HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES
21:512:274
Spring 2015
Class Location: Conklin 424
Class Meeting Times: Mondays, 2:30-3:50, and Wednesdays, 1:00-2:20
Dr. Beryl Satter
[email protected]
Office: 336 Conklin Hall
(973) 353-3900 (office) or 353-5410 (History Department)
Office Hours: Mondays, 4-5 p.m. and by appointment (I will be available after most
class sessions).
This course surveys the history of American women from 1880 to the present.
Topics covered include the women's club movements of the 1890s, turn-of-thecentury debates about sexuality, women's labor militancy in the 1910s, activism and
reaction in the 1920s, women's experience of the Great Depression, women and
World War II, the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Liberation Movement of the
1960s and 1970s, the 1980s backlash, and gender anxiety in the post-9/11 era.
Class Goals and Requirements
The course goals are first, to provide students with a clear sense of the history of
American women from 1880 to the present; second, to train students to critically
analyze primary documents as well as secondary sources; and third, to provide
students with a solid historical perspective that enables them to better analyze
contemporary struggles of American women.
Class Format
This class will be taught through lectures, class discussions and small group
exercises. Class exercises and discussions will focus on the readings and films listed
in the syllabus that follows. The exercises are intended to help you reach an
understanding of the meaning of the readings and films. Because of the central
place of discussion in the class, it is essential that you complete the assigned
readings by the date indicated on the syllabus.
Class Requirements
1) Attendance, careful reading of assigned texts by date indicated on syllabus, and
participation in class discussion.
2) Six short written responses to class readings (a.k.a. homework).
3) Midterm exam held on Monday, Feb. 23rd.
4) Essay, 5-7 pages (typed and double-spaced, approximately 250 works per
page), due on Monday, March 23.
5) Final exam (cumulative), on Monday, May 11, 3-6 p.m.
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Grading
Midterm..............................25%
Essay....................................30%
Final Exam.........................30%
Class Reading Responses (Homework)………15%
Participation: Will be taken into account when considering final grade.
How short, informal written responses to class readings (homework) will be graded
I will give you a question or series of questions for most class sessions. These
questions are intended to help you reflect on the assigned readings or films. I will
collect your written responses six times over the course of the semester. I will not
announce in advance when I will be collecting responses. This means that you must
always be ready to hand in your written response to class films or readings.
Responses can by either typed or handwritten. Late responses will not be accepted
(except in the case of excused absences).
Document Essay
You will be asked to write an essay responding to a question that I will give you
about a week before the essay is due. Answer the essay question by drawing closely
and exclusively on class readings.
Class Participation
Please bring an index card and pen to each class. At the start of the next class, I will
call on people randomly to read their question or thoughts about the previous
class’s readings and/or discussion. Everyone will hand in their cards after that
discussion. Please include your name and the date on the card. The cards will not
be graded, but count toward participation.
Items You Must Purchase
Most of the readings for this course are on Blackboard, under “Course Documents.”
Readings on Blackboard are marked with asterisks on the syllabus. One asterisk (*)
means that the reading is a secondary source. Two asterisks (**) means that the
reading is a primary source.
Also required are two books: Sara Evans, Born for Liberty, and Elaine Tyler May,
Homeward Bound. Both are available for purchase at New Jersey Books, 167
University Avenue (corner of University and Bleeker) and at the RU Bookstore. NJ
Book’s phone number is 973-624-5383. Both books are also on reserve at Dana
Library.
Attendance policy
Attendance is required. If you miss more than four classes, your grade will be lowered
by half a grade (from B+ to B, for example). If you miss more than six classes, your
grade will be lowered by one full grade. IMPORTANT: If you miss more than 8
classes, through any combination of excused or unexcused absences, you will not earn
credit for this course. Such students should withdraw from the class.
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Cell Phone Policy
If your cell phone goes off in class, you will be sent out of the classroom to turn it off.
You can come back into class after that, but you will be counted as "absent" for that day
(see above for policy on missing classes).
Late papers and exams
Papers and exams are due on the dates announced in class or indicated below. Unless
discussed with me in advance, late assignments will have their grades lowered.
Policy on Academic Integrity (Cheating and Plagiarism)
Rutgers University treats cheating and plagiarism as serious offenses. The standard
minimum penalties for students who cheat or plagiarize include failure of the
course, disciplinary probation, and a formal warning that further cheating will be
grounds for expulsion from the University.
Students with Disabilities
Students with disabilities, including learning disabilities, are advised to consult with the
Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, in Room 302, Robeson Center. Upon submission of
appropriate documentation, the Assistant Dean will arrange for necessary assistance and
accommodation to enable any self-identified disabled student to meet all course
requirements.
SYLLABUS
Wed. Jan. 21: Introduction
Sara Evans, Born for Liberty (hereafter "Evans") pp. 119-125
Mon. Jan. 26: The Struggles of Late Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Women
*David M. Katzman, “Seven Days a Week: Domestic Work,” pp 242-44
**”Doing Domestic Work” and Anonymous, “I Live a Treadmill Life” (1912),
in Lerner, Black Women in White America, pp. 226-229.
