Women and the National Experience

Description

A graduate of Smith College, Ellen Skinner received an MA from Columbia University and a PhD from NYU. She chaired the History Department at Pace University’s Westchester campus from 1987 to 2006. Her teaching career spanned four decades and in 2008 she was appointed Professor Emerita. In both her teaching and writing she strives to make women’s history accessible to students and relevant to their lives. Now in its third edition, Women and the National Experience first was published in 1995. Professor Skinner continues to teach women’s history online and to search the archives for women’s lost voices. Her current research focuses on women’s human rights as well as the connections between women’s history and the environment.

Provides an inclusive range of women’s voices, an increased number of topics and a geographic lens with significant focus on the West.

Includes greater documentary coverage of little known women who along with the names of the familiar and the famous demonstrate the dynamic interaction between diverse women and the national experience.

Primary documents include private letters, diary entries, cartoons, photographs, newspaper accounts, public speeches, records from court trials, Supreme Court decisions, excerpts from memoirs and autobiographies.

Chapter introductions and documentary headnotes provide historical context and biographical information.

Although arranged chronologically, each chapter focuses on a particular topic that expresses significance within the field of women’s history but also relates to major national developments.  

*New to this edition

1 Gender, Race and Class in the Colonial Era

Anne Hutchinson, Trial 1638)

Sor (Sister ) Juana Ines de la Crux, “Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess, Sor Filotea De La Cruz”*

Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children (c.1650)

Assembly of Virginia, Statute Outlawing Interracial Unions (1691)*

Cotton Mather, Th e Wonders of the Invisible World: Trial of Susanna Martin (1692)

Benjamin Wadsworth, A Well-Ordered Family (1712)

Chrestien Le Clercq, The Customs and Religion of the Indians (1700)

Mary Jemison, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison

Elizabeth Sprigs, Letter from an Indentured Servant 1756)

Eliza Pinckney, Birthday Resolutions (c.1750)

Phillis Wheatley, Letter to the Reverend Samuel Occom (Feb.11, 1774)*

Judith Cocks, Letter to James Hillhouse (1795)

2 From Revolution to Republic: Moral Motherhood and Civic Mission

Anne Hulton, Letter of a Loyalist Lady 1774)

Esther DeBerdt Reed, Sentiments of an American Woman 1780)

Molly Brant Letter to Daniel Claus (June 23^rd, 1778)*

Abigail Adams, Letters to John Adams and His Reply (1776)

Molly Wallace, The Young Ladies, Academy of Philadelphia (1790)

Eulalia Callis, Petition to Divorce her Husband Pedro Fages (1784-85)*

Abigail Abbot Bailey, Excerpt from Memoirs (1788-89)*

Judith Sargent Murray, On the Equality of the Sexes (1790)

Letter from Paul Revere on Behalf of Deborah Sampson Gannet (1804)*

Ladies Society of New York, Constitution (1800)

Colored Female Religious and Moral Society of Salem, Massachusetts, Constitution 1818)

Emma Willard, Plan for Female Education (1819)

John S. C. Abbott, The Mother at Home 1833)

3 Emerging Industrialization and Expanding Roles: The Intersection of Opportunity and Domestic Ideals

Prudence Crandall, Advertisement in The Liberator, “Regarding the Opening of A High School

for Young Colored Ladies and Misses” (1833)*

Mary Lyon, Mt. Holyoke Seminary, Letter to Mrs. Cooley, Feb. (1843)*

Barilla Taylor, Letter to Her Family (1844)*

Harriet Hanson Robinson, Lowell Textile Workers (1898)

Letters to the Voice of Industry (1846)

Sarah Bagley, Letter to Mrs. Martin (March 13, 1848)*

Ellen Monroe, Letter to the Boston Bee (1846)

Female Labor Reform Association,Testimony Before the Massachusetts Legislature (1845)

Catharine Beecher, The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children (1846)*

