A Companion to American Women's History

506 Pages·2005·7.812 MB·English

by  Nancy A. Hewitt

A Companion to American Women’s History
BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO AMERICAN HISTORY
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have sparked debate in their field of interest. The volumes are accessible for the nonspecialist,
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Edited by Nancy Hewitt Edited by Lacy K. Ford
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A COMPANION TO
AMERICAN WOMEN’S
HISTORY
Edited by
Nancy A. Hewitt
B Ia c kweI I
Publishing
02 002,2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
except for editorial material and organization 02 002,2005 by Nancy A. Hewitt
BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
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First published 2002
First published in paperback 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationD ata
A companion to American women’s history edited by Nancy A. Hewitt.
p. cm.-(Blackwell companions to American history; #5)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-631-21252-3( hb: alk. paper)-ISBN 1-4051-2685-X( pb: alk. paper)
1. Women-United States-History. 2. Feminism-United States-History. I. Hewitt,
Nancy A, 1951-. 11. Series.
HQ1410. C63 2002
2002020882
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To thepaduate students who have tauah me so much.
Contents
About the Contributors ix
Introduction xii
PARTI THE COLONIAERLA ,1 600-1760 1
The Imperial Gaze: Native American, African American, and
Colonial Women in European Eyes 3
Kirsten Fischer
Slavery and the Slave Trade 20
Jennifer L. Morgan
Contact and Conquest in Colonial North America 35
Gwenn A. Miller
Building Colonies, Defining Families 49
Ann M. Little
Sinners and Saints: Women and Religion in Colonial America 66
Susan Juster
PARTI 1 THEC REATIOOFNA NEWN ATION1,7 60-1880 81
A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American
Revolution 83
Jan E. h i s
Gender and Class Formations in the Antebellum North 100
Catherine Kelly
Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in the Antebellum Era 117
Nancy A. Hewitt
Conflicts and Cultures in the West 132
Lisbeth Haas
viii CONTENTS
10 RuralWomen 150
Marli F. Weiner
11 The Civil War Era 167
navolia Glymph
12 Marriage, Property, and Class 193
Amy Dm Stanley
13 Health, Sciences, and Sexuatities in Victorian America 206
Louise Michele Newman
PARTI 11 MODERANM ERICA18, 80-1990 225
14 Education and the Professions 227
Lynn D. Gordon
15 Wage-earning Women 250
Annelise Orleck
16 Consumer Cultures 274
Susan Porter Benson
17 Urban Spaces and Popular Cultures, 1890-1930 29 5
Nan Enstad
18 Women on the Move: Migration and Immigration 312
Ardis Cameron
19 Women’s Movements, 188 Os-1920s 328
Kirsten Delgard
20 Medicine, Law, and the State: The History of Reproduction 348
Leslie J. Reagan
21 The Great Depression and World War I1 366
Karen Anderson
22 Rewriting Postwar Women’s History, 1945-1960 382
Joanne Meyerowitz
23 Civil Rights and Black Liberation 397
Steven F. Lawson
24 Second-wave Feminism 414
Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon
Bibliography: Selected Secondary Sources 433
Compiled by April de Stefano
Index 48 1
About the Contributors
Karen Anderson is Professor of History at revising her dissertation “ ‘A Freer Existence
the University of Arizona. She is the author for Womanhood’: Gender, Marital Status and
most recently of ChanJin8 Woman: A History Wage Work in Los Angeles, 1900-1929”, for
of Racial Ethnic Women in Modern America publication.
(1996) and is currently completing a book on
Kirsten Delegard is an Independent Scholar
the Little Rock, Arkansas, school desegrega-
at Duke University. She is currently revising
tion crisis, 1954-64.
her dissertation, Women Pam‘ots: Female Ac-
Rosalyn Baxandall is Professor and Chair of tivism and the Politics of Anti-radicalism, for
American Studies at the State University of publication.
New York at Old Westbury. She has written
widely on working women, reproductive Nan Enstad is Associate Professor of History
rights, and suburbia. She is co-author of Pic- at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She
ture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened is the author of Ladies of Labor, Girls of Ad-
(2000) and co-editor, with Linda Gordon, venture: Working Women, Popular Culture,
of Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women’s and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth
Liberation Movement (2000). Century (1999).
Susan Porter Benson is Associate Professor Kirsten Fischer is Associate Professor of His-
of History at the University of Connecticut. tory at the University of Minnesota. She is the
She is the author of Counter Cultures: author of Suspect Relations: Sex, Race, and
Saleswomen, Manaflers, and Customers in Resistance in Colonial North Carolina
America’s Department Stores (1986) and is (2002).
at work on Household Accounts: Working-
class Families in the Interwar United States. Thavolia Glymph, Assistant Professor of
History and African and African American
Ardis Cameron is Director of American and
Studies at Duke University, has co-edited
New England Studies at the University of
and co-authored several volumes on the
Southern Maine. Author of Radicals of the
Civil War and postbellum South. She has writ-
Worst Sort: Laborin8 Women in Lawrence,
ten widely on women’s role in war and the
Massachusetts, 186&1912 (1993), she is cur-
