This course explores the social, political and economic histories of different racial, ethnic, religious and cultural groups of women to develop an understanding of the varieties of womanhood in nineteenth-century America. We investigate at women on and of  "the middle ground"--the rapidly changing geographic, social, political and economic terrain of the  nineteenth-century  United States--and the areas that became part of the United States, seeing both differences and similarities in several ethnic and racial communities.  We examine women as subjects and as agents, as conservators of culture and as mediators within and between communities and identities. Women, through work and family, kinship and sexual congress, both forced and chosen, inherited and forged racial and ethnic identities ; they  both adapted to changing work and resisted new forms; they sustained "private" worlds and sought public identities as citizens. We follow all these themes as we explore how nineteenth-century American women made history although not always under conditions of their own choosing.

Books to Purchase:
 

• Thomas Dublin, ed., Farm to Factory:  Women's Letters, 1830-1860
• Louise Michele Newman, White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States

Recommended purchases

• Nancy Cott, ed., No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States
• Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939

Course Requirements:
 

• Class Participation: you are expected to do the assigned reading and come to class prepared to participate based on your understanding of the reading.
• Class Attendance: You cannot participate in class if you are not present.  Absence without notification will be noted, and grades will be adjusted accordingly.
• Short Paper and Class Presentation Due: Tuesday, February 20
• Short Paper and Class Presentation Due: Tuesday, March 2
• Guided Primary Source Paper (List of topics will be distributed in class):
  • Research Prospectus Due: April 19 Click here for instructions.
  • Paper Due: May 3 Click here for instructions.
• Take Home Final Exam: Scheduled for Examination Period

Further detailed instructions on writing assignments and  primary source paper will be distributed in class and posted on the web.

Please Note: Many of the reading assignments for this course are available through ERES (electronic reserve).  Students will access ERES at www.oberlin.edu/eres/The password for this site will be provided to students in the class.
 

Tuesday, February 5	Introduction: The course, the syllabus and the assignments Video: "A Midwife's Tale," part one You may wish to study the website created in conjunction with this video. It is available at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/midwife/
Thursday, February 7	Video  "A Midwife's Tale,"  part two Discussion: A White Woman on the Frontier of the Early Republic: Roles, Responsibilities and Historical Context

 
 

Tuesday, February 13

Challenging the "New England Approach" to Nineteenth-Century American Women's History: the Strengths and Limits of the "Cult of Domesticity."

Thursday, February 15

Reading Assignments Michael Goldberg, "Breaking New Ground," pp. 179-209  in Nancy Cott, ed., No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) ERES and Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume  II, Part III, Chapters 9-12 , ("Influence of Democracy on the Family;" "Education of Girls;" "The Young Woman as Wife," and "How Equality Helps to Maintain Good Morals in America."   This assignment is available on line.  Go to http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/toc_indx.html, then click on the appropriate chapters. Discuss: what particular characteristics of women most impressed the French conservative social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville?  To what communities did his observations refer?  What can we learn from Tocqueville's observations

Tuesday, February 20

Native American Women and their Middle Ground: The Recreation of Cultures Please read: Richard Godbeer, "Eroticizing the Middle Ground: Anglo-Indian Relations along the Eighteenthy-Century Frontier," pp. 91-1111 in Martha Hodes, ed., Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History (NYU Press, 1999) AND at least one of the following:  Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, "Autonomy and the Economic Roles of Indian Women of the Fox-Wisconsin River Region, 1763-1832," pp. 72-89 in Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (Routledge, 1995) Theda Perdue, "Women, Men and American Indian Policy: The Cherokee Response to 'Civilization,'" pp. 90-114 in Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (Routledge, 1995) Claudia Sue Kidwell, "Choctaw Women and Cultural Persistence in Mississippi," pp. 115-134 in Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (Routledge, 1995) Optional reading:  John Demos, "The Tried and the True: Native American Women Confronting Colonization," pp. 3-50 in Nancy Cott, ed., No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) ERES Assignment: write a short (2-3 page) summary of the additional article you read.  Include some way in which your additional article relates to the Godbeer article.  In your concluding paragraph,  set out at least two points you think are critical to share with the class about this article, and at least two questions you think it raises that are worth discussing with the class.  Your paper is due in class.