*Tera W. Hunter, “Domination and Resistance: The Politics of Wage
Household Labor in New South Atlanta,” Labor History, March 1, 1993, pp.
205-220
Evans, pp. 125-138.
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Wed. Jan. 28: Settlement Houses and the White Woman's Club Movement, 1890s1900s
** Frances Willard, “The Coming Brotherhood” (1892), pp. 317-324
**"Charlotte Perkins Stetson on the Effects of the Ballot on Mothers, 1890,
"Anna Garlin Spencer on the Effects of Women...," and "Jane Addams on the
Political Role...." pp. 256-260
**Rheta Childe Dorr, What Eight Million Women Want (1910), selections of
pp. 17-58.
**Grover Cleveland, "Woman's Mission and Woman's Clubs" (1905), pp. 158163
Evans, pp. 138-143
Mon. Feb. 2: FILM: "Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice"
**Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "Duty to Dependent Races" (1891), and Ida
Wells-Barnett, "U.S. Atrocities" (1892)
**”The Beginnings of the National Club Movement,” Margaret Murray
Washington, “The Beginnings of the National Club Movement,” Fannie
Barrier Williams, “The Ruffin Incident – 1900,” and “Club Activities,” pp. 440453.
**Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “Let There Be Justice” (1891) and “How To
Stop Lynching” (1894), pp. 194-195.
Evans, pp. 145-156
Wed. Feb. 4 : Black Women's Political Activism, 1890s-1900s
*Elsa Barkley Brown, "Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of
Saint Luke,” pp. 275-285
Anonymous, “A Colored Woman, However Respectable, is Lower than the
White Prostitute,” (1902), in Lerner, Black Women in White America, pp. 166168
*Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle
West: Preliminary Thoughts on the Culture of Dissemblance,” Signs 14
(Summer 1989)
Extra credit: Talk by Rosamond S. King, “The Most Homophobic Place on
Earth? Caribbean Myths and Realities,” Dana Room, 4th Floor Dana Library,
6-7:30 p.m. (refreshments provided).
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Mon. Feb. 9: Early Twentieth-Century Debates over Sexuality
**Frances Willard, diary entries (1861), and William Lee Howard,
"Effeminate Men, Masculine Women" (1900)\
*Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, Introduction, pp. 1-4;
selections of Chapter One, “The Loves of Women for Each Other”: selections
of Chapter Two, “A Worm in the Bud.”
*Blanche Wiesen Cook, "Female Support Networks and Political Activism,”
pp. 306-325
Wed. Feb. 11: "White Slavery"
*Kathy Peiss, "`Charity Girls' and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on
Working-Class Sexuality, 1880-1920," pp. 157-165
**Edward W. Sims, "The White Slave Trade of Today" in Ernest Bell, Fighting
the Traffic in Young Girls (1910), pp. 47-60
**Emma Goldman, "The Traffic in Women" (1911), selections , pp. 177-194
Mon. Feb. 16: Radical Women of the 1910s
Evans, pp. 156-164
*Annelise Orleck, “From the Russian Pale to Labor Organizing in New York
City” (selected pages, pp. 294-307)
**Agnes Nestor, "Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer,” pp. 176-182
**Margaret Sanger, "My Fight for Birth Control,” pp. 340-349
**Crystal Eastman, "Birth Control in the Feminist Program" (1918),
"Feminism: A Statement Read at the First Feminist Congress in the United
States" (1919), and "Now We Can Begin" (1920)
Wed. Feb. 18: Film: “One Woman, One Vote”
Evans, 164-173
**Helen Todd, “Getting Out the Vote” (1911)
Mon. Feb. 23: MIDTERM
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Wed. Feb. 25: American Women in the 1920s
**Elise Johnson McDougald, "The Double Task"(1925)
Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928)
Sigmund Freud, "Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical
Distinction Between the Sexes," (1925), and Karen Horney, "The Flight From
Womanhood" (1926)
Evans, pp. 175-196
Mon. March 2: "Flappers" and the 1920s Sexual Revolution
*Christina Simmons, "Modern Sexuality and the Myth of Victorian
Repression"
*Hazel Carby, "`It Just Be's Dat Way Sometime': The Sexual Politics of
Women's Blues”
**Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, "Feminist--New Style" (1927), in MP-AWH
*Vicki L. Ruiz, "The Acculturation of Young Mexican American Women"
Wed. March 4: Race, Immigration, and the Racial Division of Reproductive Labor
*Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical
Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor,” Unequal
Sisters, 3rd Edition pp. 405-429 (selected pages)
Evans, pp.197-218
Mon. March 9: Women in the Great Depression
**Meridel Le Sueur, "Women on the Breadlines"(1932) and Tillie Olsen, "I
Want You Women Up North To Know”
**Jacqueline Jones, "Harder Times: The Great Depression"
**Mary Inman, "Manufacturing Femininity," and Grace Hutchins, "Women
Under Capitalism" and "The Double Burden," from Writing Red
Wed. March 11: Women Radicals of the 1930s
**Genora Johnson Dollinger, “Struggling to Unionize, ” pp. 516-518
*Vicki L. Ruiz, "A Promise Fulfilled: Mexican Cannery Workers in Southern
California”
Extra credit: Screening and discussion with director Yoruba Richen of film
“The New Black,” about same-sex marriage and LGBTQ activism more
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generally in African-American communities. Robeson Center, 255-257, 6-9
p.m. (refreshments provided).
