Active Outline

General Information

Course ID (CB01A and CB01B)
HISTD009.
Course Title (CB02)
Women in American History
Course Credit Status
Credit - Degree Applicable
Effective Term
Fall 2023
Course Description
A critical examination of the social, economic, cultural and political history of American women from the colonial times to the present. Emphasis on the movements which enhanced women's political and economic rights, the social roles which defined women primarily by their gender, and the legal realities that women faced. Significant moral, political, and economic issues will be assessed.
Faculty Requirements
Course Family
Not Applicable

Course Justification

This course meets a general education requirement for °®¶¹´«Ã½, CSUGE, and IGETC and is UC and CSU transferable. It contributes to the fulfillment of elective requirements for the Associate of Arts degree for Transfer in History and is cross-listed as part of the women's studies program. This course provides students with knowledge of the social, economic, cultural, and political roles of American women from colonial times to the present. In addition, this course meets student demand for a class that provides an opportunity to analyze gender issues within an historical context while also providing specific knowledge of the legal, social, political, and economic realities that women have faced over time.

Foothill Equivalency

Does the course have a Foothill equivalent?
No
Foothill Course ID

Course Philosophy

Formerly Statement

Course Development Options

Basic Skill Status (CB08)
Course is not a basic skills course.
Grade Options
  • Letter Grade
  • Pass/No Pass
Repeat Limit
0

Transferability & Gen. Ed. Options

Transferability
Transferable to both UC and CSU
°®¶¹´«Ã½ GEArea(s)StatusDetails
2GDX°®¶¹´«Ã½ GE Area D - Social and Behavioral SciencesApproved
2GEX°®¶¹´«Ã½ GE Area E - Personal DevelopmentApproved
CSU GEArea(s)StatusDetails
CGDYCSU GE Area D - Social SciencesApproved
CGEXCSU GE Area E - Lifelong Learning and Self-Development (Non-Activity)Approved
IGETCArea(s)StatusDetails
IG4XIGETC Area 4 - Social and Behavioral SciencesApproved

Units and Hours

Summary

Minimum Credit Units
4.0
Maximum Credit Units
4.0

Weekly Student Hours

TypeIn ClassOut of Class
Lecture Hours4.08.0
Laboratory Hours0.00.0

Course Student Hours

Course Duration (Weeks)
12.0
Hours per unit divisor
36.0
Course In-Class (Contact) Hours
Lecture
48.0
Laboratory
0.0
Total
48.0
Course Out-of-Class Hours
Lecture
96.0
Laboratory
0.0
NA
0.0
Total
96.0

Prerequisite(s)

Corequisite(s)

Advisory(ies)

EWRT D001A or EWRT D01AH or ESL D005.

Limitation(s) on Enrollment

  • (Not open to students with credit in the cross-listed course(s).)
  • (Not open to students with credit in the Honors Program related course.)

(Also listed as WMST D009.)

Entrance Skill(s)

General Course Statement(s)

(See general education pages for the requirements this course meets.)

Methods of Instruction

Lecture and visual aids

Discussion of assigned reading

In-class essays

In-class exploration of Internet sites

Quiz and examination review performed in class

Homework and extended projects

Guest speakers

Collaborative learning and small group exercises

Other: Film / documentary / or other media

Assignments

  1. Reading Assignments: Regular reading assignments from the college-level texts, including both primary and secondary sources, from which students will gain and demonstrate knowledge of political, economic, social, and cultural events of the historical era for this course.
  2. Writing Assignments: Writing to be selected from a combination of assignments such as research papers, in-class essays in exam format including the final exam, book reviews, and other analytic written assignments that critique and evaluate primary sources and secondary sources and demonstrate an understanding of the historical era for this course. Students will write a minimum of 1700 words during the quarter, including at least one individual typed paper of at least 750 words.
  3. Objective evaluation through assignments such as quizzes, map identifications, or objective sections of in-class midterm(s) or the final examination in which students demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate primary and secondary historical sources.
  4. Group or individual participation in oral analytical expression such as in-class discussions, debates, or analysis of texts, including primary historical documents.

Methods of Evaluation

  1. Oral analysis: participation in and contribution toward classroom discussions, debates, or specified group project(s) in which students demonstrate analytical skills, such as clarity of argument and the use of evidence to support arguments, in oral interpretations of sources, including primary historical documents.
  2. Essay assignments that will demonstrate students’ ability to make and support meaningful statements about primary and secondary historical sources and historical events and to exhibit critical thinking and analytical skills in evaluating the era of history for this course. Students will write at least 1700 words during the quarter, including an essay for the final exam and at least one individual typed paper of at least 750 words.
  3. Objective evaluation through assignments such as quizzes, map identifications, objective sections of in-class exams, or other analytical projects in which students demonstrate knowledge of college-level secondary source readings and primary source documents in the era of history for this course.

Essential Student Materials/Essential College Facilities

Essential Student Materials: 
  • None.
Essential College Facilities:
  • None.