Sarah Josepha Hale, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Editor’s Table, Copy of Petition sent to Congress, Jan. (1856)*

Sarah Josepha Hale, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Editor’s Table, Twelve Reasons Why Women Should Received a

Medical Education (1857)*

“We Are Not Slaves,” New York Times, Female Shoe and Textile Workers Strike Marblehead, Massachusetts, (Feb. 28^th 1860)*

Betsy Cowles, Report on Labor, Proceedings of the Woman’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio (1851)

Caroline Dall, Women’s Right to Labor (1860)

4 From Moral Reform to Free Love and Voluntary Motherhood: Issues of Vulnerability and Sexual Agency

Female Moral Reform Society NYC, Excerpt from First Annual Report: “Licentious Men”(1835)*

Important Lectures to Females (1839)*

Friend of Virtue, Died in Jaffrey, N.H., Aged 27 (1841)

Caroline Healy Dall, Letter to Paulina Davis and the Woman’s Rights Convention (1851)*

Dr. William W. Sanger, Excerpt from The History of Prostitution, Its Extent, Causes, Effects throughout the

World (1859)*

Lucy Stone, Letter to Antoinette Brown Blackwell (July 11, 1855)*

Paulina Wright Davis, Letter to Women’s Rights Conference, Akron, Ohio (1851)*

The Unwelcome Child (1845)*

Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Address: The Whole World’s Temperance Convention, September (1853)*

A Temperance Activist (1853)

Victoria Woodhull, And the Truth Shall Make You Free (1871)*

Harriot Stanton Blatch, “Voluntary Motherhood”, Speech, The National Woman’s Council (1891)*

Winnifred Harper Cooley, The New Womanhood (1904)*

5 Enslaved Women: Race, Gender and the Plantation Patriarchy [New Chapter]

Benjamin Drew, Narrative of an Escaped Slave (1855)

Harriet Tubman, Excerpts from A Biography by Her Contemporaries c.1880)

Bethany Veney, The Autobiography of Bethany Veney, A Slave Woman (1889)*

Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent), Excerpt from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)*

Elizabeth Keckley, Excerpt from Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (1868)*

State v. Celia, a Slave, Excerpt from her Trial for Murder, Missouri (1855)*

Rose Williams, Interview, Texas, W.P.A., (1930’s)*

Fanny Kemble, Journal Excerpt (1838)*

Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Confederate Lady’s Diary (1861)*

Gertrude Clanton Thomas, Excerpt from The Secret Eye (Sept. 17, 1864)*

Letitia Burwell, A Girl’s Life in Virginia Before the War (1895)*

6 Abolitionist Women and the Issue of Racial Equality [New Chapter]

Maria M.Stewart, Farewell Address to my Friends (Sept. 21^st 1833)

Elizabeth Emery and Mary P. Abbott, Letter to The Liberator (1836)

Sarah Mapps Douglass, Letter to William Basset, a Lynn Massachusetts abolitionist (1837)

Lydia Maria Child, Excerpt from the Appeal: “Prejudices Against People of Color, and our Duties in Relation to this

Subject” (1833)

Pastoral Letter to New England Churches (1837)

Sarah Grimké, Reply to Pastoral Letter (1837)

Angelina Grimke Weld, Speech at Pennsylvania Hall (1838)

Angelina Grimké, An Appeal to the Woman of the Nominally Free States (1838)

Julia Hardy Lovejoy, Letter to The Independent Democrat, Concord New Hampshire (August 1^st, 1855)

Elizabeth Jennings Graham, “A Wholesome Verdict” New York Tribune, 23^rd Feb. pp.7: 4 (1855)

Frances Watkins Harper, Excerpt from Speech (1857)

Sarah Remond, Excerpt from her Autobiography (1861)

7 Women’s Rights and the Contest over Woman’s “Place”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments 1848)

Catharine Beecher, An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism in Reference to the Duty of American Females, 1837

