History 325: American Women’s History
Winter Quarter 2005 Prof. J. Wu
Journalism 371 and Boltz 128 Office: 261 Dulles
Office Hours: Th
Class: T & Th
Discussion Section Leader: Jackie Della Rosa
Office Hours: Mon.
Email della-rosa.1@osu.edu History Office: 235 Dulles
Course Description and Objective:
This course surveys the history of American women from pre-European settlement to the present. The lectures, readings, and films will emphasize how female roles in the realms of family, work, politics, and culture change over time. Particular attention will be paid to how women negotiate social norms and help to create new standards of acceptability. The class will emphasize the diversity among women in terms of race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality.
The following books will be available for purchase at SBX. They also will be on reserve at the Main Library.
1.
Sara M. Evans, Born for
2.
Linda K. Kerber and Jane Sherron De Hart, .Women’s
3.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale : The Life of Martha
Ballard, Based
on Her Diary, 1785-1812
4.
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
5.
Monica Sone, Nisei Daughter
Enrollment:
All students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end of the second full week of the quarter. No requests to add the course will be approved by the department chair after that time. Enrolling officially and on time is solely the responsibility of each student.
Assignments and Expectations:
1.
3 essays (3-4 pages in length each) on A Midwive’s Tale, Incidents
in the
Life of a Slave Girl, and Nisei Daughter (15% for each
paper).
Write essays that analyze these book for their relevance to the
historical
themes that are addressed in this class.
Attendance and participation (10%). The success of this course depends upon your willingness to complete the assignments before class and being prepared to engage in discussion. Students will be invited and encouraged to articulate their views concerning the readings, lectures, and films, both during the “lecture” portion and the discussion portion of the class.
In-class (surprise) quizzes (10%). There will be periodic quizzes, covering the materials in the reading and the lectures. The quizzes will consist of identification as well as interpretative questions.
Group visual exhibit and presentations (15%). Each student is responsible for participating in a group project. The final outcome of this project will be a visual exhibit of a primary source and a group oral presentation. The exhibits will be displayed at the Ohio Union Exposures Gallery, Rm. 236, and the presentations will take place during the last week of class.
Your primary source can be a document (newspaper article, speech, flyer, etc.), image, song, or even a material object. Be creative! The source should be something that directly relates to a theme or topic discussed in class. When you analyze the source, consider what it suggests about how female roles in the realms of family, work, politics, and/or culture have changed (or not changed) over time. During your presentation you should also discuss:
For students who are interested, you have the option to participate in the Japanese American Internment Oral History/Performance Art project. This project will provide you with the opportunity to gain training in conducting oral histories, filming your subjects, analyzing and presenting photographs, and incorporating these materials into an edited video, which will either constitute a historical documentary or a performance art piece. This project will encourage you to analyze and present history in a format that transcends the usual written medium.
A take-home final exam (20%) that asks you to think analytically and conceptually about the themes and topics explored in this course.
Course Policies
Disability: If you have a disability requiring special
arrangements for completing assignments, please let both the instructor
and
the DSL know as soon as possible.
Late assignments: Late assignments will be deducted 1/3 of a grade for every day that it is late. If for any family or medical reason, you find it absolutely necessary to miss a deadline, you must contact your DSL and the course instructor as soon as possible, preferably before the deadline. If unforeseen circumstances prevent you from contacting us, you must contact us within one week of the deadline and present documentation to support your request for a make-up exam.
Plagiarism: All work presented in
class or
turned in must be a student’s own. Plagiarism or any other form
of
academic misconduct will be dealt with in accordance with the
guidelines laid
down by the University’s Committee on Academic Misconduct and will
seriously
affect a student’s grade.
Class Schedule
(Reminder: Students need to be prepared to discuss the readings on the date that they are listed. In other words, the readings must be completed before class.)
