Women and Gender History Midterm

Contribution History

second stage - historians describe women's contributions to events, arena, and themes already deemed important. They highlight that women are important and have been around making a difference.

Household Managers

servants, slaves, anyone who completes the various tasks and chores associated with the organization, financial management , and day-to-day operations of a home.

Primary Sources

sources from the same time of the event (diaries, news articles, letters, government records, etc)

The Hemings-Jefferson Treaty, 1789

Jefferson promised to let Heming's kids free after the age 18 even though she was a slave and did now allow any other kids this type of freedom.

Mixed Economies

economic systems that functioned on the bases of both paid and unpaid labor were dependent upon both

Bread Winner

person who earns money to support the family

Patriarchal Figure

father figure holds the authority in patriarchy

Partus Sequitur Ventrem/According to the Condition of the Mother

"offspring follows belly"; children serve (free or enslaved) according to the condition of the mother

Ladies/Litchfield Declaration of Independence

(July 4, 1876) the National Woman Suffrage Association adopted a Declaration of Rights of the women of the US. It sought equal rights for women, particularly the right to vote.

Antebellum Gender Culture

prewar gender culture. The specific character of the century gender culture was dictated less by transformations in women's experience than by transformations in men.

Important Women's Issues (for Section B of midterm)

- equal treatment - gender norms - ideologies of patriarchy --- sexual power - ideologies of capitalism --- class dynamics - economic freedom / dependence - intersectional identities --- race --- sex --- class --- citizenship status - labor regimes --- wage labor --- slavery --- change over time

Main Themes of "Women's America"

1. family / household / sexuality 2. labor / economy / class 3. race / ethnicity / religion 4. law and citizenship 5. the global context of US women's history

Republican Women

A women that stood up for what is right and to want to be part of the political decisions. Very independent and pushes for what she wants, and self-reliant

Esther DeBerdt Reed

Active leader in the American Revolution, provided goods to the soldiers; founded the Ladies Association of Philadelphia, who led local relief efforts and raised funds for the Continental Army and also to provide aid for George Washington's troops during the war.

Gender Frontier

ESTABLISHED BY POCAHONTAS! Differences between gender roles that shaped the perceptions and interactions of the English and Natives during colonizations. Gender frontier is the meeting of two or more culturally specific systems of knowledge about gender and nature. The perception that established gender definitions in one's culture and natural rather than socially constructed. This evolved between English settlers and the indigenous people of Virginia. The site of creative and destructive processes resulting from confrontations of culturally specific manhoods and womenhoods.

Francis Stripes and his wife

Francis Stripes is a white, male colonist who had been recently married but is not paying is property tithe. It is unsure how he made a living, but it was not a farm laborer. He is not a rule follower and will have to make up his missing payments in the years to follow. He wanted slaves to be able to get married so he created new vows that would accustomed to the social norms regarding slaves at the time.

Katherine Harrison (This ID was added on Slides for Week 2)

Her husband died and she got a part of the estate along with her 3 daughters. She claimed that her neighbors vandalized her estate after her husband's death. She was also accused of witchcraft. A couple sued her for slander and had an ongoing dispute with John Chester over the land. (Wethersfield, Connecticut)

Travel Accounts

Morgan's article - Comes from travel accounts from those European men who are traveling to Africa. Using travel accounts to get at history that are published accounts (H)

"City Without Pity"

Obergefell case; When a gay couple wanted to get married but could not and would not be able to get any of the benefits of marriage. They went through great lengths to become married to that the one husband with disability could have it in his records when he dies. They sued the state of Ohio and won. They used this term

Obergefell v. Hodges

Ohio would not recognize a marriage if it was same-sex. They filed a lawsuit against ohio to have their marriage recognized and all same-sex marriages from then on. They won and John was able to have his record as "married" and the husband was able to get benefits with marriage.

Sarah Osborne

One of the first women to be accused of witchcraft. Sarah Osborne (relatively well-off) and her document talks about being a camp woman who work with the troops, conducts the cleaning and cooking. She said she deserves a pension from her former husband because she helped in the war in front of congress. She gets the pension, and the war was very good for her because she gets what she wants and met George Washington.

Catherine Beecher

One of the most outspoken proponents of domesticity, we have an example of the contradictions of the Cult of Domesticity and the meaning of Pastoralization of Housework. She wrote Treatise on Domestic Economy which portrayed the virtues of True Womanhood as a woman's choice. ​​She emphasized that housework was hard work and wanted men to know that their work is very similar to the demands of men's work in business.

Inheriting Women

Personal property which are called movable were inherited from a married daughter and immediately became legal possession of her husband who would have full ownership of it. A married daughter who inherited land from her father retained title to the land, which her husband could not sell from under her. The daughter was not allowed to inherit land until she was married because it would seem as being held for improvement.

Algonquian

Society that valued their women; women had power in the tribe; English saw them as weak because they gave women power. All the members of an Algonquian nation were equal. That means women were full members of the tribe and played an important role in the band's life. Among the Algonquians, men and women had their own separate tasks. It was very rare for a woman to do a man's work and vice versa.

