4/25
Women & the Arts and Crafts Movement in Chicago, 1880-1910
Primary Sources, Kalo Arts and Crafts Community House
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Assessed outcomes:
This course has been designed to facilitate and assess your mastery of the
following outcomes:
1.Ability to evaluate the various components of a work of academic scholarship (thesis, argument,
evidence, significance to historiography) and communicate these findings in an informal written
form and in small group discussions.
2. Ability to interpret a work of historical fiction within its historical context and communicate
these findings in an informal written form and in small group and class discussions.
3. Ability to make connections among course readings and sources and develop original analyses
about their collective historical significance and communicate these findings.
4. Understanding of the critical analytical tools, main themes, and essential content of US women's
history as emphasized in this course, including the complexity of relations among different cultural
groups of women and the role these complex relations play in determining women's status and
power within the dominant social order.
5. Ability to bring together the above outcomes in order to communicate them as an argumentative
analytical essay.
Unassessed outcomes:
Additional outcomes that you might achieve, but which will not be
assessed, include: 1. Understanding of the complexity of the relationships between different
cultural groups and the ways in which imbalances of power bear upon these relationships (as seen
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through the social history of Chicago under examination in this seminar).
2. Appreciation for the importance of women's history as a lens through which to examine US
history.
3. Appreciation for the ways that an understanding of history can shed light on contemporary
issues.
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