History Commons^™

The Immigrant Woman:Jewish Assimilation In The Lower East Side Ghetto Of New York City, 1880-1914, Rachael Siegel

History Theses

This paper looks at the factors that affected the extent to which Eastern European Jewish women were able to assimilate into American society between 1880 and 1914. By 1920, approximately 45% of Eastern European Jewish immigrants resided in New York City, primarily on the lower East Side. The population density of the Lower East Side made it the most crowded neighborhood in the city, if not the world. Eastern European Jews, especially Russian Jews, comprised the largest number of immigrants to the United States.

When these immigrants moved into the safety of the United States, they transplanted the traditions of …

Bawds, Babes, And Breeches: Regendering Theater After The English Restoration, Laura Larson

History Theses

Restoration England (1660~1720) was a raucous time for theater-making. After an 18- year Puritanical ban on the theater, and with the restoration of the worldly Charles II to the throne, English theater underwent a pivotal rebirth. At this time, women were allowed to act on the public stage for the first time, an event carrying enormous implications for gender roles. This paper argues that actresses posed a threat to the patriarchal hierarchy that was in place at this time. Their unique position in professional theater and unusual access to a public voice not available to the rest of women enabled …

To Better Serve And Sustain The South: How Nineteenth Century Domestic Novelists Supported Southern Patriarchy Using The "Cult Of True Womanhood" And The Written Word, Daphne V. Wyse

History Theses

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American women were subjected to restrictive societal expectations, providing them with a well-defined identity and role within the male-dominated culture. For elite southern women, more so than their northern sisters, this identity became integral to southern patriarchy and tradition. As the United States succumbed to sectional tension and eventually civil war, elite white southerners found their way of life threatened as the delicate web of gender, race, and class relations that the Old South was based upon began to crumble. Despite their repressed status in southern society, most elite southern women chose to support …