Pocahontas

Pocahontas crossed gender divides by crossing in how gender changes from contact between cultures and connecting with people who are different( CREATED GENDER FRONTIER). Europeans and Native Americans held dramatically different ideas about what women and men should be and do in part of their roles in society. They were impressed by her because she was a daughter of an Indian werowance, a recent convert to Christianity, she spoke English which she impressed her hosts with her fluency.

Richard Ligon

Richard Ligon describes the back woman as beautiful. He states that her bodies stature was large and with full eyes. He said she moved with grace and majesty. He changed his viewpoint when he saw more African women and then described them as having breasts that "hang low" below their Navels. He said, at a distance one could see 6 legs.

Sexual Power

Sharon Block talks about how men had sexual power and abused that power with their slaves and servants.

Rachel Wells

She helped contribute funds to the military and got nothing back in return. Rachel Wells contributes monetarily to the war. She contributed to the military. She doesn't win because she does not fit into the category, but believes she has the right to petition. She said, "I have done much to carry on the war"... and it means nothing for a poor soul like her.

Virginia Establishes a Double Standard in Tax Law, WA 57

There was an extra tax placed on men, especially African American men when married. African-descended females were assumed to be laborers and not labeled as domestic wives. A man was forced to pay a tithe for his wife who was African American. He went to the supreme court and stated that he is already paying enough. Every person who was to pay taxes based on their house, they paid with goods including food since coins and paper were limited. Free african-descended families had financial burdens, where the women were the laborers and the men started at the age of 15 conducting jobs. The man had to pay tithes for his wife, where he disagreed say that he already paid enough for himself so he went to the supreme court to plead.

Porno-tropical Writing

This describes African American women in the 18th century. Men describe African American women's bodies and ideas about black sexuality and misconceptions about black female sexual behavior formed the cornerstone of European and euro-American attitudes toward slavery. European men gradually brought African women into focus, images and beliefs about race and slavery were indelibly marked on the women's bodies. African women see themselves and one another as being defined by racial characteristics because of enslavement.

The Family Wage

a wage that is sufficient to support a family

Secondary Sources

articles or books published by scholars who study history (not contemporary to the time or event)

First Wave

campaign for women's rights (suffrage) from 1840s to 1920s. The first wave refers to as the campaign for women's rights, including suffrage, that stretched from the 1840s to 1920.

Deborah Sampson

disguised herself as a man and enlisted into the military. She fought for her rights. She was the only woman to earn a full military pension for participation in the Revolutionary army.

Harriet Jacobs

enslaved black woman under James & Mary Norcom (became pregnant). Jacobs was born an enslaved black child from North Carolina. Jacobs did not have the luxury like white women to have legal redress against white men who raped them so she ran away to her free grandmother's house to hide from her master.

Third Wave

feminist activism of the 1990s onward. It was led by so-called Generation Xers who, born in the 1960s and '70s in the developed world, came of age in a media-saturated and culturally and economically diverse milieu.

Compensatory History

first stage - the historian identifies women and their activities (xxvi)

Intersectional History

fourth stage - women's history has different meaning depending on the race, class, citizenship status, sexuality, and able-bodiedness of an individual (xxvii) ; identify differences and how that affected women historically

Anne Hutchinson

girl boss! Anne Hutchinson was on trial for being the leader of Antinomian teachings and led the meetings in her home after Sunday church services. This is where she criticized the ministers' sermons. She was put on trial for her criticism of her religious and political behavioral teachings. Some of the strategies she used to defend her actions and challenges were the use of the bible and the use of the men's own words to defend herself in trial.

Rachel Davis

indentured white servant under William & Becky Cress. Davis was a free white child from Pennsylvania. Davis's master was sent to prison because she was white and had the privilege to take him to court and prove that he was sexually abusing her.

Pastoralization of Housework

the erasure of women's work; women erased it themselves- Harriet Beecher: "I am constantly pursued & haunted by the idea that I don't do anything"; People argue that the reality for all women was the idea of "cult of domesticity": which attempted to define gender roles in the nineteenth century by limiting women to a domestic sphere. It served as an ideal to which middle and upper-class women could aspire and a means of class distinction.

Historiography

the history of history writing (xxviii) ; how understanding history and writing about it changes

Republican motherhood

the idea that women needed to provide moral guidance for their husbands and raising virtuous sons to be American citizens. A revolution of a political status

Coverture

the legal status of a married woman, considered to be under her husband's protection and authority. It's said to be covert baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. The idea of Coverture means "that by marriage the husband and wife are one person in law, and this principle of a union of person depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities that either of them acquire by marriage...for this reason, a man cannot grant anything to his wife".

Second Wave

the women's liberation movement from the 1960s to 1970s.

Transformative History

third stage - previous general understandings of history only applied to men; situations were very different for women in the same situation. Things we thought we 'knew' about American history turn out to be more complex than we had suspected. One that was more transformative than the first and second stages. (ex- Norton is transformative with T-Hall, gave T-Hall dual sexuality)