Thursday, February 22

Southwestern Women:  Latinos. Mestizos and Native Americans before United States Conquest Goldberg, "Breaking New Ground," pp. 209-214 in Cott, No Small Courage  ERES Reading (optional but recommended): Antonia I. Castaneda, "Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848," pp. 230-259 in Ramon Gutierrez and Richard Orsi, eds., Contested Eden: California Before the Gold Rush (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

 
 

Tuesday, February 27

An Introduction to Women in the  Southeast: Mistresses, Enslaved Women, Family, Economy and Sexuality

Thursday, March 1

Exploring the Contours of Southern Women's History Before the Civil War: White  women's experiences Reading:  Joan E. Cashin, "According to His Wish and Desire: Female Kin and Female Slaves in Planter Wills,"  pp. 91-119 in Christie Anne Farnham, ed., Women of the American South: A Multicultural Reader (New York: NYU Press, 1997)  AND Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "Family and Female Identity int he Antebellum South: Sarah Gayle and Her Family," pp. 15-31 and pp. 268-272 in Carol Bleser, ed., In Joy and In Sorrow: Women, Family, and Marriage in the Victorian South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

 
 

Tuesday, March 6

Exploring the Contours of Southern Women's History before the Civil War: African American women's history Required Reading:  Deborah Gray White, "The Nature of Female Slavery," pp. 62-90 and 199-208 Chapter Two  (and notes) in Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, revised edition (New York: Norton, 1999).    Also choose one of the following: Wilma King, "'Suffer With Them till Death': Slave Women and their Children in Nineteenth-Century America," pp. 147-168 in David Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996) or Brenda Stevenson, "Gender Convention, Ideals, and Identity Among Antebellum Virginia Slave Women, pp. 169-190 in David Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996)   Assignment: write a short (2-3 page) summary of the additional article you read.  Include some way in which your additional article relates to the White reading.  In your concluding paragraph,  set out at least two points you think are critical to share with the class about this article, and at least two questions you think it raises that are worth discussing with the class.  Your paper is due in class.

Thursday, March 8

Transformation of the Northern Economy: Ladies, Mill Girls  and the Industrialization in New England

Tuesday, March 13	Assigned Reading:  Thomas Dublin, ed., Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860 (entire).
Thursday, March 15	Working Class Women in Northern Cities

Tuesday, March 20

Free African American Women of the North:  Reading:  James Oliver Horton: "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks," Feminist Studies 12(Spring 1986): 52-76 AND  Leslie M. Harris, "From Abolitionist Amalgamators to 'Rulers of the Five Points': The Discourse of Interracial Sex and Reform in Antebellum New York City," pp. 191-212 in Martha Hodes, ed., Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History (NYU Press, 1999)

Thursday, March 22

The Meaning of Seneca Falls Harriet Sigerman, "An Unfinished Battle: 1848-1865," pp. 237-288, in Nancy Cott, ed., No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) ERES

 
 
 

Tuesday, April 3

Marriage, Property Rights, and the Meaning of Freedom after the Civil War  Discussion of Primary Document Paper. For more information click here.

Thursday, April 5

Reading:  Harriet Sigerman, "Laborers for Liberty," pp. 289-327 in Nancy Cott, ed.,  No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) ERES Elsa Barkley Brown, "To Catch a Vision of Freedom: Reconstructing Southern Black Women's Political History, 1865-1890, " pp. 124-146 in Vicki Ruiz and Ellen DuBois, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2000) Darlene Clark Hine and Christie Ann Farnham, "Black Women's Culture of Resistance and the Right To Vote," pp. 204-219 in Christie Anne Farnham, ed., Women of the American South: A Multicultural Reader (New York: NYU Press, 1997)

 
 

Tuesday, April 10

Library session for Document Paper Prospectus Due. For the prospectus assignment click here.

Thursday, April 12

Relations of Rescue Reading:   Peggy Pascoe, Chapters 1,2, and 4 (pp. 3-69  and pp. 112-145, with notes on pp. 221-239 and pp. 248-254) in Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). and (optional) Devon A. Mihesuah, "'Too Dark to Be Angels': The Class System Among the Cherokees at the Female Seminary," pp. 183-196 in Vicki Ruiz and Ellen DuBois, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2000)

Tuesday, April 17

Urban Immigrant Women: Gender, Ethnicity and Race Reading: Maria Anna Knothe, "Recent Arrivals: Polish Immigrant Women's Response to the City," pp. 299-338 in Christiane Harzig, ed., Peasant Maids--City Women: From the European Countryside to Urban America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997) AND Jane Addams, "Immigrants and Their Children," Chapter 11 in Twenty Years at Hull House (originally published in 1910; please use the link to read this selection on line). OPTIONAL: Jane Addams, "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements," Chapter 6 in Twenty Years at Hull House (originally published in 1910; please use the link to read this selection on line.).

Thursday, April 19

Public and Private: Suffrage, Citizenship and Marriage

Tuesday, April 24	Video, "Not for Ourselves Alone,"  Part I You may wish to study the website created to accompany this video. It is available at: http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/
Thursday, April 26	Video, "Not for Ourselves Alone," Part II

Tuesday, May 1	Special Guest Lecture
Thursday, May 3	Primary Source Assignment Due. For more information click here.

 
 

Tuesday, May 8	Gender, Race and Suffrage Reading:  Louise Michele Newman, White Women's Rights: the Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States.  entire.
Thursday, May 10	Final class: Distribution of Final Exam

You will take your take-home exam during during any two consecutive hours up  the two hour block in which the final exam is scheduled.  If you do not hand in your exam before the beginning of the scheduled examinatino time, you MUST take the exam in the roon scheduled for the exam during the examination time.