Dr. Karin Zipf
Office Hours: By Appt.
Email: zipfk@ecu.edu
Office: Brewster A-219
Telephone: 328-1024
web site: http://core.ecu.edu/hist/zipfk
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 participation
Papers
ID Quiz
Cumulative Essays Final Exam
10%
45%(15% each)
15%
30%
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: East Carolina University 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:
Jan. 11&13
Introduction: History in Gender Perspective
Terms
Method
Sexual Politics
Reading:
Website:
Week 2:
Jan. 18&20
Frontier Diversity
Native American
European
African American
Reading:
Website:
Week 3:
Jan. 25&27
Jane Sherron De Hart and Linda K. Kerber
“Introduction: Gender and the New Women’s
History,” pps. 3-24
On Blackboard
“Talking About Women’s History,” [AUDIO]
How do you interpret this image?.
DuBois, ch. 1
Perdue, Cherokee Women, chapter 1 on Blackboard
Origins of Slavery
Native American Beadwork
http://www.nativetech.org/beadwork/beadwork.htm
l
Colonial Law and Household Relations
Religion
Witchcraft
Marriage
Property
Reading:
Website:
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
UMC Famous Trials Witchcraft Website
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/sal
em/salem.htm
Week 4:
Feb. 1&3
Revolution and Constitution
Independence
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
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/b
ooks/book_01.cfm
Godey’s Ladies Book fashion plates
Week 5:
Feb. 8&10
Industrialization
Mill Women
Labor Conflict
Women’s Sphere
Reading:
Website:
Week 6:
Feb. 15&17
Skinner, ch. 3
DuBois, ch. 3
“Uses of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill
Girls”
www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lave
nder/start.html
Benevolence and Reform
Middle 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.
http://alexanderstreet6.com/WASM/wasm.results.d
oclists.asp?orgdisscode=org0003314&output=conc
Mary Reynolds, “Oral History of Her Days as a
Slave”
http://gos.sbc.edu/r/reynolds.html
North American Slave Narratives
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh
Currier & Ives: Portraits of the “Happy Family”
http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/currierives/happy
.htm
Assignment: Paper 1 due February 17
Week 7:
Feb. 22&24
Origins of Women’s Rights
Seneca Falls
Declaration of Sentiments
15th Amendment
NWSA & AWSA
Reading:
Slide Show:
Websites:
Exercise:
Skinner, ch. 5
DuBois, pps. 202-228, 236-251
Women’s Rights Movement – First Wave
The Trial of Susan B. Anthony
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/anthony/
sbahome.html
How do you interpret this image?
Writing Lab, February 22
MARCH 2
LAST DAY TO DROP COURSE
Week 8:
March 1&3
Civil War Women and Reconstruction
Homefront
Women and Industry
Black Women
Picking up the Pieces
Reading:
Slide Show:
Website:
Skinner, ch. 6
DuBois, pps. 228-236, 251-269, and ch. 5
Women and the Civil War
Hearts at Home: Southern Women in the Civil War
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/hearts/
The Letter of "Miss Mollie E.," September 9, 1864,
"Mr Abram Lincen"
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the
American Civil War
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
Dawes Act, 1887
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives
/eight/dawes.htm
MARCH 6-13
SPRING BREAK
Week 9:
March 15&17
Manliness, Womanliness and Civilization
Jim Crow
Imperialism
Lynching
Reading:
Websites:
Exercise:
Week 10:
March 22&24
Skinner, ch. 7
1898: Wilmington, North Carolina
http://www.listeningbetweenthelines.org/html/ddrw.
html
Pauline E. Hopkins, “Ch. 8: The Sewing Circle,”
from Contending Forces, 1900
“You Don’t Know Me:” Georgia Sutton & Olivia
Cherry
http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/reme
mbering/resistance.html
“Big House/Little House:” Ann Pointer & Otis
Pinkard
http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/reme
mbering/danger.html
“Black People’s Day:” Charles Gratton, Ann
Pointer, Amelia Robinson
http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/reme
mbering/bitter.html
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/themap/map.html
“Anti-Negro Cartoon” from the Raleigh News and
Observer, 1900
http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/imageapp.php?Maj
or=BA&Minor=G&SlideNum=28.00
ID Quiz, March 17
Progressivism
Protective Legislaton
Women’s Suffrage
Origins of Welfare
Reading:
Exercise:
Skinner, chs. 8&9, and pps. 182-183
DuBois, chs. 6&7
Women’s Suffrage Debate, March 24
Assignment: Handout due, March 24
Website:
The Triangle Factory Fire
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
“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
http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/gallery/aresty/
aresty8.html
Gunnar Almgren, et.al. article
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?Did=0000000521
78430&Fmt=4&Deli=1&Mtd=1&Idx=1&Sid=1&R
QT=309
Week 11:
March 29&31
Sexuality and Reproduction
Birth Control
Abortion
ERA
Reading:
Skinner, ch. 10
DuBois, pps. 481-497&519-526
Comstock Law, 1873
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
Margaret Sanger, “What Every Girl Should Know”
1920
http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/AmRad/whateverygirl1920.pdf
Birth Control Pills and Black Children
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/poor/
“I Limited My Own Family”: Memoir of a 1920s
Birth Control Activist
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/116/ (Audio)
“A Less Reliable Form of Birth Control”: Miriam
Allen deFord Describes Her Introduction to
Contraception in 1914
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/93/ (Audio)
Assignment: Paper 2 due March 31
Website:
Conversations with Alice Paul: The Equal Rights
Amendment
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt6f59n89c
Week 12:
April 5&7
Great Depression and Hard Times
Labor
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
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/women.ht
ml
Eleanor Roosevelt: in her own words
on her DAR resignation
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/sfea
ture/md_ri_01.html
on women
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/sfea
ture/md_wi_02.html
on the ERA
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/sfea
ture/md_wi_05.html
Week 13:
April 12&14
World War II and the Origins of Feminism
Japanese-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
www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html
Powers of Persuasion: World War II Posters
www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-posters
“Working-Class Feminism: The Other Women’s
Movement”
Scroll down and click on June 8, 2000 – Segment 1
Betty Friedan on C-Span
http://www.americanwriters.org/classroom/videolesson/vlp37_friedan.asp
Porn Movie Screening: Academic Freedom vs.
Censorship? The Washington Post, April 6, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/discussion/2009/04/06/DI20090406017
46.html?hpid=discussions
Friedan, "The Problem That Has No Name," chapter
1 of The Feminine Mystique
http://www.hnet.org/~hst203/documents/friedan1.html
Week 14 &15:
April 19&21
Sexual Revolution and Social Protest
ERA
Title IX
Roe vs. Wade
Lesbianism
Reading:
Skinner, chs. 14&15
DuBois, chs. 9&10
Website:
National Organization of Women: 1960’s
Documents
http://www.feminist.org/research/chronicles/early3.
html
Vacuum Aspiration Abortion
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/abortion/
Radicalesbians: The Woman-Identified Woman
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/womid/
Exercise:
ERA Debate April 21
Assignment: Handout due April 21
FINAL ESSAYS EXAM:
Section 1: Monday May 3, 8:00am-10:30am
(Paper 3 is due!)