| Topic 3.1: Contextualizing Period 3 | Learning Objectives: –Explain how the transatlantic slave trade was much more violent than the slave trade within Africa which had a major impact on African women –Explain how race-based slavery meant African women were forced into state- sanctioned violence to produce children –Explain why republican motherhood was solidified by the 1790s –Explain the importance of Black women healers in the antebellum period –Explain the importance of the Ohio river as a geographic divide between land controlled by the new U.S. republic and land under Indigenous control –Explain the role enslavement played in the personal lives of the Founding Fathers Explain the concept of Founding Mothers | Essential Understandings: –At the time of the founding of the United States, North America remained mostly under Native American control Europeans were not interested in converting African women to Christianity the way the pushed conversion on Native American women –In 1656, Elizabeth Key became the first Black woman in North America to sue for freedom and win –This led to changes in laws in Virginia and a legal doctrine known as partus sequitur ventrem which said that the legal status of children born in the colonies was determined by the legal status of their mother Indigenous land dispossession intensified during this era of western expansion –Under the leadership of American generals such as John Sullivan, in 1780 for example, hundreds of Iroquoian longhouses were destroyed and American troops used scorched earth tactics to lay claim to native land –English common law was firmly established and protected by the Marshall Court. This meant women were not allowed to be lawyers, serve on juries or work as justices. –The First Amendment right of petition was used frequently by African Americans who were advocating for federal enforcement of the goals of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. This group has been called the “Rising Generation” by historians such as Dr. Sarah Gronningsater | Recommended Sources: –According to scholars such as Dorothy Roberts, the long term attack on Black women’s childbearing that began during the 17th century and continued in the revolutionary period has been critical to the entire U.S. political order –Biography of Julia Chinn ––Working Cures by Sharla M. Fett |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Activism | Women have utilized a wide variety of strategies to demonstrate agency and challenge male authority throughout American history. Women have also contributed to the pursuit of equality with men, even as they worked to define it in different ways |
| Topic 3.2: Abolitionism | Learning Objectives: –Explain the innovative use of petitions by women for social change before they were enfranchised –Explain how interracial groups organized for abolitionism | Essential Understandings: –Understand the causes and effects of petitions by women to Congress to call for an end of enslavement in Washington, D.C. in 1836 Chattel slavery was protected in the Americas before and after the American Revolution –The “rising generation” pioneered the use of petitions on behalf of abolitionism. This diverse group of activists were well versed in civil liberties and built on work as far back as the Magna Carta –Understand the historic significance of the American Antislavery Society Understand the significance of the New England Nonresistant Society founded in 1838 | Recommended Sources: —Advertisement for the capture of Oney Judge, 1796 –“Speech to Ohio Woman’s Rights Convention, Sojourner Truth, 1851 –Women’s Petitions to Congress —Editorials and commentary from Manisha Sinha –Mary Ann Shadd, “Frederick Douglass,” The North Star, March 23, 1849 |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Experiences | Women have not had a monolithic experience; their lives have been directly impacted by intersecting identities including race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, religion, region and age. Race and gender are social constructs that have been closely tied to women’s American political and social development |
| Topic 3.3: Reform in Period 3 | Learning Objectives: –Explain the difference between Quakers and Shakers –Explain the short and long term impact of Quakers and Shakers on American women –Explain the leadership of Mother Ann Lee –Understand Quaker theology with regards to gender roles and power | Essential Understandings: –Quaker women enjoyed higher status compared to Puritan women –After the 18th century, Quaker women in Pennsylvania played a more prominent role in the abolitionist movement. —Prudence Crandall & desegregated education | Recommended Sources: —Phillis Wheatley –Shakerism: Its Meaning and Message by Anna White & Leila S. Taylor —“Gender in Utopian and Communal Societies” by Rosemary Radford Ruether |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Activism | Women have utilized a wide variety of strategies to demonstrate agency and challenge male authority throughout American history. Women have also contributed to the pursuit of equality with men, even as they worked to define it in different ways |
| Topic 3.4: Constitutional Foundations | Learning Objectives: –Explain the impact of the Declaration of Independence on women –Explain the impact on the ratification of the U.S. Constitution on women –Explain the concept of Founding Mothers –Explain how women have been citizens since the origins of the U.S. political system but they were not granted rights, only the obligations of citizenship | Essential Understandings: –Understand how at the time it was written, the U.S. Constitution was the greatest document outlining freedom for men in the world –Understand how the ratification of the U.S. Constitution protected coverture laws nationwide –Understand how Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, enslaved women and children –The historiography of these stories, including recognizing Sally Hemings as the First Lady, remains controversial –Understand why no women were allowed to contribute to the writing of the Constitution –Understand that the U.S. Constitution is written entirely by men –Understand why still to this day women are not mentioned in this foundational document —–Understand the short and long term consequences of how women were stripped of political rights such as the ability to vote or own property with the ratification of the Constitution –Understand as the Marshall Court expanded the scope of the federal government, the land rights of Indigenous women were taken away, especially after the Johnson v. McIntosh decision (1823) stating Native Americans do not own land –Understand the concept of land disposition | Recommended Sources: —Federalists v. Anti-Federalists Teaching Resources: —“The Paradox of Liberty” exhibit at the National Museum of African American History & Culture —“Op-Ed: It’s Time to Recognize Sally Hemings as First Lady of the United States” —Strict Scrutiny podcast |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Experiences | Women have not had a monolithic experience; their lives have been directly impacted by intersecting identities including race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, religion, region and age. Race and gender are social constructs that have been closely tied to women’s American political and social development |
