History 111 - Women in American History - Kronbeck

In Colonial America, the lives of white immigrant, black slave, and American Indian women intersected. Economic, religious, social, and political forces all combined to induce and promote European colonization and the growth of slavery and the slave trade during this period. This volume provides the essential overview of American women's lives in the seventeenth century, as the dominant European settlers established their patriarchy. Women were essential to the existence of a new patriarchal society, most importantly because they were necessary for its reproduction. In addition to their roles as wives and mothers, Colonial women took care of the house and household by cooking, preserving food, sewing, spinning, tending gardens, taking care of sick or injured members of the household, and many other tasks. Students and general readers will learn about women's roles in the family, women and the law, women and immigration, women's work, women and religion, women and war, and women and education. literature, and recreation. The narrative chapters in this volume focus on women, particularly white women, within the eastern region of the current United States, the site of the first colonies. Chapter 1 discusses women's roles within the family and household and how women's experiences in the various colonies differed. Chapter 2 considers women and the law and roles in courts and as victims of crime. Chapter 3 looks at women and immigration--those who came with families or as servants or slaves. Women's work is the subject of Chapter 4. The focus is work within the home, preparing food, sewing, taking care of children, and making household goods, or as businesswomen or midwives. Women and religion are discussed in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 examines women's role in war. Women's education is one focus of Chapter 7. Few Colonial women could read but most women did receive an education in the arts of housewifery. Chapter 7 also looks at women's contributions to literature and their leisure time. Few women were free to pursue literary endeavors, but many expressed their creativity through handiwork. A chronology, selected bibliography, and historical illustrations accompany the text.

Tells the fascinating stories of the myriad women who shaped the early modern North American world from the colonial era through the first years of the Republic Women in Early America, edited by Thomas A. Foster, goes beyond the familiar stories of Pocahontas or Abigail Adams, recovering the lives and experiences of lesser-known women--both ordinary and elite, enslaved and free, Indigenous and immigrant--who lived and worked in not only British mainland America, but also New Spain, New France, New Netherlands, and the West Indies. In these essays we learn about the conditions that women faced during the Salem witchcraft panic and the Spanish Inquisition in New Mexico; as indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland; caught up between warring British and Native Americans; as traders in New Netherlands and Detroit; as slave owners in Jamaica; as Loyalist women during the American Revolution; enslaved in the President's house; and as students and educators inspired by the air of equality in the young nation. Foster showcases the latest research of junior and senior historians, drawing from recent scholarship informed by women's and gender history--feminist theory, gender theory, new cultural history, social history, and literary criticism. Collectively, these essays address the need for scholarship on women's lives and experiences. Women in Early America heeds the call of feminist scholars to not merely reproduce male-centered narratives, "add women, and stir," but to rethink master narratives themselves so that we may better understand how women and men created and developed our historical past.

The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America harvests the fruits of 25 years of scholarship on the history and current state of women's religious experience in North America. The result of a five-year project led by Rosemary Skinner Keller and Rosemary Radford Ruether and funded by the Lilly Endowment and the Henry Luce Foundation, the encyclopedia marshals the talents of more than 150 scholars to produce the most comprehensive and up-to-date description and analysis of women and religion in North America. The encyclopedia is interreligious, interracial, and multicultural and is aimed at a broad general audience. Instead of hundreds of short entries, this encyclopedia features more than 145 longer essays that enable major themes to be developed more fully. The articles focus on institutions, movements, and ideas. The authors weave biographical sketches into their articles to give them a more personal and humanizing quality, and to recognize the women responsible for the gains made over the centuries. The essays demonstrate that neither the story of women nor the story of religion in North America can be accurately told unless the religious experience of women is integrated into the center of women's and religious history. These well-illustrated volumes will be an essential reference for all of those interested in the role of women in North America's vibrant and complex religious life.

Women and Christianity explores the experiences of women and how their daily lives interface with their spirituality and faith. Beginning with a historical overview, the book presents essays grouped under five broad headings: women, family, and environment; socioeconomics, politics, and authority; body, mind, and spirit; sex, power, and vulnerability; and women, world view, and religious practice. These essays focus on multiple aspects of women's experiences and contemporary Christian realities, involving the interrelatedness of faith, thought, and activism across many strata of global society. They wrestle with the daily experiences and challenges women face integrating their lives as women of faith--as they are advocates, experience agency, and work for mutuality. It shows how in all these roles, women must negotiate power, injustice, and the impact of sexism as they work within systemic oppression amid a patriarchal system, nevertheless championing change and refusing to be severely compromised.

West offers an overview of the lives of enslaved women in America by using a broad chronological perspective, considering themes and issues in their lives from the colonial era through to the end of the Civil War. She compares the lives of enslaved women--sometimes exceptional and sometimes ordinary--across time and space with the lives of enslaved men, and with the white men and women who held them in bondage. West draws upon a wide range of evidence in evaluating enslaved women's lives and considers the major methodological issues they pose in order to build a composite, or overall, picture of enslaved womanhood through "snapshots'' of different women at various stages of their life-cycles.

This volume brings together primary sources, including manuscripts and newspapers, that reveal the lives of slaves and the roles that women played-both in bondage and empowered-in the progress of slavery from the Colonial era through Reconstruction.

The women's rights movement grew out of the women's suffrage movement of the mid-1800s. The second wave of the movement, which promoted economic, political, and social equality, gained momentum in the 1960s and '70s. This work gives an introduction to one of the most prominent reform movements over the years.

A comprehensive encyclopedia tracing the history of the women's rights movement in the United States from the American Revolution to the present day. Few realize that the origin of the discussion on women's rights emerged out of the anti-slavery movement of the 19th century, and that suffragists were active in the peace and labor movements long after the right to vote was granted. Thus began the confluence of activism in our country, where the rights of women both followed--and led--the social and political discourse in America. Through 4 volumes and more than 800 entries, editor Tiffany K. Wayne, with advising editor Lois Banner, examine the issues, people, and events of women's activism, from the early period of American history to the present time. This comprehensive reference not only traces the historical evolution of the movement, but also covers current issues affecting women, such as reproductive freedom, political participation, pay equity, violence against women, and gay civil rights. Offers informed, critical insights and perspectives from editor Tiffany K. Wayne; advising editor Lois Banner, noted author, professor, historian, and feminist; and expert contributors Comprises more than 800 entries in four volumes on the people, organizations, events, legislation, and primary documents impacting gender relations in the United States Supplies valuable content for librarians' events and programming for Women's History Month each March Provides listings of U.S. court cases regarding women's rights chronologically organized by major time periods Aligns with high school and college curricula in offering the experiences of American women Includes coverage of current and ongoing issues related to women's civil and political equality in the 21st century