Examples of Primary Texts and References

AuthorTitlePublisherDate/EditionISBN
Kerber, Linda K. and Jane Sherron, editors. "Women's America: Refocusing the Past." 8th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Block, Sharon, Ruth M. Alexander, and Mary Beth Norton, editors. "Major Problems in American Women's History: Documents and Essays." 5th ed. Australia: Cengage Learning, 2014.
Ruiz, Vicki L. and Ellen Carol DuBois, editors. "Unequal Sisters: An Inclusive Reader in U.S. Women's History." 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2008.
*Skinner, Ellen, editor. "Women and the National Experience: Sources in Women's History." 3rd ed. Combined Volume. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2011.
Woloch, Nancy. "Women and the American Experience." 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011.

Examples of Supporting Texts and References

AuthorTitlePublisher
Barker-Benfield, G. J. "The Horrors of the Half-Known Life: Male Attitudes Toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America." New York: Routledge, 2000.
D'Emilio, John and Estelle B. Freedman. "Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America." 3rd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Douglass, Susan J. "Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media." New York: Random House, 1994.
DuBois, Ellen Carol and Richard Candida Smith, editors. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker: A Reader in Documents and Essays." New York: New York University Press, 2007.
Foner, Philip S. "Women and the American Labor Movement: From the First Trade Unions to the Present." Reprint Edition. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018.
Evans, Sara. "Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left." New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1979.
Fuller, Margaret. "Woman in the Nineteenth Century: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism [1845]." Edited by Larry J. Reynolds. Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Gilman, Charlotte P. "Women and Economics." New York: Harper and Row, 1898; reprint ed., 1966.
Breslaw, Elaine G. "Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies." New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Harris, Barbara. "Beyond Her Sphere: Women and the Professions in American History." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978.
Harrison, Cynthia. "On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945-1968." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Jeffrey, Julie Roy. "Frontier Women: 'Civilizing' the West? 1840-1880." Revised edition. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.
Kerber, Linda K. "Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America." Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
Kessler-Harris, Alice. "Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States." 20th anniversary edition, with a new epilogue. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Kraditor, Aileen. "The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920." Norton edition. Reprint of the 1965 edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1981.
Lerner, Gerda, editor. "Black Women in White America: A Documentary History." Vintage Reprint edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Mansbridge, Jane. "Why We Lost the ERA." Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Niethammer, Carolyn J. "Daughters of the Earth: The Lives and Legends of American Indian Women." Touchstone edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
Ruiz, Vicki. "From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America." 10th anniversary edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Sanger, Margaret. "My Fight for Birth Control." New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1931.
Seller, Maxine, editor. "Immigrant Women." Revised, 2nd edition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
Moraga, Cherrie and Gloria Anzaldua, editors. "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color." 4th edition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015.
Ware, Susan. "Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal." Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
White, Deborah Gray. "Ar'n't I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South." Revised edition. New York: Norton, 1999.
Yung, Judy. "Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Learning Outcomes and Objectives

Course Objectives

  • Evaluate a perspective of women's history from recent historical analysis and findings which will balance traditional male, elite historiography.
  • Assess the patterns of change and continuity for women in American history through a critical analysis of the achievements, contributions, and distinctive roles played by notable women as well as ordinary women from diverse regional, ethnic, economic, and social backgrounds.
  • Develop and demonstrate critical thinking skills and intellectual reasoning skills of historical analysis, using a multicultural diverse approach of the historical method to investigate problems and issues in American women's history.

CSLOs

  • Demonstrate and apply knowledge of colonial and U.S. women's history to construct defensible statements of meaning and evaluation about this period's developments.

  • Identify, critically evaluate, and interpret colonial and U.S. women's primary documents to construct historical analysis.

