Women and Social Movements in the United States

History 465

Katherine Sklar
State University of New York at Binghamton

The syllabus below is a small excerpt from the course Web site available at
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~hist465/.

Course Developed and Taught by Kathryn Kish Sklar, 1997-1999
Course Co-taught by Melissa Doak, 1999-2000
Course Co-taught by Sarah Boyle, Fall 2000


Course Goals: to develop students' skills in:

• The historical analysis of primary sources,
  
• Using electronic media to construct historical websites
  

Requirements:

Course requirements have two dimensions:

1.  An editorial project, consisting of five parts:

• A research question;
  
• A bibliography that informs and frames the research question;
  
• A set of 20 documents that addresses the question (with annotations);
  
• Short headnotes (1-2 paragraphs) for each document;
• An introduction to the whole project (3-5 pages--plus endnotes);

2.  Deadlines for placing successive portions of your project on the course website electronically. While the major focus of this course is the final project, students are expected to adhere to the deadlines set for completion of portions of the project throughout the semester.

Course Outline

Part I: Defining Your Project

WEEK 1 (Aug. 30th): Introduction
CLASS DISCUSSION: Course requirements and the term project explained. How to use microfilm and guides to microfilm.
COMPUTER LAB: Look at web projects completed by students in this seminar in previous years. View course website, and briefly view NEH website
MICROFILM ROOM (4:30-5:20): How to use microfilm guides and viewers. Prue Stelling, Bibliographer in Women's Studies.
ASSIGNMENT: Browse in microfilm, guides, and secondary sources. Come prepared next week having chosen your topic. One-page report on a project on the NEH website due (http://womhist.binghamton.edu). Read Louis Masur, "History by the Letter" (handout).


WEEK 2 (Sept. 6th): One-Page Report on a NEH Website Project
CLASS DISCUSSION: Reading for week; primary and secondary sources and interpretation.
PEER GROUPS: Break into peer groups and prepare group report on collected NEH site reports and how that research can help you formulate your project.
HTML TUTORIAL
ASSIGNMENT: For next week, look at "Characteristics of Authoritative Information" on the course website. Bring a one-page report on your question, your sources, and your bibliography to class.


WEEK 3 (Sept. 13th): One-Page Report on Question and Bibliography
PEER GROUPS: Break into groups and prepare oral reports on the progress of group members and how you will be helping one another with your projects. During oral reports, discussion will focus on how to find other sources you might need.
CLASS DISCUSSION: How to evaluate information on the internet. What does authoritative mean?
CLASS LAB, 4:00-5:20: Library electronic search techniques. Prue Stelling, Bibliographer in Women's Studies.
ASSIGNMENT: Prepare a one- or two-paragraph headnote for use with a central document in your project. Bring printed headnote and Xerox copy of document to class next week. Meet with project advisor before next week.


PART II: Selecting Documents and Preparing Headnotes

WEEK 4 (Sept. 20th): Prepare a Sample Headnote
PEER GROUPS: Break into groups, select a headnote brought by one participant; we will discuss with entire class, and then break back into groups to discuss the remainder of the group's headnotes.
CLASS DISCUSSION: Headnotes. How to select and interpret documents.
HTML tutorial.
ASSIGNMENT: Continue reading in secondary sources. Select your major documents and think what minor ones you need to go with them. Expand your bibliography.


WEEK 5 (Sept. 27th): Search for Documents
HTML TUTORIAL.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Bring an extra copy of your Xeroxed ten documents with complete citations written on each one, as well as a list of all ten documents with their citations, to class next week to hand in. Complete your bibliography to hand in.


WEEK 6 (Oct. 4th): First Ten Documents
CLASS DISCUSSION: How to transcribe and proofread documents for electronic posting. How to provide annotations for documents. Citations.
PEER GROUPS: Peer groups will meet. One group will present individual progress reports to the entire class.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
***Do not avoid documents just because they are long. We can assist you in the transcription of long documents. Give xerox copies of long documents to us ASAP.****
ASSIGNMENT: Bring disk with ten transcribed and html-coded documents to class next week. Make sure that you always have ALL OF YOUR WORK BACKED UP!!!!


WEEK 7 (Oct. 11th): Put Ten Transcribed Documents on Your Site
PEER GROUPS: One group will present individual progress reports to the entire class.
CLASS LAB: File Transfer Protocol -- putting your documents on the Worldwide Web! HTML tutorial.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Bring extra Xerox copies of second 10 documents, with complete citations on each document, as well as a list of all ten with their citations to class next week to hand in.


WEEK 8 (Oct. 18th): Second Ten Documents
PEER GROUPS: Peer groups will meet. One group will present individual progress reports to the entire class.
CLASS DISCUSSION: Problems encountered in selecting, transcribing, and proofreading documents.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Put next 10 transcribed documents up on your site for next week, or come prepared with a disk to upload them in class.

WEEK 9 (Oct. 25th): Put Ten Transcribed Documents on Your Site
PEER GROUPS: One group will present individual progress reports to the entire class.
HTML TUTORIAL: Annotations and endnotes.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Write headnotes for ten documents and put online for class next week, with endnotes.


