Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Divorce As Liberation: Marital Expectations Among The Working-Class In The 1950s, Kristin M. Catrone

Theses and Dissertations

Divorce was a remedy employed by working-class Americans in the 1950s when their marital expectations went unmet. Spouses left emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive marriages. Expectations for marriage also centered around assumptions based on gender. Working-class women showed how divorce could be used as a tool of liberation and empowerment.

Mamas, Miners, & Movements: Women And Gendered Labor In Central Appalachia During The 20th Century, Devan M. Mullins

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to better analyze the contributions and experiences of women within the central Appalachian region through the work they participated in during the 20th century. It lays the foundational understandings of gender roles that crafted the society of the area and connects labor evolution for women within Appalachia and the US as a whole – highlighting similarities and differences. It also discusses Appalachian women’s move from the household to waged labor within the coal mines. Special attention will be paid to the reactions of men and other women to women coal miners to understand what gendered labor means …

German And American Transnational Spaces In Women's And Gender History, Shelley Rose

History Faculty Publications

Books Reviewed:

Michaela Bank. Women of Two Countries: German-American Women, Women’s Rights, and Nativism, 1848–1890. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. vi.+ 192 pp. ISBN 978-0-85745-512-3 (cl).

Karen Hagemann and Sonya Michel, eds. Gender and the Long Postwar: The United States and the Two Germanys, 1945–1989. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. vii. +397 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-1413-3 (pb).

Lynne Tatlock. German Writing, American Reading: Women and the Import of Fiction, 1866, 1917. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2012. ix.+ 347 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8142-1194-6 (cl).

"Casting Aside That Ficticious Self.": Deciphering Female Identity In The Awakening 2015, Anne L. Dicosimo

Master's Theses

Kate Chopin’s female protagonists have long since fascinated literary critics, raising serious questions concerning the influence of nineteenth-century female gender roles in her writing. Published in 1899, The Awakening demonstrates the changeability of the various representations of woman. In the nineteenth century, the subject of women may be divided into two categories: the True Woman and the New Woman. The former were expected to “cherish and maintain the four cardinal virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity” (Khoshnood et al.), while the latter sought to move away from hearth and home in order to focus on education, professions, and political …

Bayard Vs. Drusilla: The Burden Of War And Legacy, Kate Shillingford

Student Writing

No abstract provided.

Parallel Identities: Southern Appalachia And The Southern Concepts Of Gender During The American Civil War, Maegan K. Harrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Southern concepts of gender influenced Appalachian society throughout the antebellum and Civil War eras. Concepts of masculinity and femininity, including “the cult of true womanhood” and Southern manhood, shifted and broaden throughout the South due to wartime stressors. Appalachians adjusted these gender roles in order to survive chaos and turmoil in their region. The brutal political and community divisions, high rates of desertion, guerilla warfare, and threats of invasion in the mountain regions intensified these concepts of gender. Southern constructions of gender molded the Appalachian experience of war but the high level of conflict strengthened these new roles as a …

Inheritance Of The Past: Patriarchy, Race And Gender In Faulkner's And Chopin's South, Therese D. Osborne

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The death of the Confederacy sealed in white southern memory a lost world of beauty that denied the cruelty of its “peculiar institution.” Southern writers have seemed haunted by this conflict between the cherished past of their ancestors and the reality of the devastated region, with its legacy in slavery. Through the commentary of women diarists who mourn their crumbling society, and selected works of William Faulkner and Kate Chopin, this paper examines the myth and reality of the southern past. It reveals the enduring impact of the all-powerful white patriarchy that gave order to the antebellum South, destroyed it, …

The Ideal Woman: The Changing Female Labor Force And The Image Of Femininity In American Society In The 1940s And 1950s, Carlie Seigal

Honors Theses

In 1943 the image of Rosie the Riveter personified what the ideal American woman was supposed to be. Rosie supported the war effort and did her patriotic duty for her country, earned a high wage, enjoyed her newfound independence, and showed America that she could do a man’s job, and do it well. However, Rosie and the many American women that she represented never dreamt that when the American servicemen came home two short years later, they would be forced out of their jobs and back into their homes to devote themselves to household chores and their families. In 1957 …

The Richmond Bread Riot Of 1863: Class, Race, And Gender In The Urban Confederacy, Katherine R. Titus

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

Confederate war clerk, J.B. Jones's description of the Richmond Bread Riot of 1863, clearly highlights the suffering which permeated the urban centers of the Confederacy by the midpoint of the Civil War. The production and transportation of goods became increasingly difficult in the war torn nation. Inflation undermined the value of Confederate currency and made it difficult for those on fixed wages to provide for themselves and their families. The influx of thousands of refugees into Richmond created a deficit of housing in the city and raised the already inflated prices of goods. By 1863, most citizens remarked that they …

A Slip Of Paper In A Black Walnut Box: An Examination Of The Suffrage Debate In Beverly, Massachusetts 1913-1915, Sarah R. Fuller

Undergraduate Review

It was not until 1920, 72 years after the birth of the suffrage movement, that Massachusetts women gained the right to vote. While other state suffrage associations succeeded in persuading their governments to pass laws securing the vote for women, Massachusetts reformers were met with an overwhelming amount of resistance. The forces behind much of this resistance were the white, middle-class women active in small cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth. Women in support, as well as in opposition, to suffrage in Massachusetts at the turn-of-the twentieth century were the same women swept up in the changing gender roles of …

The Role And Effect Of Advertising On Women During World War Ii, Laura Elizabeth Francis

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Advertising had an overwhelming effect on women during World War II; many women were influenced by advertising in the media to behave a certain way, buy certain products, and also support the war effort in a variety of ways. In the 1940s while many American women’s husbands, fiances, boyfriends, brothers, and sons were going off to fight in the War abroad, many women were fighting a war of their own on the home front. While men could prove they were active patriotic citizens by fighting in the military and taking government positions, female’s roles were re-written to show what they …

Gender, History, And Nature In Sarah Orne Jewett’S Country Of The Pointed Firs, Sarah Hamelin

Maine History

Sarah Orne Jewett's beautifully crafted stories of life on the Maine coast helped make this section of our state a nationally recognized landscape icon. Her characters, however; are not what we would expect to find in a state renowned for male-dominated pursuits like deep-sea fishing, logging, and river-driving. Jewett's people— the inhabitants of Dunnet Landing—are generally old and female. Jn describing them, she presents us with a picture of coastal life as a gentlewoman’s world. Jewett accents gender and age by setting her characters against a backdrop of nature and history. Sarah Hamelin is a student at the University of …