Caroline Gilman, Recollections of a Southern Matron (1838)

Lucretia Mott, Discourse on Women 1849)

Emily Collins, Reminiscences of the Suffrage Trail (c.188 )

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, On Marriage and Divorce (c.1850)

Sojourner Truth, A’n’t I a Woman? (1851)

Ernestine Rose,This Is the Law but Where Is the Justice of It? (1852)

Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell,Marriage Contract (1855)

Rebecca Gratz, Unsigned letter on Behalf of Founding a Jewish Orphanage (1850)

Elizabeth Smith Miller “Reflections on Woman’s Dress and the Record of a Personal Experience” (1892)

Frances Willard “A Wheel within a Wheel; How I Learned to Ride a Bicycle” (1895)

8 Western Expansion: Diverse Stories, Different Viewpoints [New Chapter]

Nancy Ward and Cherokee Women Petition their Tribal Leaders (1817)

Ladies of Steubenville Ohio, Petition Against Indian Removal (Feb.15^th 1830)

Harriet L. Noble, Excerpt from her Recollections recorded in Elizabeth Ellet, Pioneer Women of the West (1852)

Journal of Narcissa Whitman, Letter to her Mother (May 2^nd 1840)

Guri Olsdatter, Letter to her Family (1866)

Eulalia Perez, Reminiscences Transcribed, 1877

Isadora Filomena, Testimony of the Widow of Prince Solano (1874)

Rosalia Vallejo Leese, “Hoisting of the Bear Flag” (1877)

The Biography of Guadalupe Lupita Galligos Federal Writers’ Project,( Oct. 27, 1938)

Luzena Stanley Wilson‘49er, “Memories Recalled for her Daughter, Correnah Wilson Wright” (1881)

Mary Ballou California Gold Rush, “Hogs in my Kitchen”(1852)

Bridget (Biddy) Mason (1818-1891), Court Trial, Mason v. Smith (1856)

Labor Contract for Chinese Prostitutes, (1886)

9 Civil War, Reconstruction, Racial and Gender Politics

Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Letter to the Hon. William H. Seward Nov. 1, 1861

Clara Barton, Nursing on the Firing Line (c.1870)

Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, A Southern Woman’s Story 1879)

Charlotte Forten, Letter to William Lloyd Garrison (1862)

Elizabeth Packard, Excerpt from the Prisoner’s Hidden Life or Insane Asylums Unveiled (1868)

Frances Watkins Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together,” Address to the 11^th National Women’s

Convention, New York (1866)

Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Why Women Should Not Seek the Vote (1869)

Susan B. Anthony, Proceedings of the Trial (1873)

Edward H. Clarke, Sex in Education; Or a Fair Chance for the Girls (1873)

Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)

Amelia Barr, Discontented Women (1896)

10 Separate Sisterhoods: Identity and Division

Anna Julia Cooper, Address to the World’s Congress of Representative Women, Chicago (1893)

M. Carey Thomas, Present Tendencies in Women’s Education (1908)

Anna Manning Comfort, Only Heroic Women Were Doctors Then (1916)

Martha E.D. White, Work of the Woman’s Club (1904)

Grover Cleveland, Woman’s Mission and Woman’s Clubs (1905)

National Association of Colored Women, Club Activities (1906)

Frances Willard, On Behalf of Home Protection (1884)

Zitkala—Sa, The School Days of an Indian Girl (1900)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Bible and Church Degrade Women (1898)

Ida Wells Barnett, A Red Record (1895)

Selena S. Butler,The Chain Gang System

11 Women’s Roles: Americanization and the Multicultural West

Martha (Mattie) Virginia Oblinger, Letter to her Family (June 16^th 1873)

Sarah Thal, Recollections of a German-Jewish Woman in North Dakota (1882)

Helen Hunt Jackson, Excerpt from A Century of Dishonor (1883)

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among The Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883)

Alice Fletcher (1838-1923) Dependent Races, National Council of Women (1891)

