IMPORTANT REFERENCE WORKS:
All students should acquaint themselves with these works, which can be found in the Library Reference Room:
(NAW) Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (3 volumes) &
         Notable American Women: The Modern Period, 1950-1975
(BWA) Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia(2 volumes)
Names of some of the women whose biographies can be found in these works are listed on the syllabus below

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Course Description

This course surveys the history of women in the United States from pre-Columbian times to the present.  The course emphasizes social, political, and economic history, and is as inclusive as possible in coverage.  Although students will learn something about notable individuals and "famous firsts," the bulk of course time is devoted to studying the history of ordinary women, in all their variety, complexity, and diversity.  Course readings combine primary documents with secondary works by historians.

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Course Requirements

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
     1) Attendance: Students are expected to attend class and to participate in class discussion.  More than five unexcused absences will be cause for reduction of a student's grade.  In accordance with University policy, any student who misses the first three classes of the semester may be dropped.

     2) Exams: There will be two essay exams, a take-home midterm and an in-class, open-book  final, based on lectures and readings.  Guidelines will be handed out in class.  Exam dates are listed on the syllabus.

     3) Short Reports: There will be three short reports, based primarily on course readings (including lecture handouts and visuals). They will consist of the following: 1) A take-home quiz due September 20; 2) an article report; 3) a document explanation.  All students will do the take-home quiz; reports #2 & 3 will be due at different times during the semester, according to a sign-up sheet handed out in class.

     4) Book analysis: Each student will write a 4-5 page analytical essay based on either the Jacobs or the Moody book, plus relevant assigned readings.  Guidelines will be handed out in class.  Students in Section 80 will have the opportunity to work on research papers instead of the book analysis.

     5) "Field Trips": Each student will take two "field trips" outside of class by attending one event related to women's history or women's issues and visiting one Web Site linked to the syllabus.  For each field trip,  write a two-paragraph summary (one paragraph describing the event, one paragraph indication your reactions to it) and hand it in to me as soon after the trip as possible.  I will check off your "field trip" summaries in my gradebook, but I will not assign formal grades to them.

    Suggested "field trips":  Any lecture in the "Research on Women" series (Wednesdays, 12:20-1:10 pm, 103 Gore Hall).
    Any event during Sexual Assault Awareness Week.
    The following  lecture in the History Workshop Series (Tuesdays, 12:30-1:45 p.m., 203 Munroe Hall): "Music in the Air: Reconstructing the Life of Rosetta Tharpe," with Gayle Wald of George Washington University, Tuesday, September 21.

   As other events become available, I will e-mail the entire class with the information.

CLASSROOM DECORUM: As a courtesy to other students and to me, and to avoid disrupting the class, please arrive on time.  If you absolutely must leave early, please let me know, then sit near the door.  PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND PAGERS BEFORE CLASS STARTS.  I expect all students to be familiar with the policy on academic honesty found in the Student Handbook, particularly the definition of plagiarism and the rules one must follow when quoting from and citing others' work (including work posted on the Internet).  If you are in doubt about any course requirement, please consult me before attempting to complete it.
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Additional Resources

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
     1) Movies of the Week: For everyone's information, the syllabus lists "Movies of the Week," films (mostly documentaries) related to women's history that we will view in class (in full or in part).
There are many films on women's history; if you would like a list of those related to U.S. women's history, please be sure to ask me.
     2) Related Web Sites: The syllabus includes links to some excellent web sites related to Women's History topics.  These are to be sources for your second field trip, as well additional information and intellectual enrichment.  For general information on women's history and sources of books and curricular materials designed for grades K-12, check out the National Women's History Project Site: <www.nwhp.org>.  The National Museum of Women's History is a good resource for general audiences: <www.nmwh.org>

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Grading

GRADING:  (These are merely guidelines; I also give credit for significant participation in class discussion and for intangibles such as improvement.)  The midterm exam counts 25%; the final exam counts 20%; the short reports count 10% each; the book analysis counts 20%; the "field trips" and class participation count 5%.
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Class Schedule

                                                          CLASS SCHEDULE
Below is a week-by-week listing of lecture topics and assignments; it is not written in stone, however, and may change if either interest or necessity dictates a change.

