h s376美国职业女性和现代城市，1870-1940（ h s376 u s workingwomen the modern city,1870-1940）.docVIP

HS 376 US Workingwomen The Modern City, 1870-1940 T 2:30-5 JH office Hours T/TH 9:30-10:30, T 1-2, by appointment Dr. Vivian Deno vdeno@butler.edu JH 349D Course Description “Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge” (anonymous). “Well-behaved women seldom make history” (Laurel Ulrich Thatcher) This class examines the lives of adventurous, young workingwomen who dared to venture away from the confines of family, village, and respectability and to seek out the outer edges of their world as youths in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We are interested in women who dared to make history as they journeyed from the countryside of the American South and Midwest and made their way into the nation’s industrializing cities. In exploring their lives, we consider the freedoms, pleasures, and dangers of urban America in cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Davenport. We will also consider the shifting historical fortunes of these young women first among contemporary observers and then among generations of historians. It is in this exercise that we engage with the habits of the Liberal Arts as we evaluate, debate, and rethink the significance of workingwomen to in this important period of the nation’s history. Feminism Us “Do I need to be a feminist to take this class,” you wonder. No, but it helps. Of course, I think it always helps to be a feminist! What it means to be a feminist of course is a long-standing matter of disagreement. No two people seem to agree on what it means or doesn’t mean. If no one else can reach an agreement, I won’t expect us to do so either. Thus there is no orthodoxy in this class, no set political, social, religious, ethical, or spiritual mantra or mandate other than the following: women are human beings; woman is not the same as female; women have a right to their bodies; and women are a proper object of study. [You might be su