Sister Blandina Segale, Excerpt: At the End of the Santa Fe Trail

Johanna July, Interview, Federal Writers Project (1936-1940)

Emmeline Wells “Is It Ignorance?” Woman’s Exponent (July 1st, 1883)

Fanny Stenhouse , Tell It All: A Woman’s Life in Polygamy (1875)

Elizabeth Piper Ensley, Suffrage Victory in Colorado (1893)

Mary McGladery Tape A Chinese Mother Protests School Segregation in San Francisco, Letter to

School Board (1885)

Elinoir Pruitt Stewart, Letter from a Woman Homesteader,”Filing a Claim”(1911)

12 Gilded Age Protest and Women Activists: Empowering Women Workers

Mary Church Terrell, What It Means to Be Colored in the Capital of the United States (1906)

Susan B. Anthony, Bread Not Ballots (c.1867)

Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, The Working Girls of Boston (1884)

Leonora Barry, Investigator for the Knights of Labor (1888)

Mary Elizabeth Lease, A Populist Crusader (1892)

Clara Lanza, Women as Clerks in New York (1891)

Mother Jones, The March of the Mill Children (1903)

Rose Schneiderman, A Cap Maker’s Story (1905)

Rose Schneiderman, The Triangle Fire (1911)

New York Times, Miss Morgan Aids Girl Waist Strikers (1909)

13 Progressive Era: Maternal Politics and Suffrage Victory

Anna Garlin Spencer, Women Citizens (1898)

“Conquering Little Italy,” Transactions of the National Council of Women (Feb 22-25, 1891)

Mary White Ovington “How the NAACP Began” (1914)

Jane Addams, The Clubs of Hull House (1905)

Lillian Wald, New York Times, “Good Metal in our Melting Pot Says Miss Wald,” (Nov. 16^th 1913)

Florence Kelley, The Child, the State, and the Nation (1905)

Muller v. Oregon (1908)

National Women’s Trade Union League, Legislative Goals (1911)

Alice Duer Miller, “A Consistent Anti to her Son”(1915)

Anna Howard Shaw, NAWSA Convention Speech (1913)

Mollie Schepps, Senators v. Working Women (1912)

NAWSA, A Letter to Clergymen (1912)

Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Catt Assails Pickets (1917)

Alice Paul, Why the Suffrage Struggle Must Continue (1917)

Jane Addams and Emily Balch, Resolutions Adopted at the Hague Congress (1915)

14 Post-Suffrage Trends and the Limits of Liberated Behavior

Dr. Irving Steinhardt, Ten Sex Talks to Young Girls (1914)

Ma Rainey (Gertrude Pridgett ) “Prove it on Me Blues”

Ellen Welles Page, “A Flapper’s Appeal to her Parents” Outlook, (Dec.1922)

U.S. Government, Survey of Employment Conditions: The Weaker Sex

Mary G. Kilbreth, The New Anti-Feminist Campaign (1921)

Women Streetcar Conductors Fight Layoffs (1921)

Ann Martin, We Couldn’t Afford a Doctor (1920)

The Farmer’s Wife, The Labor Savers I Use (1923)

National Woman’s Party, Declaration of Principles (1922)

Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Speech Given at the Women’s Interracial Conference (1920)

Elisabeth Christman, What Do Working Women Say? (c.1912)

Eleanor Wembridge, Petting and the College Campus (1925)

Letter to Margaret Sanger (1928)

15 The Great Depression and the New Deal: Desperate Lives and Women Leaders

Meridel Le Sueur, The Despair of Unemployed Women (1932)

Ruth Shallcross, Shall Married Women Work? (1936)

Pinkie Pilcher, Letter to President Roosevelt (1936)

Ann Marie Low, Dust Bowl Diary (1934)

Louise Mitchell, Slave Markets in New York City (1940)

Mary McLeod Bethune, A Century of Progress of Negro Women (1933)

