Interpretive Issues In American Women's History | HIST DI, Exams of World History

History 223 Dee

Garceau

T Th, 2:40-4:10pm Clough 301,

X-3290

Buckman 105 Ofc Hrs: M,F,

2-4pm

INTERPRETIVE ISSUES IN AMERICAN WOMEN'S HISTORY

century New England.

Next we investigate the impact of the American Revolution on women, the rise of

domestic sentimentalism in Victorian America, the nature of gender and race relations in

the slaveholding South, and women’s roles in the Civil War.

Moving into the late nineteenth-century, we examine the blurring of ‘separate

spheres’ within the contexts of westward migration, industrial expansion, and urban

growth. This brings us to that kaleidoscopic figure whom historians call the 'New

Woman.' A mixture of Victorian legacies and modern behaviors, she leads us into the

twentieth century.

There we explore the paradoxes of New Womanhood, both Anglo and African-

Gender is a category of analysis fundamental to historical inquiry. More than a

biological distinction, gender is a cultural construct that shapes divisions of labor, civil

codes, social identity, family organization, sexual mores, and political rights. Thus gender

is not only central to our sense of self as women or men; it also reflects our changing

relationship to the larger society.

Historically, the powers to control production and distribution of goods, to

participate in political life, and to exercise moral, intellectual, or spiritual leadership have

been contested terrain. So, too, the freedoms to choose a partner, raise one's children, or

determine one's reproductive life have been contested between races, between classes,