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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske Dec 2018

Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is to teach girls to be giving, self-sufficient, and independent in their homes and communities through volunteer work and earning merit badges. Open to all girls since its inception, the GSUSA offers Girl Scouts training in both gender-conforming and nontraditional vocations. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, segregation and domesticity was emphasized in American society. The organization began to focus less on careers, independence, and racial inclusion to preparing predominately white girls to be good wives and mothers. As Black Power and women’s liberation …


Her-Story: Black, Middle-School Girls Exploring Their Intersectional Identities, Crystal Latanya Edwards May 2017

Her-Story: Black, Middle-School Girls Exploring Their Intersectional Identities, Crystal Latanya Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

While intra-racial-group comparisons have lead scholars to argue that Black girls are succeeding academically and therefore require less explicit focus in educational research, there is little literature that focuses on the ways that Black girls’ experiences in formal educational spaces shape their emotional wellbeing and sense of intersectional identity—specifically, from their own perspectives (Paul, 2003; Townsend, Thomas, Neilands, and Jackson, 2010). In recognizing this relative invisibility, my research redirects focus to obstacles that typically go relatively unnoticed and unaddressed. Utilizing focus groups and diary/follow-up interviews as methods, I explore the subjective experience of Black girls within the educational context. Placing …


Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston, And The Creation Of "Authentic Voices" In The Black Women's Literary Tradition, Anna Storm Dec 2016

Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston, And The Creation Of "Authentic Voices" In The Black Women's Literary Tradition, Anna Storm

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on African American women’s literature from the 1890s through 1948, covering the New Negro movement and sentimental domestic novel, the folk writings of the early twentieth century, and white-life fiction. The study investigates writers and texts that at various points in the creation of a black women’s literary tradition have been labeled “inauthentic” or have otherwise received comparably little attention by scholars of the tradition. In particular, I examine the work of Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Zora Neale Hurston, placing them in conversation with one another and within the broader context of black women’s writing at the turn …


Welfare Queens To Childcare Queens: The Political Economy Of State Subsidized Childcare In Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2009-2012), Anika Yetunde Jones Aug 2015

Welfare Queens To Childcare Queens: The Political Economy Of State Subsidized Childcare In Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2009-2012), Anika Yetunde Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Through the privatization of childcare in Wisconsin, thousands of impoverished, under-educated and low skilled African-American women became micro-enterprising entrepreneurs. In 2006 through the instituting of Wisconsin Shares (Shares), Wisconsin’s low-income childcare program, the average family daycare provider in Milwaukee County earned over $50,000 a year (Pawasarat and Quinn 2006). Drawing on neoliberal ideas of micro-enterprising entrepreneurship, these women were successful, but this success appeared to not align with the architects of Shares. Loic Wacquant (2009, 2012) argues that neoliberalism should not be viewed as market strategies or exercises, but rather, it should be viewed as a quintessential political project that …


Sweet Nothings: Women In Rockabilly Music: Lavern Baker And Janis Martin, Stephanie P. Lewin-Lane Aug 2012

Sweet Nothings: Women In Rockabilly Music: Lavern Baker And Janis Martin, Stephanie P. Lewin-Lane

Theses and Dissertations

Rockabilly music is an exciting and vibrant style of early Rock and Roll that originated in the 1950s. With its aggressive beat and anti-establishment connotations, rockabilly is considered a widely male-dominated genre, a point supported by the majority of scholarship and literature on the subject. However, a review of available contemporary recordings, television shows, advertisements and interviews show that women were an integral part of the history of rockabilly music. In this thesis, I will discuss women in rockabilly music and address how issues relating to gender and race in 1950s culture affected women performers. More specifically, I will examine …