Dr. Karin Zipf Office: Brewster A-309

Office Hours: TTh 2:00-4:00 pm Telephone: 328-1024

MW 10:00-11:00am web site: http://core.ecu.edu/hist/zipfk

Email: zipfk@mail.ecu.edu

HIS 3140

Fall 2002

Women in American History

Section 01: 11:00am-12:15pm, TTh, BD 103

Section 02: 12:30pm-1:45pm, TTh BD 103

Reading Assignments:

Kerber and De Hart, Women’s America: Refocusing the Past

Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

Bettleyoun, With My Own Eyes

Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

hooks, Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood

Reserve Materials

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 quizzes on notes, books, and website materials, write four papers, and complete a group presentation at the end of the semester.

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.

Pop Quizzes: Pop quizzes will measure students’ ability to absorb material. Pop quiz questions may come from lecture, texts, or websites. There will be NO MAKEUPS for pop quizzes. If you miss a pop quiz (e.g. Skip class or arrive late to class) you are OUT OF LUCK. It is in your best interest to come to class PREPARED.

Email: All students, staff and faculty at ECU have a university email account. Periodically the professor will send out comments, reminders, and helpful hints through university email. Students are responsible for checking their university email accounts regularly. Students who prefer to use another email address must have mail from their university account forwarded to the preferred address. To do so, call 328-6866.

Projects: In addition to attending lecture, students will write 4 papers and complete a group project.

Papers 1, 2, 4: Critical essays on assigned texts. Students will write three papers (4 pages each) on books read during the course of the semester. Paper 1 (on Mary Rowlandson), Paper 2 (on Susan Bordeaux Bettleyoun), and Paper 4 (on Betty Friedan) will present a key sentence or phrase (chosen by the student) from the relevant text and critically examine and analyze the author's intellectual motivations behind that sentence or phrase. 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.

Paper 3: Women’s suffrage debate. This paper concludes the students’ participation in a role-playing exercise. Students will assume the character of an individual who participated in the women’s suffrage debates of the early 20^th century. During one class period, we will participate in our own debate during which you will assume the personality and ideas of your assigned character. Afterwards, you will write a 3-5 page paper analyzing the primary issues debated.

Group Project: Group Presentation on bell hooks. During the semester, students will read bell hooks’ Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood and complete a group project that relates an aspect or theme of American society to the text. Themes will include religion, politics, money, law and crime, human nature, and sexuality. Students may choose to organize their information and analysis in the form of a portfolio, essay, or a website and they may choose to present their topic to the class in the form of a skit, game, debate, or other interactive exercise as approved by the professor.

Here is the grade distribution:

Class participation 10%

Papers 60%(15% each)

Quizzes 15%

Group Presentation 15%

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 and book chapters throughout the semester that are located in the library or available through the library web page. Two items are on reserve at the Reserve Desk. These items are Theda Perdue, chapter 1 (week 2) and Clinton and Silber, chapter 16 (week 8). 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. Gilliard vs. Craig and King vs. Smith (week 16) may be accessed by typing the citation at the Lexis/Nexis 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: Defining Women’s History

Aug. 22 Terms

Method

Sexual Politics

Reading: Kerber, Introduction

Website: Linda Gordon, “What’s New in Women’s History,”

http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/DRBR/gordon.html

Marion Anderson: A Life in Song

http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/gallery/anderson/index.html

Week 2: Diversity Among Colonial Women

Aug. 27&29 Native American

European

African American

Reading: Kerber, pps. 52-62

Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, pps. 1-60

Perdue, Cherokee Women, chapter 1

Website: Native American Beadwork

http://www.nativetech.org/beadwork/beadwork.html

September 3 STATE HOLIDAY MAKEUP DAY – attend Monday classes only

Week 3: Colonial Law and Household Relations

Sept. 5 Religion

Witchcraft

Marriage

Property

Reading: Kerber, pps. 49-52, 76-87

Rowlandson, pps. 63-112, 122-149

Website: DoHistory.org: A Midwife’s Tale

www.dohistory.org

Week 4: Revolution and Constitution

Sept. 10&12 Independence

Social Contract

Republican Motherhood

Reading: Kerber, pps. 107-120

Assignment: Paper 1 due September 10

Exercise: Writing Lab, September 12

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/cookbooks/image.cfm?TitleNo=1&image=001

How would you interpret this image?

Week 5: Slavery

Sept. 17&19 Colonial Slavery

Rape and Seduction

Family

Reading: Kerber, pps. 121-138

Website: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs)

http://docsouth.unc.edu/jacobs/jacobs.html

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/neh.html

Week 6: Frontier and Industrialization

Sept. 24&26 The West

Working Girls

Sexual Identity

Reading: Kerber, pps. 121-158

Website: Making It Their Own

http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/westweb/pages/women.html

October 2 LAST DAY TO DROP

Week 7: Origins of Women’s Rights

Oct. 1&3 Middle Class Women

Love and Ritual

Cult of Domesticity

Seneca Falls

Reading: Kerber, pps. 159-165, 168-213

Websites: The Trial of Susan B. Anthony

www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/anthony/sbahome.html

Currier & Ives: Portraits of the “Happy Family”

http://www.mcny.org/currierives/happy.htm

How do you interpret this image?

Week 8: Civil War Women and Reconstruction

Oct. 8&10 Homefront

Jefferson Davis

Apprenticeship

Reading: Kerber, pps. 214-246

Clinton, Divided Houses, chapter 16 (on Reserve)

Zipf, “Reconstructing ‘Free Woman’: African-American Women and Apprenticeship in Reconstruction North Carolina” Spring 2000.

(at Journal of Women’s History)

Bettelyoun, With My Own Eyes

Website: Hearts at Home: Southern Women in the Civil War

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/hearts/

The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/

October 12-15 FALL BREAK

Week 9: Manliness, Womanliness and Civilization

Oct. 17 Jim Crow

Imperialism

Lynching

Reading: Kerber, pps. 263-312

MacLean, “The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered,” (at J-STOR)

Assignment: Paper 2 due, October 17

Websites: “You Don’t Know Me:” Georgia Sutton & Olivia Cherry

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/resistance.html

“Big House/Little House:” Ann Pointer & Otis Pinkard

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/danger.html

“Black People’s Day:” Charles Gratton, Ann Pointer, Amelia Robinson

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/bitter.html

Jim Crow Photographs

www.lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/085_disc.html

Week 10: Progressivism

Oct. 22&24 Protective Legislaton

Women’s Suffrage

Origins of Welfare

Reading: Kerber, pps. 188-201, 312-354

Exercise: Writing Lab, October 22

Exercise: Women’s Suffrage Debate, October 24

Assignment: Handout due, October 24

Website: Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl

http://web.gsuc.cuny.edu/ashp/heaven/index.html

Household Words: Women Write From and For the Kitchen

http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/gallery/aresty/aresty8.html

Week 11: Sexuality and Reproduction

Oct. 29&31 Birth Control

Abortion

ERA

Reading: Kerber, pps. 373-386

Margaret Sanger, “A Plan For Peace,” 1932

http://www.africa2000.com/XNDX/xsanger.htm

“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)

Jacqueline Wolf, “’Mercenary Hirelings’ or ‘A Great Blessing?’: Doctors’ and Mothers’ Conflicted Perceptions of Wet Nurses, Chicago, 1871-1961” (NCLIVE)

Assignment: Paper 3 due October 29

Exercise: Writing Lab, October 31

Website: Conversations with Alice Paul: The Equal Rights Amendment

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu:2020/dynaweb/teiproj/oh/suffragists/paul/@Generic__BookView