struggle for emancipation, including ‘This
rently working on In Search of Peyton Place: “
Species of Property’: Female Slave Contra-
l%e Biography of a Book.
bands in the War,” in A Woman’s War: South-
April de Stefan0 is Visiting Assistant Profes- ern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate
sor at Claremont McKenna College. She is Legacy (1996).
X ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Linda Gordon is Professor of History at New Charles Payne and has written an essay on
York University. Her most recent books are Ruby Hurley for Notable American Women,
B e Great Arizona Orphan Abduction volume 5 (forthcoming).
(1999),w inner of the Bancroft and Beveridge
Jan E. Lewis is Professor of History at Rut-
prizes, and Dear Sisters: Dispatchespom the
gers University, Newark. She is the author of
Women’s Liberation Movement (2000), which
B eP ursuit of Happiness: Family and Values
she co-edited with Rosalyn Baxandall.
in Jeffson’s Viginia (1983) and co-author,
Lynn D. Gordon is Associate Professor of with Jeanne Boydston, James Oakes, Nick
Education and History and Chair of the Cullather, and Michael McGerr, of Making a
Gender and Society Group at the University Nation: B e United States and Its People
of Rochester. Author of Gender and Higher (2001).
Education in the Progressive Era (1990), she is
Ann M. Little is Associate Professor of His-
currently working on a biography of the jour-
tory at Colorado State University. She is the
nalist Dorothy Thompson.
author of articles on colonial women’s and
Lisbeth Haas is Associate Professor of His- gender history and the author of Abraham
tory at the University of California, Santa in Arms: Gender and Power on the New Eng-
Cruz. She is the author of Conquests and land Frontier, 1620-1 760.
Historical Identities in California, 1769-
1936, awarded the Elliott Rudwick prize, JoanneM eyerowie is Professor of History at
and is currently completing B e Chumash Yale University and past editor of the Journal
Rafael and Other Histories of Colonial and of American History. She is the editor of Not
Mexican California. June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar
America (1994) and author of How Sex
Nancy A. Hewitt is Professor of History and
Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the
Women’s Studies at Rutgers University, New
United States (2002).
Brunswick. She is the author of Southern Dis-
comfort: Women’sA ctivism in Tampa, Florida, Gwenn A. Miller is Assistant Professor of
1880s-1920s (2001) and co-author, with History at College of the Holy Cross. She is
Chris Clarke, of Who Built America?,v olume currently revising her dissertation, “ ‘She
l(2000). Was Handsome. . . But Tattooed’: Gender,
Empire, and Environment in Russian Alaska,
Susan Juster is Associate Professor of History
1720-1820.”
at the University of Michigan. Her articles on
gender and prophecy have appeared in the Jennifer L. Morgan is Associate Professor of
William and Mary Darterly and the Ameri- History and Women’s Studies at Rutgers Uni-
can Historical Review. She is currently at work versity, New Brunswick. She is the author of
on Prophets of Evil: Millenarian Culture and Laboring Women: Reproduction and Slavery
the Public Sphere in Revolutionary America. in Early America (2004).
Catherine Kelly is Associate Professor of His- Louise Michele Newman, Associate Profes-
tory at the University of Oklahoma. She is the sor of History at the University of Florida, is
author of In the New England Fashion: Re- author of White Women’s Rghts: B eR acial
shaping Women’s Lives in the Nineteenth Cen- &gins of Feminism in the United States
tury (1999). (1999). She is currently at work on See
Through the Sixties: Hollpood Histories of
Steven F. Lawson, Professor of History at
Civil R@s and Feminism.
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, has writ-
ten widely on the civil rights movement and Annelise Orleck, Associate Professor of His-
black politics. He is the author of Debating tory and Women’s Studies at Dartmouth Col-
the Civil Rights Movement (1998) with lege, is the author of Common Sense and a
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS xi
Little Fire: Women and Working-class Politics Amy Dru Stanley, Associate Professor of His-
in the United States (1995) and Soviet Jewish tory at the University of Chicago, has pub-
Americans (1999). She co-edited The Politics lished numerous articles on women, race,
of Motherhood: Activist Voices @om Lej3 to property, and citizenship. She is the author of
Rght (1997). From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Mar-
riage, and the Market in the&e of Slave Eman-
Leslie J. Reagan is Associate Professor in the
cipation (1998).
Department of History and the Medical Hu-
manities and Social Sciences Program at the Mali F. Weiner is Professor of History at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. University of Maine, Orono. She is the author
She is the author most recently of “Crossing of Plantation Women: South Carolina Mis-
the Border for Abortions: California Activists, tresses and Slaves (1998) and editor of Of
Mexican Clinics, and the Creation of a Femi- Place and Gender: Essays on Women in Maine
nist Health Agency in the 1960s,” Feminist History (forthcoming). She is currently at
Studies (Summer 2000) and “From Blessing work on ““MyH ouse has been an Hospital”:
to Tragedy: Teachings on Miscarriage in Gender, Race, and the Politics of Healthcare on
Twentieth-centuryA merica,” Feminist Stud- the Antebellum Plantation.
ies (forthcoming).