SCHC 425 H01 25980

HistoryCiv, Humanities, GHS

Notes:

**GHS, US Hist**This course introduces students to the history of American women of all ranks and ethnicities, starting with the trans-Atlantic encounter and ending in 1848 (with a brief glimpse at women’s participation in the Civil War). Students will be invited to participate in historians’ debates about various aspects of the topic. For instance, we will debate how women influenced, and in turn were affected by, the American Revolution and the rise of the market economy. Other major themes will include struggles—already underway in 1492 and continuing today—over the social construction of gender, over the gender division of labor, etc. We will take special interest in how these struggles have intertwined with others, such as conflicts over the definition of law and over the invention and re-invention of race. Although we will not neglect famous women such as Phillis Wheatley and Abigail Adams, the focus will be on ordinary women—Iroquois matrons as well as nuns in New Orleans, Afro-Moravian slaves as well as farmwives.