4 January Introduction - Lecture
The lectures
will be available online at this
website:
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/wu287/History%20325/hist325syllabus2005.htm
6 January The First American Women - Lecture
Evans, ch. 1
Essays in Women’s America:
Ann Marie Plane, “Creating a Blended Household,” and
James F. Brooks, “This Evil Extends Especially…to the Feminine Sex”
Optional: Women’s
Extra Credit
Opening Reception,
Panel Discussion,
Concurrent receptions,
11 January Women in the Colonies - Lecture
Evans, ch. 2
Document: “The law of Domestic Relations”
Carol Berkin, “African American Women in Colonial Society”
Carol F. Karlsen, “The Devil in the Shape of a Woman”
13 January Women in the Republic - Lecture
Evans, ch. 3
Documents: Supporting the Revolution
Linda K. Kerber, “The Republican Mother and the Woman Citizen”
18 January Discussion
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale - Questions
20
January View
and Discuss: A Midwive’s Tale - Questions
24 January 1st Paper Due, turn in to Jackie Della Rosa during office hours at the Main Library, Rm. 210
25 January Women’s Sphere and Women’s Labor - Lecture
Evans, ch. 4
Document: Working Conditions in Early Factories, 1845
Carroll Smith-
Stephanie McCurry, “Women’s Work: The Gender Division of Labor”
26
January Extra
Credit: Rickie
Sollinger, "
27 January Abolitionism and Suffrage - Lecture
Documents: The Testimony of Slave Women
Documents: Claiming Rights II, Declaration of Sentiments
Nell Irvin Painter, “Sojourner Truth’s Defense of the Rights of Women”
Drew Gilpin Faust, “Enemies in Our Households”
1 February Discussion - Questions
Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Complete and Submit Human Subjects Review for the Oral
History/Performance Art
Project
3 February
Video:
Sojourner Truth
7 February 2nd Paper Due, turn in to Jackie Della Rosa during office hours at the Main Library, Rm. 210
8 February The Gilded Age - Lecture
Evans, ch. 6
Glenda Gilmore, “Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South”
Peggy Pascoe, Ophelia Paquet, a Tillamook Indian Wife”
Documents: Claiming an Education
Judy Yung, “Unbound Feet: From China to
10 February Women and
Modernity - Lecture
Evans, ch. 7
Kathryn Kish Sklar, “Florence Kelley and Women’s Activism in the Progressive Era”
Documents: Protecting Women Wage-Workers
Documents: Dimensions of Citizenship I, Margaret Sanger
Special
Lecture:
Professor Art Hansen, Japanese American Internment,
11 February Workshop
on
Conducting Oral Histories,
15 February The 1920s - Lecture
Evans, ch. 8
Nancy F. Cott, “Equal Rights and Economic Roles”
Joan Jacobs Brumberg, “Fasting Girls”
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, “The ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the Home”
17 February The Great
Depression - Lecture
Evans, ch. 9
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “Disorderly Women”
Leslie J. Reagan, “When Abortion was a Crime”
Jacqueline Jones, “Harder Times”
Document: Struggling to Unionize
Alice Kessler-Harris, “Designing Women and Old Fools”
Performance: Denise Uyehara, “Big Head,” 7 p.m., Mount Studio Hall Theatre, 1050 Carmack Rd. (Click here for directions)
18
February Workshop on Creating Performance
Art,
22 February Women and War - Lecture
View:
Days
of Waiting
Evans, ch. 10
Blanche Wiesen Cook, “Storms on Every Front”
Valerie Matsumoto, “Japanese American Women during World War II”
Ruth Milkman, “Gender at Work”
Monica Sone, Nisei Daughters
24
February Guest Lecture: Masumi
Hayashi,
Photography and Japanese American Internment
28 February 3rd Paper Due, turn in to Jackie Della Rosa during office hours at the Main Library, Rm. 210
1
March The
Cold War
and the “Feminine Mystique” - Lecture
Evans, ch. 11
Susan K. Cahn, “Mannishness,” Lesbianism, and Homophobia in U.S. Women’s Sports
Charles Payne, “A Woman’s War”
Documents: Dimensions of Citizenship II
3
March “The
Personal
is Political” - Lecture
Evans, ch. 12
Felicia Kornbluh, “A Human Right to Welfare?”
Beth L. Bailey, “Prescribing the Pill”
Documents: Making the Personal Political
8
March
Presentations
of group exhibits,
10 March Presentations, cont. in Exposures Gallery
Japanese American
oral
history/performance art projects,
March
17 Turn-in
take-home final at
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