Sept.     Course introduction; background to colonization
1-3       Assignment: Women's America, pp. 1-45
         NAW: Pocahontas, Mary Rowlandson, Mary Brant, Mary Musgrove, Catherine Tekakwitha, Coincoin

Sept.      Colonization & colonial life
8-10       Assignment: Women's America, pp. 45-78, 97-113
         NAW, BWA: Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Brent, Jane Colden, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Katharine Goddard, Sarah Kemble Knight, Margaret Winthrop, Maria Van Rensselaer

         Related Web Site: Understanding Slavery: The Lives of 18th-Century African Americans
        <www.sciway.net/hist/chicora/slavery18.html>

Sept.      The American Revolution & After
13-17     Assignment: Women's America, pp. 114-127, 153-192
         NAW, BWA:  Abigail Adams, Judith Sargent Murray, Betsy Ross, Deborah Franklin, Deborah Sampson, Phillis Wheatley, Catharine Beecher, Mary Lyon, Sarah Josepha Hale, Elizabeth Blackwell, Emma Hart Willard, Mary Edmonia Lewis

         Movie of the Week: "A Midwife's Tale"

         Related Web Site: Martha Ballard's Diary
        <http://www.dohistory.org>
        Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia
         www.ushistory.org/betsy

**Report #1 -- Take-home quiz due at 10:10 Monday, September 20

Sept.        Free Women in Industrializing America
20-24      Assignment: Women's America, pp. 129-131, 145-152
                         Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, introduction & Chapters 1-30
           NAW, BWA: Catharine Beecher, Mary Lyon, Sarah Josepha Hale, Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Edmonia Lewis, Lydia H. Sigourney, Emma Hart Willard, Isabella Graham, Joanna Graham Bethune, Henrietta Regulus Ray, Marie Zakrzewska, Lucy Larcom

Sept. 27-    Enslaved Women
Oct. 1      Assignment: Women's America, pp. 132-145, 218-219
                       Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Chapters 31-41
         NAW, BWA:  Sarah Mapps Douglass, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Sarah Grimke, Angelina Grimke Weld, Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Keckley, Susie King Taylor, Sojourner Truth
 

         Related Web Sites:  Harriet Jacobs Papers
        <http://www.harrietjacobspapers.org>
        Schomburg Library African American Women Writers
         digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/toc.html
 

**Jacobs book analysis due at 10:10 am Monday, October 4

Oct.     Reform, Antislavery, & Women's Rights
4-8    Assignment: Women's America, pp. 193-217,
         NAW, BWA: Abigail Scott Duniway, Abby Kelley Foster,   Lucretia Mott, Henrietta Ray, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charlotte Forten Grimke

         Related Web Sites: Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers
        <http://adh.sc.edu>
        Legacy 98 (Seneca Falls Convention)
         www.legacy98.org

        Movie of the Week: "Hearts and Hands," Part I
 

Oct.    Women's Work, Education, Organizations, 1860-1900
11-15    Assignment: Women's America, pp. 220-252, 265-296
            NAW, BWA: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Anna Julia Cooper, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Mary Gove Nichols, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, M. Carey Thomas, Frances Willard, Frances E.W. Harper, Charlotte Ray, Maggie Lena Walker, Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), Susan Lafleshe Picotte, Charlotte Hawkins Brown

            Movie of the Week: "Hearts and Hands," Part II

**Mid-term Take-Home Exam due at 10:10 am Monday October 18

Oct.     Women and Public Policy, 1890-1920
18-22   Assignment: Women's America, pp. 297-357
                                    Bold Spirit (section 80 only)

