HIST 276: U.S. Women's History to 1877: Home

Washington, D.C. The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives receiving a deputation of female suffragists, January 11th - a lady delegate reading her argument in favor of woman's voting, on the basis of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Constitutional Amendments. United States, 1871. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004670399/.

HIST 276 -- U.S. Women's History to 1877

Explores the experiences of women from the colonial era to the beginnings of the women’s rights movement in the nineteenth century. It will examine the private lives of women, including marriage and family, sexuality and reproduction, and labor and education, and women’s participation in the public sphere, paying particular attention to how changing conceptions of gender have expanded or limited women’s social and cultural roles. While this course will explore the unity of women’s lives in the American past, it will also explore the ways race, ethnicity, and class have shaped women’s experiences. Students will gain an understanding of how gender was historically constructed and of important interpretive issues in early American women’s history.