HIST A176: Women In U.S. History
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Curriculum Committee Approval Date | 11/01/2023 |
| Top Code | 220500 - History |
| Units | 3 Total Units |
| Hours | 54 Total Hours (Lecture Hours 54) |
| Total Outside of Class Hours | 0 |
| Course Credit Status | Credit: Degree Applicable (D) |
| Material Fee | No |
| Basic Skills | Not Basic Skills (N) |
| Repeatable | No |
| Grading Policy | Standard Letter (S),
|
| Associate Arts Local General Education (GE) |
|
| Associate Science Local General Education (GE) |
|
| California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC) |
|
| Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) |
|
| California State University General Education Breadth (CSU GE-Breadth) |
|
Course Description
A survey of the history of women in the United States from the pre-contact period to the present, emphasizing significant events, individuals, and movements that have contributed to the nation's development and women's changing roles. The course investigates how factors like geographic location, class, ethnicity, race, industrialization, sexual orientation, and notions of family have affected the lives of American women. Transfer Credit: CSU; UC.
Course Level Student Learning Outcome(s)
- Upon the successful completion of this course, students will display the ability to develop and persuasively argue a historical thesis in a written assignment that identifies and explains major social, economic, political and/or cultural historical themes or patterns that are relevant to the course geographic area and timeline of study.
- Students will identify and analyze the significance of the events and individuals that play an instrumental role in women's history of the United States from the pre-contact period to the present.
- Students will evaluate the public and private experiences of women of different socio- economic status and geographic origin in regards to their every day life throughout US History.
Course Objectives
- 1. Debate the ways gender and sex can serve as analytical frameworks for historical inquiry.
- 2. Consider the ways in which womens history forces a divergent periodization of United States history and highlights various themes neglected when gender is not analyzed including womens life cycles, familial roles, domesticity, womens health issues, pregnancy and childrearing, and divisions of labor.
- 3. Distinguish the elements of transition from one historical era to another (e.g., from colonial conceptions of gender to Early Republican gendered roles or between the Era of the the "New Women" to the gender conformity of the post World War II period).
- 4. Assess the primary frameworks in which gender has been used as a category of historical analysis and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each methodology.
- 5. Identify and analyze the significance of the events and individuals (i.e., the Seneca Falls Conference, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, etc.) important to the course of womens history from the pre-contact period to the present.
- 6. Evaluate the intersection of gender and race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientaion, cisgender or transgender identity, or other categories of marginalization or privilege in society as such intersections relate to everyday life and large scale economic, political, intellectual, and social movements.
- 7. Distinguish, for each time period covered in scope of this course, the public and private experiences of women of different socio- economic status and geographic origin in their everyday life.
- 8. Evaluate the process of historical continuity and discuss the connection between our historical past and the present (e.g., Colonial antifeminism and current disparity between the earning power of me and women - the "glass ceiling").
Lecture Content
Introduction to history discipline Common assumptions about the role of women in history Sex and gender as social constructs Definitions of feminisms First American Women Pre-Contact American communities Regional examination of Native American communities Matrilineal societies Matrilocal societies Native American conceptions of gendered labor and "third gender Positions of power within communities Contact and Immigration Effects of contact upon Native American women Traditional European gender roles Interactions between Native Americans and European Americans in British, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonies Gender imbalances in European settlements Daily life in the colonial and early national period Women in agricultural communities Religious gendered conformity Bound laborers Political rights Women, Revolution, and Nation-Building Rebellious women Contributions to war Loyalist and Patriot women Deputy housewives Effects of war on enslaved women Effects of war on Native American women Women and political identity Civil rights Party identity Property rights Parental and marital rights Gains of the Revollution Debates surrounding progress in womens status Growth in female education Republican motherhood Early women writers Erasure of minority populations in revolutionary gains Women in the Early Nineteenth Century Development of "Separate Spheres" Ideology Concept of the "true woma n" Public versus private spheres Changes in gendered labor roles Emphasis on motherhood and domesticity Social