HIST 2066 - Women in America Since 1890

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture None Lab None
Course Description: This course explores the history of women in the United States from the end of the 19th century to the present. With a strong focus on diversity, students will examine the differences and power relationships between groups of women as well as their common experiences. For example, students will examine women’s leadership roles in the Civil Rights movement, changing work and family roles in the 1960s, race and class divisions in the Women’s Rights movements, and the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. Other topics include social and political activism, changing definitions of sexuality and gender, and women in a globalized world.
MnTC Goals
5 History/Social/Behavioral Science, 7 Human Diversity

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1020   with a grade of C or higher OR ENGL 1021  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: HIST 1032 .

Major Content

1. The New Women: New jobs, new profession, new immigrants
2. Fight for Suffrage: Support, opposition, and racism
3. Progressive Era: Settlement houses, womens trades unions
4. Diaspora: African American women in the urban north
5. Great War: Home and factory, international peace movement
6. Jazz Age: Flappers, feminists, anti-lynching campaign
7. Depression Decade: Gender and race in the New Deal
8. World War: Home front and battlefield, segregation and internment camps
9. Feminine Mystique: Cold War and the family, women and work
10. Civil Rights: African American women challenge segregation
11. Modern Feminism: Womens Liberation, diversity and activism
12. Gender and Sexuality: Sexual politics, reproductive rights
13. Public Policy: Campaign for the ERA; Latina, Asian, and Black womens activism
14. Modern America and the World: Transnational womens movements

1. explain, in a clear and comprehensive manner, the story of the American women, accounting for diverse individuals, groups, ideas and events.
2. analyze primary and secondary sources using historical methods of evidence.
3. synthesize historical material from diverse sources and points of view.
4. demonstrate advanced progress in their reading, writing, discussing and/or other critical thinking skills.
5. evaluate the relevance of Womens History to their own lives.

05. 02. Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.

05. 03. Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
Competency 2 (7-10)
07. 01. Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States’ history and culture.

07. 03. Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.

07. 04. Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.

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