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Women's America: Refocusing the Past » (6th Edition)

Book cover image of Women's America: Refocusing the Past by Linda K. Kerber

Authors: Linda K. Kerber (Editor), Jane Sherron Dehart, Jane Sherron de Hart
ISBN-13: 9780195159820, ISBN-10: 0195159829
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: November 2003
Edition: 6th Edition

Author Biography: Linda K. Kerber

University of Iowa

University of California, Santa Barbara

Book Synopsis

The third edition of this widely-acclaimed anthology integrates the best of recent scholarship in women's history with American history as a whole. A new introductory essay explains the ways in which the historical experiences of men and women in the United States have diverged, and traces the way in which gender has been socially constructed. Some seventy-five essays and documents—ranging from a letter written by a slave woman to an analysis of contemporary feminism—guide the reader to an understanding of the interaction of race, class, and gender throughout American history. With its wealth of primary and secondary source material, a revised appendix of essential legal documents, concise headnotes, and clear, chronological organization, the third edition of Women's America shows with new force and vigor why gender has become a powerful analytical device for those seeking to understand the history of the United States.

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction: Gender and the New Women's History	1
	Creating a Blended Household: Christian Indian Women and English Domestic Life in Colonial Massachusetts	29
	"This Evil Extends Especially ... to the Feminine Sex": Negotiating Captivity in the New Mexico Borderlands	38
	The Ways of Her Household	45
	Documents: The Law of Domestic Relations: Marriage, Divorce, Dower: Examples from Colonial Connecticut	55
	African American Women in Colonial Society	59
	Document: The Law of Slavery: "According to the condition of the mother ..."	67
	Document: The Law of Slavery: "For prevention of that abominable mixture ..."	68
	"Searchers again Assembled": Gender Distinctions in Seventeenth-Century America	69
	Document: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson, 1637: "What law have I broken?"	79
	The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: The Economic Basis of Witchcraft	83
	Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village	97
	Document: Supporting the Revolution: "The ladies going about for money exceeded everything ..."	114
	Document: Supporting the Revolution: "The bullets would not cheat the gallows ..."	115
	Document: Supporting the Revolution: "I have Don as much to Carrey on the Warr as maney ..."	117
	The Republican Mother and the Woman Citizen: Contradictions and Choices in Revolutionary America	119
	Document: The Testimony of Slave Women: "I am quite heartsick ..."	132
	Document: The Testimony of Slave Women: "Look for some others for to 'plenish de earth"	132
	Lines of Color, Sex, and Service: Sexual Coercion in the Early Republic	135
	Women's Work: The Gender Division of Labor in Yeoman Households of South Carolina before the Civil War	145
	The Pastoralization of Housework	153
	Document: Working Conditions in Early Factories, 1845: "She Complained of the hours for labor being too many ..."	165
	The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America	168
	Abortion in America	183
	Document: Claiming Rights I: The Connection between Religious Faith, Abolition, and Women's Rights	193
	Document: Claiming Rights I: "What I have suffered, I cannot tell you"	198
	The Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention: A Study of Social Networks	200
	Document: Claiming Rights II: Declaration of Sentiments, 1848	214
	Document: Claiming Rights II: Married Women's Property Acts, New York State, 1848, 1860	217
	Sojourner Truth's Defense of the Rights of Women (as reported in 1851; rewritten in 1863)	218
	Enemies in Our Household : Confederate Women and Slavery	220
	Document: Counterfeit Freedom: "Young women particularly flock back & forth ..."	233
	Document: Counterfeit Freedom: "I was more dead than alive"	234
	Reconstruction and the Meanings of Freedom	235
	Document: After the Civil War: Reconsidering the Law: Reconstruction Amendments, 1868, 1870	247
	Document: After the Civil War: Reconsidering the Law: Bradwell v. Illinois, 1873	248
	Document: After the Civil War: Reconsidering the Law: Comstock Law, 1873	250
	Document: After the Civil War: Reconsidering the Law: Minor v. Happersett, 1875	251
	Reading Little Women: The Many Lives of a Text	252
	Document: The Women's Centennial Agenda, 1876: "Guaranteed to us and our daughters forever"	265
	Ida B. Wells and Southern Horrors	268
	Ophelia Paquet, a Tillamook Indian Wife: Miscegenation Laws and the Privileges of Property	275
	Document: Claiming an Education: "What right! have you to bar my children out of the school because she is of chinese Descend ..."	281
	Document: Claiming an Education: "... this semblance of civilization ..."	282
	Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South	286
	Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women	299
	Unbound Feet: From China to San Francisco's Chinatown	302
	From the Russian Pale to Labor Organizing in New York City	310
	Florence Kelley and Women's Activism in the Progressive Era	327
	Document: Protecting Women Wage-Workers: Muller v. Oregon, 1908	340
	Document: Protecting Women Wage-Workers: "We fought and we bled and we died ..."	342
	Orphans and Ethnic Division in Arizona: The Mexican Mothers and the Mexican Town	345