Reform Movements Abolitionist women Black feminism Experimental communitarian alternatives Moral reform Suffrage movement Seneca Falls Early Industrialization and Urbanization Changes in daily life The impact of education and employment opportunities Growth of immigration Women and Western Expansion Spanish and Mexican-American gender roles and property rights Pioneer women Western missionizing Women and western economic opportunity Gendered aspects of the Gold Rush period Reservation system, government policies, and Native American women The Civil War, Reconstruction Period, and Gilded Age Female Contributions to the Civil War Union women Confederate women Enslaved womens war experiences Reconstruction Politics Constitutional amendments Southern school-building Life for free blacks in the South and North Early Twentieth Century Gender Roles and Activism Populism and Progressivism Resurgence of civil rights movement Western campaigns for voting rights Women in moral reform movements Contraception Gendered Components of Labor Movements Female leadership in unionizing Textile factory work Immigration and labor Female Contributions to World War I Women in Europe Nineteenth Amendment Patterns of Historical Transformation from 1920s to 1950s The "Jazz Age" Prosp erity The "New Morality" Flapper Culture Sexual Expression Women in the Harlem Renaissance Depression and Recovery Women and work The New Deals new opportunities and responsibilities The post-war society The baby boom Consumerism and advertising trends Suburbanization Feminine Mystique and criticisms of this premise Civil Rights and the Womens Movement--Historical Comparison Political activism, civil rights and womens rights 1860-1890 Political activism, civil rights and womens rights 1960-1970s Assessment of changes and shifts in social roles Assessment of first and second wave feminism Emergence of the gay rights movement In Search of Equality: Since 1975 Feminism at stalemate Women in the workplace and families in transition Immigration, ethnicity, and diversity The "gender gap" Women and the law NOW and the ERA Roe v. Wade Conservative Resurgence During an Expansion of Rights Phyllis Schlafly and ERA backlash Abortion: The personal becomes political Women and College Enrollment New occupations Third Wave Feminism Objectives of the Movements Debate over validity of a "third wave" Growth of multicultural feminism and transnational feminism LGBTQI awareness
Method(s) of Instruction
- Lecture (02)
- DE Online Lecture (02X)
Instructional Techniques
Instructors will use a variety of strategies in the classroom to help students achieve course objectives/student learning outcomes. These may include: Lecture enhanced with Power Point, overhead, white board, and/or handouts to highlight concepts Audiovisual materials to establish historical context Discussion--with full class and in small groups Role playing Group activities Guest speakers Field trips
Reading Assignments
. Students will read 1-2 textbook chapters and related primary/secondary source materials per week.
Writing Assignments
Students will write essays in which they apply appropriate historical information in answering questions related to the course objectives/student learning outcomes. Students will write an essay/report in which they interpret primary and secondary sources and comose a written argument which uses them, as appropriate for support. .
Out-of-class Assignments
. Students may be given assignments to help them develop and/or assess their ability to Derive pertinent information from assigned readings Prepare for class discussion Find approprite primary/secondary sources through library research Manage the steps of a research project
Demonstration of Critical Thinking
Students will write essays in which they apply approprriate historical information in answering questions related to the course objectives/student learning outcomes. Students will write an essay/report in which they interpret primary and/or secondary sources and compse a written argument which uses them, as appropriate, for support.
Required Writing, Problem Solving, Skills Demonstration
Students will write essays in which they apply approprriate historical information in answering questions related to the course objectives/student learning outcomes. Students will write an essay/report in which they interpret primary and/or secondary sources and compse a written argument which uses them, as appropriate, for support.
Eligible Disciplines
History: Masters degree in history OR bachelors degree in history AND masters degree in political science, humanities, geography, area studies, womens studies, social science, or ethnic studies OR the equivalent. Masters degree required.
Textbooks Resources
1. Required Dubois, Ellen, Lynn Dumenil. Through Womens Eyes, 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2013 2. Required Black, Sharon, Ruth Alexander, Mary Beth Norton, eds.. Major Problems in American Womens History, 5th ed. Boston: Cengage, 2014
Other Resources
1. Students will read and analyze primary and secondary sources. Instructors may require students to buy Readers Customized readers designed by the instructor Monographs like Attitudes toward Sex in Antebellum America by Helen Horowitz, Bedford/St. Martins 2006 Or, they may refer students to Online collections of sources like the Womens History Sourcebook Academic databases like JSTOR