| Topic: 3.5: White women in early America | Learning Objectives: –Explain how white women were impacted by Republican motherhood –Explain how white women often directly protected enslavement and nurtured white supremacy –Explain how violence against women was protected in colonial America | Essential Understandings: –Understand the importance of the debate between Judith Sargent Murray & Mercy Otis Warren –Know that under coverture, violence against women was legal –Understand the concept of separate spheres and republican motherhood | Recommended Sources: —“Cuming Sisters: “She-Merchants of Boston” —“On the Equality of the Sexes” by Judith Sargent Murray Teaching Resources: —Women of the American Revolution —Women & Non-Importation —Excerpts, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin |
| Thematic Focus: Violence Against Women, Pacifism and War | Throughout American history, women have been subject to both private and state sanctioned violence. They have utilized a variety of formal and informal methods to protect themselves through pacifism and one another against violence. They have also been at the forefront of peace movements and war efforts |
| Topic: 3.6: Women & slavery | Learning Objectives: –Explain how by the mid-17th century, enslavement of African Americans was deeply entrenched. –Explain the differences between immigrant women and enslaved Black women –Explain how legal distinctions were made in places such as Virginia to differentiate between labor done by white and Black women. –Explain why laws began to regulate the bodies of Black women and white women in dramatically different ways. –Explain why as a result of physically demanding work and lack of access to nutrition, the fertility rate for Black women was lower than white women. Explain the role of the American Colonization Society | Essential Understandings: –Understand how John Locke was a founding member of the Royal African Company, a group that ensured it had a monopoly on the British slave trade –Locke, according to scholar Nancy Isenberg, “…felt contempt for the vagrant poor” which influenced Founding Fathers to lay the groundwork to police poverty through state sanctioned violence –In the North, the case of Elizabeth Brown who was enslaved and petitioning to be free through the New York Manumission Society highlights an attempt at women gaining access to the political system despite it being totally controlled by men –Sir William Blackwell on Natural Law and Natural Rights –In an era before public schools were widely accessible and state funded, literacy was tightly controlled and accessing to reading was determined by race –Despite laying the groundwork for natural rights in the United States, Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke, who influenced U.S. Founding Fathers, did not believe in abolitionism –Because women could not legally own a patent, Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin instead of Catherine Greene, who funded the invention of the method for separating cotton from its seed and rented him a room in her house –In 1662, a Virginia law made enslavement a trait that could be inherited from one’s mother. This made Black women more vulnerable to rape and sexual violence –Historians have noted enslaved women used contraceptives and/or abortifacients to control their fertility –Sexual relations between white men and Black women were largely ignored under many state laws –Black women did not have the legal authority to their own children | Recommended Sources: –Excerpts from She Was Her Property by Stephanie Jones Rogers –Excerpts from Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl —Painting of Benjamin Lay –Sarah Grimké, “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes” –Angelina Grimké, Human Rights Not Founded on Sex –Wake: The Hidden History of Women Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall —Sally Hemings |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Experiences | Women have not had a monolithic experience; their lives have been directly impacted by intersecting identities including race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, religion, region and age. Race and gender are social constructs that have been closely tied to women’s American political and social development |
| Topic: 3.7: Gender politics in the early Republic | Learning Objectives: –Explain the role gender played in the early American republic –Explain how women’s political participation was restricted throughout the 19th century | Essential Understandings: –Understand the life story of Public Universal Friend and what the story of The Friend says about gender norms in the early republic and social changes during the post-revolutionary era –Understand why the First Lady of the United States is an informal political position and not required in the U.S. Constitution –Separate spheres meant men worked in public life, including politics, while women were barred from formal public service Understand the ways in which the “Petticoat Affair” highlighted classism, misogyny and elitism among white women | Recommended Sources: –Letter: Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, April 27, 1776 –Maria Stewart, Why Sit Ye Here and Die? (1832) —Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony photograph, 1921 —Lucretia Mott, “Discourse on Women” Speech in Philadelphia, 1849 —First Families from the White House |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Labor, Industry and Technology | Women have played major roles in the development of American industry and have been subject to both physical and emotional labor |
| Topic: 3.8: Women in the northern workforce | Learning Objectives: –Explain the role of women in the northern workforce in the development of American industry | Essential Understandings: –Lowell mill strike (1834) Women were foundational to the American System which left important continuities –For example, Emma Wood, the mother of suffragist Maud Wood Park, worked in the Lowell mills –Understand the importance of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association | Recommended Sources: —Lowell Mill Girls —Lowell Female Labor Reform Association |
| Thematic Focus: Women’s Activism | Women have utilized a wide variety of strategies to demonstrate agency and challenge male authority throughout American history. Women have also contributed to the pursuit of equality with men, even as they worked to define it in different ways |
| Topic: 3.9: Cult of Domesticity | Learning Objectives: –Explain the concepts of Christian motherhood and Republican motherhood –Explain how romantic paternalism became strongly enshrined in American political culture –Explain how white marriages were considered an essential institution to American political and cultural development. –Explain the significance of educational institutions becoming open to women | Essential Understandings: Some women such as Boston physician Harriet K. Hunt refused to pay taxes due to taxation without representation Letter-writing was an important method of communication for women Restrictions on women’s rights were considered essential to protecting the virtue of the new American republic –In this time period, the concept of husband, which used to mean farmer, came to be understood as meaning married man –Mount Holyoke College was the first college established by women in 1838 | Recommended Sources: —Speech at the Eleventh Women’s Rights Convention (1866) by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper –Ten Days in a Mad- House by Nellie Bly |