	The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics	358
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship I: Mackenzie v. Hare, 1915	365
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship I: Equal Suffrage (Nineteenth) Amendment, 1920	367
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship I: Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 1923	369
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship I: "I resolved that women should have knowledge of contraception ..."	370
	Equal Rights and Economic Roles: The Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1920s	379
	Fasting Girls: The Emerging Ideal of Slenderness in American Culture	390
	The "Industrial Revolution" in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the Twentieth Century	399
	Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South	410
	When Abortion Was a Crime: Reproduction and the Economy in the Great Depression	423
	Harder Times: The Great Depression	429
	Document: Struggling to Unionize: "... Once she understands she is standing in defense of her family - well, God, don't fool around with that woman then"	433
	Designing Women and Old Fools: Writing Gender into Social Security Law	435
	Storms on Every Front: Eleanor Roosevelt and Human Rights at Home and in Europe	447
	Life Interrupted: A Young Refugee Arrives in America	454
	Japanese American Women during World War II	459
	Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II	466
	Betty Friedan and the Origins of Feminism in Cold War America	481
	Neighborhood Women and Grassroots Human Rights	496
	Miriam Van Waters and the Burning of Letters	500
	"Mannishness," Lesbianism, and Homophobia in U.S. Women's Sports	508
	Ladies' Day at the Capitol: Women Strike for Peace versus HUAC	517
	A Woman's War: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement	532
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship II: "I had entered law school preoccupied with the racial struggle ... but I graduated an unabashed feminist as well ..."	537
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship II: Hoyt v. Florida, 1961; Taylor v. Louisiana, 1975	546
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship II: Civil Rights Act, Title VII, 1964	550
	A Human Right to Welfare? Social Protest among Women Welfare Recipients after World War II	552
	Prescribing the Pill: The Coming of the Sexual Revolution in America's Heartland	560
	Why the Shirelles Mattered: Girl Groups on the Cusp of a Feminist Awakening	569
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "The problem that has no name ... I understood first as a woman ..."	573
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "The protest of the Miss America Pageant ... told the nation a new feminist movement is afoot ..."	576
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination"	578
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "What is a lesbian?"	580
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "It has taken ... a long time ... to realize and speak out about the double oppression of Mexican-American women"	583
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "Women in the Asian movement find that ... stereotypes are still hovering over their heads ... that [they] must play [the] old role[s] in order to get things done"	584
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "We also find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression"	586
	Document: Making the Personal Political: "One of the cruelest forms of sexism we live with today is ... [that] of many doctors"	591
	Document: Making the Personal Political: The thoughts of one who loves life as a woman ..."	593
	Second-Wave Feminists and the Dynamics of Social Change	598
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship III: Equal Rights Amendment, 1972	624
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship III: Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972	625
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship III: Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973	628
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship III: Roe v. Wade, 1973; Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1992	630
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship IV: "We were the first American women sent to live and work in the midst of guerrilla warfare ..."	637
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship IV: Rostker v. Goldberg, 1981	641
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship IV: Meritor Savings Bank v. Mechelle Vinson et al., 1986	643
	Document: Dimensions of Citizenship IV: Violence against Women Act, 1994, 2000	646
	Women in the Gulf War	647
	Document: The Changing Workplace: "... It's such a waste - such a waste of people. The way they put in word processing there, you had a lot of smart women getting dumb very fast"	657
	Document: The Changing Workplace: "Entering construction ... was a little like falling in love with someone you weren't supposed to"	658
	"Material Girl": Madonna as Postmodern Heroine	660
	Documents: Rethinking Marriage in the Late Twentieth Century: Loving v. Virginia; Griswold v. Connecticut; Defense of Marriage Act	664
	Sexual Harassment on Trial: The Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas Narrative(s)	670
	Inscriptions of Poverty on the Female Body in the Era of Welfare Reform	677
	Sweatshops Here and There: The Garment Industry, Latinas, and Labor Migrations	682
	Thirty Years after Roe: The Continued Assault on a Woman's Right to Choose	691
	Women and Global Citizenship	697
	Reference Works	705
	Index	727