History 277: U.S. Women 1700 to 1900
Barbara Steinson T TH 10:00 to 11:30
(This class will NOT be offered during the 2013-2014 AY)
History 277 in Spring 2013 will provide an introduction to crucial themes in the history of women’s experiences in North America from the last decades of the Eighteenth Century to the first decade of the Twentieth Century. The course will explore impacts on women of frontiers, religion, the American Revolution, the New Republic, industrialization, urbanization, slavery, the Civil War, and immigration, and popular culture. We will explore the history of childbirth and women’s health care, as well as changing gendered norms. Class, racial, and ethnic differences will be examined throughout the semester. The class will not survey all aspects of the history women in North America during the late Colonial period and the Nineteenth Century, and will concentrate on selected topics and regions. In addition to reading a variety of primary sources including journals, diary excerpts, and letters, we will study recent historical interpretations in essays, historical monographs, biographies, and documentaries.
Required readings for Spring 277 will be drawn from the following list (these are “semi-finalists/ final choices TBA):
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale:The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (1991)
Lori D. Ginzberg, Women in Antebellum Reform (2000)
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (original pub date 1861)
Laura Edwards, Scarlett Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (2004)
Nancy Grey Osterud, Bonds of Community: The Lives of Farm Women in Nineteenth Century New York (1991)
Tera Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War (Harvard, 1997)
Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn of the Century New York (1986)
There will also be required readings on the course MOODLE site and on other internet databases like JSTOR and the WOMEN AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS UNITED STATES WEBSITE.
For more information, contact Barbara Steinson, steinson@depauw.edu