HIST 283/GWS 283: Women in U.S., 1848-present
Winter 2014 T/TH CRN 30859 (HIST) and CRN 30876 (GWS)
Course Description: This is a course about the history of women in the U.S. from 1848 to the present.
We will explore several themes in this course. We will look at the ways work and the sexual division
of labor influenced the experiences of women in the United States. We will examine the way gender
roles, race, and sexuality found their ways into institutions, laws, and policies to maintain women’s
subordination in society. We will also investigate the role of family and personal life in the lives of
women. In all of these areas, we will reconstruct the ways women have banded together in
influencing their position and status in society, especially in relation to the political values and
practices of democracy, equality, and justice.
Professor John Baranski
Phone: 970.247.7269; email: baranski_j@fortlewis.edu
Office and office hours: Noble #211, Tues. and Thurs. 10:10am to 12:10pm, or by appointment
Required reading:
Ellen Carol DuBois & Lynn Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes 3rd edition
Mary Beth Norton and Ruth Alexander, Major Problems in Women’s History 4th edition
bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
Course requirements: Midterm (20%), research paper (30%) final (25%), and attendance, participation, and quizzes
(25%). You must do all assignments to pass the class. Extra credit is not available. Plagiarism will be punished at the
administrative level. The attendance policy is as follows: 3 absences will lower your grade by 2/3rds; 4 absences one full
grade; 5 absences 2 full grades; 6 absences 3 full grades; and 7 absences will generate an F for the course. For example, if
your work adds up to a B+ and you miss 5 classes you will receive a D+. Showing up late will produce a half absence. No
exceptions.
Technology statement: There are no electronic devices allowed in class. Penalty for violating this policy will be a marked
absence for that day. See attendance policy for the implications of this.
Attention History Majors: All majors must complete a portfolio with samples of your coursework (papers, presentations,
etc.). Please keep examples of your work from this class in a safe place for your portfolio. To learn more about the
portfolio, please visit the department's website or speak with a history faculty member.
Accessibility and Disability Concerns Statement: Students with disabilities have equal access and equal opportunity in
this course. If you require reasonable accommodations to participate fully in course activities or meet course requirements,
you must register with Disability Services, 280 Noble Hall, 247-7459 and bring your letter of accommodation to me.
Goals and Learning Outcomes: (course, dept/program, college, and state expectations)
1) Students will become familiar with the major people, events, philosophies, and settings that influenced
women from 1848 to present.
2) Students will explore how gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, class, and other identity categories impacted
American women’s historical experiences.
3) Students will learn to conduct basic primary and secondary source analysis.
4) By studying American women’s history, students will understand how inequality in many arenas of
American life are historically rooted and how women empowered themselves to overcome these obstacles.
5) Students will begin to be able to apply empirical and normative theories from multiple disciplines to analyze
how gender intersects with other identity positions in contemporary political, social, cultural, and economic
arenas to create disparities in power and opportunity.
6) Students will analyze how gender operates across historical eras and landscapes.
7) Students will engage in the process of analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating information on gender.
8) Students will understand the complex epistemological challenges involved in studying history.
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9) Students will appreciate that a historical understanding of the human experience can contribute in vital ways
to a responsible and reflective life as an engaged citizen in a rapidly changing and increasingly integrated
world.
10) Students will learn to read effectively and comprehensively to understand historical assessments,
conclusions, and data.
11) Students will improve their reading skills—from learning how to effectively skim textbooks to close
analytical readings of primary documents.
12) Students will improve their writing skills by constructing argumentative essays and reviewing secondary
source material.
13) Since this is an H1 course, we will satisfy the expected criteria, including content knowledge, learn how to
analyze and interpret issues, understand diverse perspectives and groups, and develop competency in critical
thinking and in written communication.
14) As a GT Pathways course students will examine historical frameworks exploring important aspects of U.S.
culture, society, politics, economics or its position in the world. We will also explore historical frameworks that
compare achievements, issues, and characteristics of the world and its cultures.
15) Students will develop: a) knowledge of a chronological structured analysis of significant human experiences;
b) understanding of the interpretive and analytical methods that are necessary to build accounts of the past and
c) understanding that alternative analytical perspectives can create different narratives of the past.
Class Schedule
Week 1
Introduction to course
Theories, concepts, historiography of women in U.S. history
Readings: Norton & Alexander, preface & chapter 1 & DuBois & Dumenil, intro for students
Week 2
Theories, concepts, historiography
Antebellum America: Seneca Falls
Women and the civil war: dislocations and opportunities
Readings: Norton & Alexander, chapters 6 & 7
Week 3
Women and the civil war: mending the nation
Reconstruction: work and politics
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 6 & Norton and Alexander, chapter 8 (only essays)
Week 4
Reconstruction: laws and violence
Gilded Age: immigration, industrialization, urbanization, and western expansion
Readings: DuBois &Dumenil, chapter 6 & Norton &Alexander, chapters 9-10
Week 5
Gilded Age: immigration, industrialization, urbanization, and western expansion
Women’s work and lives in the west
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 7 & Norton and Alexander, chapters 9-10
Week 6
Midterm
Women progressives and radicals: from Hull House to Emma Goldman
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapters 7-8 & Norton & Alexander, chapters 9-10
Week 7
Women progressives and radicals: from Hull House to Emma Goldman
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Women in the 1920s: work and politics in the Jazz Age
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil & chapters 7-8, Norton & Alexander, chapter 11
Week 8
Women in the 1920s: work and politics in the Jazz Age
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 9 & Norton & Alexander, chapters 11
Week 9
The Great Depression, New Deal and WW II
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 9 & Norton & Alexander, chapter 12
Week 10
The Great Depression, New Deal and WW II
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 9 & Norton &Alexander, chapters 12-13
Week 11 Spring break, no classes.
Week 12
Beyond the Feminine Mystique: The Cold War, 1950s, and 1960s
Social movements of the long 1960
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 10 & Norton & Alexander, chapter 14
Week 13
Social movements of the long 1960s
Women’s movements
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapters 11-12 & Norton & Alexander, chapter 15
Research paper due on Wednesday at noon in my office
Week 14
Women’s movements
The 1980s and 1990s: immigration, politics, culture wars, and changing demographics
Readings: DuBois & Dumenil, chapter 12 & Norton & Alexander, chapter 16, hooks, first half
Week 15
The 1980s and 1990s: immigration, politics, culture wars, and changing demographics
Women and history today
Readings: hooks, second half
Final exam 2:15-4:15 Thursday finals week
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