 NAW, BWA: Jane Addams, Nannie Burroughs,  Alice Hamilton, Lugenia Burns Hope, Florence Kelley,  Ellen Richards,  Lillian Wald, Sarah Breedlove Walker, Pauline Newman

         Movie of the Week: "The Women of Hull House"

         Related Web Sites: Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire
         www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
       Madam C. J. Walker site
        www.madamcjwalker.com
          Schomburg Library African American Women Writers
         digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/toc.html
         Hull House Site
         www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html

Oct.       Feminism and Suffrage, 1890-1920
25-29     Assignment: Women's America, pp. 358-389
         NAW, BWA: Margaret Anderson, Alva Belmont, Lucy Burns, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Mary Church Terrell , Anna Howard Shaw, Margaret Sanger, Crystal Eastman

         Related Web Sites: Emma Goldman Papers
         sunsite.berkeley.edu/goldman
                "Votes for Women" site
                memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html
                "Women Suffrage & 19th Amendment" site
         www.nara.gov/education/teaching/woman/home.html
            "American Women and Politics" site
             www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cawp
            Margaret Sanger Papers
         "Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930"
 

Nov.    After Suffrage
1-5       Assignment: Women's America, pp. 379-410
 
         NAW, BWA: Jessie Daniel Ames, Marian Anderson, Mary McLeod Bethune, Irene Castle, Josephine Herbst, Zora Neale Hurston, Crystal Fauset,  Mary Anderson, Mary Heaton Vorse

        Movie of the Week: "Grand Hotel"

         Related Web Site: Suffragist Oral History Project
         library.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/ohonline/suffragists.html
 

Nov.     Depression and Wartime America
8-12    Assignment: Women's America, pp. 423-477
                      Coming of Age in Mississippi, Part I
                        Becoming American, pp. 138-145, 198-209

         NAW, BWA: Blanche Ames, Mary Anderson, Mary Dewson, Eleanor Roosevelt,  Lena Levine, Rose Pesotta, Rose Schneiderman, Mary Van Kleeck,

         Movies of the Week:  "Glamour Girls of 1943" & "Mitsuye and Nellie"

         Related Web Sites: Japanese internment exhibits
        www.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/harmony
         www.nps.gov/manz
         www.geocities.com/Athens/8420/main.html
 

Nov.    Postwar America & The Revival of Feminism
15-19   Assignment: Women's America, pp. 479-517, 532-546
                    Coming of Age in Mississippi, Parts 2-4
                    Becoming American, pp. 176-186
 
         BWA: Pauli Murray, Shirley Chisholm, Rubye Doris Smith Robinson

           Movie of the Week: "Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement"
 
         Related Web Sites:     Adoption History Project
            <http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption>
        Rosa Parks Library and Museum
            <http://www.tsum.edu/museum>

**Moody Book Analysis due at 10:10 am Monday, November 22

Nov.    Women, Work, and Families, 1945-2004
22-24    Assignment: Women's America, pp. 546-597, 657-660, 682-691
                                        Becoming American, introduction & pp. 1-11, 21-44, 76-84, 113-125

         Related Web Sites: National Organization for Women
         www.now.org
                 National Committee on Pay Equity
         www.feminist.com/fairpay
                 Gender Equity in Sports
        <http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/>
                  Chicago Women's Liberation Union History
        <http://www.cwluherstory.org>
                    Duke University Library "Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement"
        <http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm>

(Thanksgiving Holiday, Friday, November 26)

Nov. 29-    Recent Women's History
Dec. 3       Assignment: Women's America, pp. 598-656
                                        Becoming American, pp. 12-20, 68-75, 85-103

         Related Web Sites:
              National Women's Political Caucus
         www.nwpc.org
              Feminist Majority Foundation
         www.feminist.org
              Women Watch (UN Activities on Women)
         www.un.org/womenwatch/

Dec.    Looking to the Future
6-8        Assignment: Women's America, pp. 664-676, 691-704

**Final Exam (in-class, open-book, open note) Friday, December 17, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
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