Syllabus

Course Description: This course broadly outlines the major events and cultural trends for American women from the colonial era to the end of the 19^th century.  Topics covered include; European, African, and Native American women's experiences during white colonization and the American Revolution; religion and the witchcraft scare; women's educational, moral reform, suffrage, and abolitionist activism in the mid-to-late 19^th century; family structures and gender roles; race relations, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction; and evolving theories of women's sexuality, social value, and citizenship.

Required Texts (available at Food for Thought Bookstore, Amherst or Library Reserves):

Linda Kerber & Sharon De Hart, Women's America: Refocusing the Past, 5^th edition [WA]

Kathryn Derounian-Stodola (ed.), Women's Indian Captivity Narratives (excerpts)

Amy Srebnick, The Mysterious Death of  Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in 19^th C. New York

Linda Brent (Harriet Jacobs), Incidents in  the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

Catherine Kelly, In the New England Fashion: Reshaping Women¹s Lives in the 19^th C.

Ellen Carol DuBois, The Elizabeth Cady Stanton- Susan B. Anthony Reader [ECS-SA]

Other articles or readings will be available on E-Reserves or Library Reserves, denoted by an * in the syllabus. You need to have an OIT account to download E-Reserve materials.

Evaluation:

Attendance & Participation  (Bring a package of 3x5 Index Cards for class.)         10%

Midterm Exam           25%

Oral Presentation with Paper (3-4 page write-up)            15%

Paper based on Course Reading (4-5 pages)         15%

Final Exam 35%

Presentations:  Working in small groups (3 or 4), you will be asked to research and lead class discussion on an assigned topic.  Topics and presentation dates are noted on the course schedule.  Detailed descriptions of the presentation topics, assignment guidelines, and a sign-up sheet will be distributed in class. Link for the an online version of the Presentation Topics.

Participation:  Since oral presentations will make up a part of the grade, it is important that you attend and participate in class.

We will have a number of options for research outside of class, because of the richness of local resources for our topic. If you cannot, please let me know as soon as possible to set up alternative arrangements.

Short Paper Assignment: When you come to class, I will turn on my fantastic time machine. It will magically send you to one place in the 19th C. You must choose between the Amherst-area & NYC. Using the Kelly & Srebnick books as your guide, compare and contrast the situations in rural Massachusetts and urban NY for women. Think about what you value for your life now (i.e. you do not have to be a 19thC person , you may consider things important like mobility, possibilities for adventure, hygiene).
I know it will be a difficult decision, so you may draw on a few additional sources. You may visit the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, the Evergreens in Amherst, or the Eastside Tenement Museum (http://www.tenement.org), if you don’t have time to jaunt up to NYC, to help make your decision. Please note that the Tenement Museum depicts conditions about 20 years after Mary Rogers’ time and should not overrule the evidence in her narrative as part of your decision.
Your paper should be 4-5 pages in length, typed, and double-spaced. Please include references and a bibliography of your sources. Your papers will be due on December 12 in class.

Paper Writing Guidelines

Policies

Course Participation

When women were first admitted to institutions of higher learning, including the Morrill Act Land Grant institution you are now attending, they were permitted to sit in the rear of some classes to observe only as long as their presence was not "disruptive." Alternatively, some women were permitted to attend single sex academies, like Mt. Holyoke, but even these had to push the "boundaries" of the kinds of materials women were thought capable of study. As we will discover, the female presence in this classroom and curriculum was a hard-fought-for innovation.

I value an active student presence. I have tried to structure the course to allow you to actively engage with the material in this course, and with each other. We will begin each week with a Discussion of historians' interpretations of a given topic.  I would like to use your comments in class, including basic queries or contestations, to frame my own presentation of materials and a consideration of a brief primary document in the middle of the week. (This means you will want to bring the source material to class or a set of notes about it.) We will conclude each week by having class members extend our discussion by presenting additional interpretations or materials in short 10-15 minute segments.

We may need to alter our schedule to accommodate our interests. I will post thechanges in course schedule on the class website.

Plagiarism is a serious violation of expected academic conduct.  Your work must be your own.  If you quote or paraphrase work from someone else, you must give credit and provide a reference for that source.  Links to guidelines on plagiarism, including the official policy on academic honesty, can be found on the following webpage: http://www.umass.edu/history/links_writing.html.  The penalty for plagiarism in this class is zero credit for the assignment in question.

Papers handed in late will be graded down one-third of a letter grade per day late.

If you have a documented disability that may affect your performance in the class, please speak to the instructor as soon as possible so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

Access                  

I have added materials to the course on E-Reserves. The library will post persistent links (JSTOR, Project MUSE) on the OIT site but the staff has agreed to scan in materials that present problems to off-campus servers as PDF files, or they can be found in the regular Reserves section. You may want to confirm your access to course readings BEFORE the night you need to have it read, to allow staff to make accommodations. If requested, I will also post changes to the syllabus on my door, to assure access.

Schedule (Subject to Change)

LINKS

• Women's Studies Database
• H-Women Discussion Network
• Places Where Women Made History National park Service site describing locations in New York and Massachusetts.
• Women's World. Women's World Organization for Rights, Literature and Development, or Women's WORLD was formed because "nowhere on earth are women's voices given the same respect as men's."

This page is maintained by Laura Lovett. Last updated 9/4/03.