Jessie Daniel Ames, Southern Women and Lynching (1936)

Eleanor Roosevelt, Letter to Walter White (1936)

Frances Perkins and Alice Hamilton, Tri-State Conference on Silicosis, Missouri Testimony (1940)

16 World War II and Postwar Trends: Disruption, Conformity and Counter Currents

Richard Jefferson, African-American Women Factory Workers (1941)

Eleanor Roosevelt “Women’s Place After the War” (Aug. 1944)

Postwar Plans of Women Workers (1946)

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Farewell to Manzanar (1973)

Amram Scheinfeld , “Are American Moms a Menace?” Ladies Home Journal (Nov. 1946)

Marynia Farnham

A primary source reader with more than one hundred different sources that describe the history of women in the United States.

 

Women and the National Experience, 3/e provides students with thought-provoking primary sources. Combining classic and unusual sources, this anthology explores the private voices and public lives of women throughout U.S. history, and also lets students experience what historians really do and how history is written.

Combining classic and unusual sources, this anthology explores the private voices and public lives of women throughout U.S. history.

The third edition has been expanded with more than one hundred new documents and seven new chapters into a 2-volume collection of primary source documents in Women’s History.

 A separate thematic chapter provides an overview of the intersection of environmental and women’s history, a field that until recently has received limited attention. 

· The third edition increases the coverage of the role of motherhood as well as the voices of women reformers who promoted maternal-centered agendas during the Progressive and New Deal eras and the tension between them and those who supported equal rights for women as full-fledged citizens.

· New primary sources address religion in terms of identity and difference. The new edition illuminates the less well- known voices of Jewish, Catholic and Mormon women whose lives demonstrate not only difference from the Protestant religious mainstream but also the multiple meanings of religious identity even within the same group.

 

New chapters highlight the following:

(Chapter 4) The chapter focuses on the struggle of women to control male sexuality both in the public and private realm.  Primary sources include Paullina Davis and Harriot Stanton Blatch’s advocacy of voluntary motherhood as well as Victoria Woodhull’s bold assertion of a woman’s right to freely choose her sexual partners. The chapter also includes documents that focus on prostitution as well as the gendered reformulation of temperance as a woman’s rights issue.

(Chapter 5)  This chapter highlights the voices of enslaved women through narratives of former slaves and journals that testify to the multiple examples of enslaved women’s agency but also depict their sexual vulnerability. Documents demonstrate the overlap of racial and gender constructs used to rationalize enslavement and to further the separation of white women from those of color.

(Chapter 6)  The focus of this chapter highlights abolitionist women and the issue of racial equality.    Accompanying primary sources of well -known abolitionists such as the Grimke sisters and Lydia Maria Child are less studied African American women whose focus on civil rights accompanied their antislavery struggle.   (Chapter 8)  The chapter dealing with the pre-Civil War West provides a wide range of documents emphasizing multiple perspectives and multi-cultural voices. Several documents illuminate the once silent voices of Mexican and Native American women as well as Chinese immigrant women who arrived in San Francisco bound to servitude.

 (Chapter 11)  This chapter covers the post-Civil War West which came under American control by the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Government supported Americanization or assimilation programs targeted Indians displaced by homesteaders, transcontinental railroads, and extensive agricultural and ranching development.

(Chapter 17)  Although recent studies have begun to address the highly gendered structure of environmental reform, the intersection of environmental and women’s history remains understudied. Bringing together a wide range of diverse women’s voices, this new thematic chapter provides students with an overview of the significance of gender, race and class in molding the nation’s environmental history from the nineteenth through the early twenty-first century.

(Chapter 21)  In recent years American women’s history has moved beyond national borders to consider transnational and global connections. Examining women’s rights in a global era, the concluding chapter spans the 1990’s through the opening decade of the twenty- first century. A range of primary sources also document the polarized positions of the Bush and Obama administrations on the subject of women’s rights.