March 16, 18: SPRING BREAK
Mon. March 23: FILM: "Rosie the Riveter"
Evans, pp. 219-241
ESSAY DUE on MONDAY MARCH 23 (post on Blackboard)
Wed. March 25: Alternative Experiences of World War II
*Valerie Matsumoto, "Japanese American Women During World War II,” pp.
373-386
**Allan Berube, "Murder in the Women's Army Corps," pp. 17-21
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound, Introduction, pp. i-xxvi.
Mon. March 30: 1950s: Anxiety and Reaction
Evans, pp. 243-262
May, Homeward Bound, Chapters 3- 5 (pp. 49-118)
**Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, "The Psychopathology of
Feminism" and "Modern Woman: The Lost Sex" (1947)
**Life magazine, "American Women's Dilemma" (1947)
Wed. April 1: Anti-Feminism in the 1950s: Lesbians and Unwed Mothers
May, Homeward Bound, Chapters 6-8, pp. 119-162
Mon. April 6: Battles Over Race, Sex, and Motherhood in Mid-20th Century America
*Faderman, “Butches, Femmes, and Kikis: Creating Lesbian Subcultures in
the 1950s and ’60,” from Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, selections of pp. 159186.
**Betty Friedan, “The Problem That has No Name,” pp. 11-27
Wed. April 8: Women and the Civil Rights Movement
Evans, pp. 263-285
*Danielle L. McGuire, “’It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped”: Sexual
Violence, Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom
Struggle,” Journal of American History 91: 3 (Dec. 2004)
(see next page for more readings for April 8)
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*Charles Payne, “Ella Baker and the Models of Social Change,” Signs 14:41
(Summer 1989), selections from pp. 885-899.
**Charles Payne, “A Woman’s War: African American Women in the Civil
Rights Movement,” pp. 631-634
**Ann Moody, “Involved in the Movement,” pp. 450-454.
Mon. April 13: Beginnings of the Women's Liberation Movement
May, Homeward Bound, Chapter 9, pp. 186-208
Wed. April 15: The 1960s Women's Liberation Movement: The Personal is Political
FILM: "Women's Liberation" (1971)
**Excerpts from Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood is Powerful (1970):
Introduction, pp. xxvi -xxxii; Pat Mainardi, "The Politics of Housework," pp.
501-510; "How to Name Baby," pp. 590-591; "No More Miss America," pp.
584-588; Martha Shelley, "Notes of a Radical Lesbian," pp. 343-348; Frances
M. Beal, "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female," pp. 382-396; Enriqueta
Longauex y Vasquez, "The Mexican American Woman," pp. 426-432
**Lawrence Lader, “A National Guide to Legal Abortion,” Ladies’ Home
Journal, July 1970
Mon. April 20: Women and Politics in the 1970s: The Battle over the ERA and the
Rise of the New Right
*Matthew D. Lassiter, “Inventing Family Values,” pp. 13-28
**Excerpt from Roe v. Wade, 1973,” Phyllis Schlafly, “The Positive Woman,
1977,” and “A Letter from a Battered Wife” (1983), pp. 376-382
Evans, pp. 287-307, 307-314
Wed. April 22: Feminist Thought in the 1970s/ early 1980s
**Judy Grahn, "Common Woman Poems" (1978), pp. 60-73
**Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in
Powers of Desire, pp. 177-205
**Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s
House” and “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference" (19771980), in Sister/Outsider, pp. 110-113, 114-123
**Moraga and Anzaldua, eds., This Bridge Called My Back, pp. 61-62; Chrystos,
“I don’t Understand,” pp. 68-70, Chrystos, “I Walk in the History of My
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People,” p. 57, Carillo, “Beyond the Cliffs,” pp. 65-67, Chrystos, “Ceremony for
Completing,” pp. 191-192, and Chrystos, “No Rock Scorns Me,” pp. 243-245
Evans, pp. 307-314
Mon April 27: The Late 20th Century "Feminization of Poverty"
**Secretary of Labor Ann McLaughlin Makes the Case for Home Work, 1988,"
and "Return of the Sweatshops, 1988”
**"Jerry Falwell Sees a Threat to the American Family" (1980)
*Gail Paradise Kelly, "To Become An American Woman: Education and Sex
Role Socialization of the Vietnamese Immigrant Woman”
Wed. April 29: Women’s Rights at the turn of the 21st Century
**Susan Faludi, Backlash (1991), pp. ix-xxiii, 3-19, 27-41, 70-72
*Emily Rosenberg, “Rescuing Women and Children,” in History and September
11, pp. 81-91
Kirsten Swinth, “Equal Pay Day: It’s Time to Close the Earnings Gap,”
Huffington Post, April 17, 012, at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-swinth/equal-payday_b_1431515.html
Mon. May 4: Class Summary
FINAL EXAM: Monday, May 11, 3-6 p.m., Conklin 424.