“Pocahontas,” ca. 1616
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American Women's History, semesters I and II This course will examine changes in the history of women, sexuality, and gender from the first colonial settlements to the present, over the course of a two-semester series. Drawing on a range of sources, including women’s and men’s political, imaginative, and private writings, we will explore the changing relation of gender and sexuality to families, economics, politics, religions, and culture for the variety of peoples who inhabited America from its founding. We will return throughout the class to several central questions that emerged in American society and which continue to have an impact on the United States today: How did culturally-dominant ideals for men and women affect the actual lives of ordinary people? How did new understandings of sexuality and reproduction affect social meanings of manliness and womanliness over time? How were the experiences of people of color, the poor, or rural people related to the gender experiences of wealthy whites? How did new ideas about liberty and freedom affect the lives of women of all races? The focus in this course is on reading, interpreting, and criticizing texts—to introduce students to historical thinking—not on the strict memorization of factual information. To do so, the course readings will balance both original historical documents and scholarship by historians. |