Outline

  1. Evaluate a perspective of women's history from recent historical analysis and findings which will balance traditional male, elite historiography.
    1. Contrasting historical approaches in the study of women's history; defining women's history. Examination of how the study of women's history has changed, and how the historiography in the field has developed over time.
      1. "notable" women
      2. inclusion of the study of ordinary women's lives
      3. diverse experiences of women in American history (class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, region)
      4. women as a subordinate group vs. women as historical agents
      5. gender as a useful and significant category of analysis
    2. Evaluation of the biological and social sciences in the study of women
  2. Assess the patterns of change and continuity for women in American history through a critical analysis of the achievements, contributions, and distinctive roles played by notable women as well as ordinary women from diverse regional, ethnic, economic, and social backgrounds.
    1. Examination of women and gender related issues in pre-Revolutionary America
      1. Puritan family relations as a patriarchal model; the contrast with Iroquoian matrilineal system
      2. Gender roles in Dutch and Quaker colonies in contrast with the Puritan colonies, including the issue of women's leadership roles in religion and spirituality
      3. Class (economy) and caste (slavery) in the roles of women in the North and the South
      4. The impact of Christianity on Native American Indian women
      5. West African women and effect of slavery on the family
    2. The Impact of the Revolution on American Women
      1. Abigail Adams, "Remember the Ladies"
      2. Women's roles in wartime
      3. Mixed legacy for white women, black women, and Native American Indian women
      4. Phillis Wheatley's poetry and anti-slavery arguments
    3. Work and education in early industrial America
      1. The role of girls and women in the first factories
      2. The role of women and work at home
      3. Early female academies in educating women
    4. The Cult of Domesticity and its conflicts
      1. The roles of men and women in the Victorian family; the "cult of true womanhood" and conflicts with that definition of womanhood based on gender, race, and class
      2. Temperance, anti-prostitution, and women's other reform efforts through the churches
      3. Westward movement, women in the gold rush, and the contrast with traditional concepts of female roles
    5. The Condition of Antebellum Women - North, South, and West
      1. African-American labor and education in the North
      2. Lives of enslaved women
      3. African-American abolitionists: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, etc.
      4. Native American Indian women and the consequences of Indian removal
      5. Experiences of Asian American women and Latinas in the context of the Pacific Rim and U.S.-Mexico relations
    6. Nineteenth-Century Activism
      1. The role of abolitionism and feminism
      2. Early suffrage leaders: Grimke sisters, Stanton, Mott, Stone, Anthony, etc.
      3. Anti-feminist arguments and proponents
      4. Women in the Civil War and effects on the suffrage movement
      5. Voluntary motherhood and birth control efforts in the nineteenth century
    7. The New Woman and Moral, Economic and Social Reform
      1. Movement for equitable laws for women
      2. Changing sex roles prior to World War I
      3. Economic reformers: Bellamy, Gilman, etc.
      4. Example of a moral reformer: Margaret Sanger and birth control
      5. From feminism to flapper
      6. New sexual attitudes and behavior for women; heterosexual and homosexual experiences
    8. Changes for women in labor, education, the professions
      1. Women and their roles in sweatshops, large factories, trade unions
      2. Beginnings of college education for women
      3. Nursing, teaching, social work, and the "male" professions
    9. Women and Politics, 1900-1920s
      1. Leaders: Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Mary Church Terrell
      2. Racial and immigration issues
      3. Social feminism - reform through the vote
      4. Organizing a mass suffrage movement; ethnic and class diversity within the movement
      5. Social and political consequences of the vote for women.
    10. The Great Depression and World War II: Decades of Crisis for women
      1. Women as consumers
      2. Families in the Depression
      3. Politics and the professions
      4. Women's role in the work place and the economy
      5. Japanese-American internment and effects on the family and women
    11. Women and Feminism in Post-WWII America
      1. Simone de Beauvoir and the reaction to the retreat of the post-war generation
      2. Betty Friedan and the feminine mystique
      3. Post-war baby boom effects on feminism
      4. The role of consumerism on feminism
    12. Women and Politics in Post-WWII America
      1. The feminist revolt in the 1960s and 1970s -- the re-emergence of a women's movement
      2. National Organization for Women and the drive for economic, political, and social equality
      3. The student movements and women's liberation groups
      4. Child care centers and women in today's work place
      5. Whose body is it? - abortion issues
      6. Intersections of race, class, sexual orientation, and gender inequalities; diverse experiences of gender discrimination among women of African, Asian, European, Latin American, Native American Indian, and Middle Eastern descent
      7. New roles and attitudes of men
      8. Violence against women (battered wives, sexual assault) and sexual harassment; movements and efforts to solve these problems
      9. Efforts to create gender equality in education, athletics, religion, the media, and other areas
    13. Summing up: the variety of women's experiences in the United States today
      1. Middle class suburban families and poor urban families; single mothers and fathers; increasing numbers of independent single women (non-married, divorced, elderly); specific experiences of women from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds
      2. Lesbian, bisexual, and the transgender experience in relation to women's rights and gender discrimination in American society
      3. Feminism, or the efforts to gain women's rights, and the backlash against such efforts
      4. 21st century U.S. women's challenges in the context of globalization, development, poverty, and the international struggle for women's rights
      5. Women in public office: executive, legislative, judicial; issue of a female president in U.S. history in the context of female political leaders in world history
      6. Women in the military; women and efforts for peace
  3. Develop and demonstrate critical thinking skills and intellectual reasoning skills of historical analysis, using a multicultural diverse approach of the historical method to investigate problems and issues in American women's history.
    1. Assessing primary sources and typical historical problems in the context of gender-related issues.
    2. Developing arguments and expressing interpretations in analytical essays using evidence from primary and secondary sources in women's history.
    3. Participating in class discussions and oral presentations during which student skill in interpretation and student skill in discussing and debating relevant gender issues can be assessed, such as: efforts to change restrictive gender roles of women and men, various strategies aimed at preventing domestic violence and sexual harassment, and workplace policies that could be implemented to try to prevent gender discrimination.
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