WEEK 10 (Nov. 1st): Headnotes for Ten Documents (with endnotes)
CLASS DISCUSSION: Document headnotes, discussion of endnotes.
PEER GROUPS: Peer groups will meet for status reports.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Write headnotes for ten documents (with endnotes) and put online for class next week.


WEEK 11 (Nov. 8th): Headnotes for Ten Documents (with endnotes)
CLASS DISCUSSION: Discussion of document headnotes.
PEER GROUPS: Peer groups will meet for status reports.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Bring one-page description of project and hard copy of entire online project to class next week. Include two copies of a draft of your introduction.

PART III: Preparing the Final Project

WEEK 12 (Nov. 15th): Peer Review Exchange
PEER GROUPS: Meet with peer groups to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your work. Exchange projects for peer review.
INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES.
ASSIGNMENT: Bring two copies of one-page peer review to class after Thanksgiving; identify images to add to your site and at least two links to other website. Bring copies of images and printed first page of outside websites to class.


WEEK 13 (Nov. 22nd): Happy Thanksgiving -- No Class


WEEK 14 (Nov. 29th): One-Page Peer Review; Images and Links
PEER GROUPS: Meet with peer groups to discuss peer reviews.
CLASS LAB: Write plan for completion of rest of project. Practice presentations.
ASSIGNMENT: Revise introduction. Put entire project on web. Come to class next week prepared to give a five-minute presentation to invited guests.

WEEK 15 (Dec. 6th): Open House to Visitors!


WEEK 16 (Dec. 15): Final Project Due at NOON, LT606.
Two hard copies of entire project
Xerox copies of each original document, including full citations.
Disk with copy of entire project.
NO CLASS MEETING

Due Dates

Editorial Projects

The final project for this seminar is an electronic editorial project, chosen from a list of suggested projects. Each final project will be placed on the course website. Each will also be considered for placement on "Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930," a website funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The editorial project has five parts:

a research question;
a bibliography that informs and frames the research question;
a set of 20 documents that addresses the question (with annotations);
short headnotes (1-2 paragraphs) for each document;
an introduction to the whole project (3-5 pages plus footnotes).

Consult the guides to help you with various aspects of your project.

Suggested Projects:

The Campaign to Raise the Age of Consent. (What gender considerations led moral reformers to seek to raise the age of consent for girls? How was the age-of-consent campaign shaped by issues of class and race? How did the age-of-consent campaign politicize women?)

The Wife of Jane Addams. (How did Mary Rozet Smith support Jane Addams in her life and career?)
Race and the Birth Control Movement. (Why was the Harlem branch of Margaret Sanger's Clinical Research Bureau unable to attract patients and remain open? How did race affect the work of clinic staff with African-American patients? Did the policies of the birth control movement differ based upon the race of the patients?)

The Early Lesbian Rights Movement -- the Daughters of Bilitis. (How did the lesbian movement emerge and spread from San Francisco? How did concerns of lesbians change as they struggled for acceptance from 1959 to post-Stonewall? How did the "gay press" contribute to lesbian identity politics of the 1960s?)

The Emergence of Battered Women's Shelters. (What spurred the rapid rise in the number of battered women's shelters in the U.S.? How did feminist interpretations of familial violence shape the grassroots movement to protect battered women? How did battered women's shelters reflect their grassroots origins?

Post-Stonewall Lesbian Rights: The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. (How has the NGLTF addressed specifically women's issues in the years since Stonewall? How has the NGLTF changed from its beginnings four years after the Stonewall riots to the late 1990s?)

Women and Sports. (How did Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 contribute to the growth of women's sports, 1972-1999? How have activist women forced institutions to institute a policy of gender equity in sports since the passage of Title IX? Have women achieved gender equity in sports, 1972-1999?)

Women Petition Against the Gag Rule, 1836-1844. (How did female abolitionists fight the gag rule? Did their fight to re-establish their own right to petition affect their antislavery activsm?)

Women and Early Temperance Movements, 1840-1850s. (What factors drew women to antebellum temperance reform? Did the Martha Washingtonians and reformers such as Anthony, Stanton, and Bloomer work together, or did their class differences divide them? What were the goals of the women reformers within the antebellum temperance movement?)

New England Ten Hour Movement. (How did women workers active in the Ten Hour Movement come to articulate new perspectives on gender relations? What were the relations between male and female activists in the Ten Hour Movement in New England in the 1840s?)

Women and Labor Protest in the New England Shoe Industry, 1840-1860. (How did women's varied relationships to the family economy shape their perspectives on labor protest in Lynn shoemaking? How did men and women differ in their responses to the transformation of the shoe industry in mid-nineteenth century New England?)

The National Council of Jewish Women. (What factors -- religious, economic, educational, or others -- helped shape the NCJW's reform agenda? What kind of relationship did the NCJW have with other Progressive era women's clubs?)

African-American Women's Activism in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union before 1900. (How did African-American women make a distinctive contribution to organizing the Woman's Christian Temperance Union before 1900? How did work in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union propel African-American women leaders into other areas of race reform?)

Ella Baker and the Civil Rights Movement. (How did Ella Baker develop her civil rights strategy through her work in the NAACP, the SCLC, and SNCC? How did she organize black women's civil rights efforts?)

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and Disarmament, 1950s and 1960s. (How did WILPF make disarmament a women's issue? How effective was WILPF's disarmament campaign?)