Women’s History Study Guide/Resource List – AP U.S. History

 

Status of women (Colonial to Civil War)

 

Colonial Period – subservient, usually without the opportunity of education

  • Most women taught at home to do domestic tasks
  • Some wealthy women had the opportunity to receive a formal education in the later 1700s, but usually in music, art, or related areas
  • Resource: Read the letters of Abigail Adams to her husband during the Revolutionary period

 

Revolutionary Era

  • Concept of republican motherhood – the idea that a woman’s primary role was to raise noble sons capable of carrying on the ideals of the Revolution (this concept often appears on the AP exam)
  • Women do not get the sudden change in status that some had hoped would result from the formation of a new democratic government

 

Antebellum Period:

  • “Cult of domesticity” – From AMSCO: “The new definitions of men’s and women’s roles soon became an established norm in urban, middle-class households.  Those holding this view of gender roles expected men to be responsible for economic and political affairs while women concentrated on the care of home and children.  The idealized view of women as moral leaders in the home and educators of children has been labeled the cult of domesticity.” [Source: John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach, United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination, (New York: Amsco School Publications, Inc; 2006): 209.]
  • Beginnings of women’s rights movements (see timeline below), and involvement in abolition movements
  • Women moving out west gain more rights.  Due to the quality of life as a pioneer family on the frontier, women were required to do more work necessary to supporting the family and at times were left to maintain the household alone.  For a great description of this, see page 87 of the New York Public Library’s American History Desk Reference (located in the classroom).

 

Internet Resources:

 

Women’s Rights Timeline from infoplease.com: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html

 

Legal History Timeline (from “Legacy ‘98”):

http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html

 

Timeline of Women’s Suffrage:

(Link removed for political content)

 

 

Events in Women’s History to 1865:     (work in progress)

 

1760s-1770s – Women were influential in colonial protests against the taxes and restrictions passed by the British Parliament (i.e. boycotts of English goods – crafted homemade products; supported non-importation agreements)

 

1792 – Mary Wollstone Craft – published “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” – read by women in America (source/location: http://www.gale.com/free_resources/whm/bio/wollstonecraft_m.htm)

 

1830s – Women work in textile and other factories in New England and the Northern states.  Review the Lowell system and early women’s strikes

 

1840s – Sojourner Truth becomes influential in the abolitionist movement

 

1848 – Seneca Falls Convention is held (led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton)

Publish “Declaration of Sentiments” which embodies the growing women’s rights movement of the era

 

1840s/1850s – Women’s movement blends with the temperance and abolition movements

Influential leaders to review: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), Catharine Beecher, Harriet Tubman (underground railroad), Sojorner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Grimké, Angelina Grimké Weld

 

1861-1865 – U.S. Civil War