History Commons^™

Women's History Resource Guide

Resource guides

This guide contains a selection of resources available at the Arkansas State Archives pertaining to women's history. This is not a comprehensive guide, but provides a starting point for research.

The Tragedy Of Theresa Sturla: Murder, Insanity, And Womanhood On Trial In Nineteenth-Century Chicago, Jake Engelman

Theses and Dissertations

On the morning of July 10, 1882, a young prostitute named Theresa Sturla murdered her lover, Charles Stiles, on the sixth floor of the Palmer House in Chicago. During her trial four months later, Sturla’s attorney employed a dual argument of self-defense and insanity. He claimed that his client suffered from dysmenorrhea, or painful menstruation, and that she had gone temporarily insane at the time of the murder due to her defective reproductive system. According to the defense, Stiles’ abuse toward his mistress had exacerbated the disease and her only solution was to respond with violence. After a month-long trial, …

Making “The Garden City Of The South”: Beautification, Preservation, And Downtown Planning In Augusta, Georgia, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

This article illuminates how a smaller southern city engaged broader planning approaches. Civic leaders, especially women, pushed and partnered with municipal administrations to beautify Augusta, Georgia, a city with extraordinarily wide streets and a long tradition of urban horticulture. Their efforts in the 1900s to 1950s, often in concert with close by planners, led to a confluence of urban beautification, historic preservation, and downtown revitalization in the 1960s. This coordinated activity reshaped Augusta’s cityscape, exacerbated racial tensions, and enshrined principles of the City Beautiful, Garden City, and parks movements long after they receded in large cities, influencing the work of …

Perry Collection (Mss 676), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 676. Letters, papers, photographs and scrapbooks of the Perry family, principally Gideon Babcock Perry, rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Hopkinsville, Kentucky and his children, Reverend Henry G. Perry, Chicago, Illinois, and Emily B. Perry, Hopkinsville.

Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom Dedication September 10, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Lorraine Lalli, Bre'anna Metts-Nixon, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Knott Family Papers (Mss 675), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 675. Papers and photographs of James Proctor Knott, Lebanon, Kentucky, and his wife Sarah "Sallie" (McElroy) Knott. Includes two journals of Sallie Knott covering the first eight years of their marriage (Click on "Additional Files" below to view typescripts), and miscellaneous papers of a related family, the Clarks.

Empowerment, Resistance And The Birth Control Pill: A Feminist Analysis Of Contraception In The Developing World, Abigail S. Trombley

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs

The vast majority of literature on the use of contraception focuses on its frequently documented connection to socioeconomic development. Thus, contraception has become a favored programmatic element of western organizations that deliver it to women in the developing world. I analyze discourse from transnational organizations that advocate for women’s use of birth control in the developing world, as well as deliver contraceptive services themselves, in order to uncover the dominance of liberal, capitalist assumptions therein. A primary consequence of this discourse is the reconstruction of colonial relations between the global north and global south. My alternative analysis, informed by a …

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …

“All Men Would Be Tyrants If They Could”: Three New England Women’S Perspectives On Political And Domestic Tyranny During The Revolutionary Era, Austen K. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines female perspectives of tyranny within the political and domestic realms. Combining a close reading of their written works with biographical studies of their lives, this thesis looks specifically at three elite, highly literate New England women: Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Judith Sargent Murray. These women were unable to formally participate in the political sphere, yet through their writing they responded to and offered commentary on the Revolution. Utilizing the same language and arguments they and other male patriots used in the Revolution, these three women innovated, following arguments about tyranny through to their natural conclusion, …

“Against The Good Widdow No Harme We Doe Know:” Examining Aristocratic And Gentry Widows’ Roles And Influence In England From 1500-1650, Alyson D. Alvarez

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation explores how English aristocratic and gentry women utilized their widowhoods to actively craft their personal image as well as influence and alter their communities. Free from the common law principles of coverture, English widows gained new legal autonomy. Additionally, many affluent women received substantial inheritances at the deaths of their husbands thus providing them with the financial freedom.

While widowhood offered English women new independence, it was also accompanied by a multitude of expectations. Sixteenth and seventeenth century authors and scholars developed and perpetuated specific conduct deemed appropriate for widows. The behaviors for created for widowed women contributed …

Stay At Home, Soldiers: An Analysis Of British And American Women On The Homefront During World War Ii And The Effects On Their Memory Through Film, Victoria K. Tutino

Of Life and History

No abstract provided.

From "Companionate Wife" To Feminist Pioneer: Amy Jacques Garvey's Feminist Prowess Liberates Women In Restructuring The Unia, Kiana Cardenas

Of Life and History

This research highlights women’s roles and significant contributions to the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), focusing mainly on the role of Amy Jacques Garvey. Founded by Marcus Garvey and his first wife Amy Ashwood Garvey in 1914, the UNIA sought to improve the poor conditions of African descendants through economic, political, and social independence. Garveyism, Marcus Garvey’s male-centered ideology, permeated the UNIA, shaping the structure of the organization in a way that blatantly favored men and their roles in the political movement. Although women were considered important to the organization, their membership was secondary to that of their male counterparts. …

Beach Bodies: Gender And The Beach In American Culture, 1880-1940, Margaret Elena Depond

History ETDs

This dissertation argues that American beaches, within the world of leisure and pleasure, were significant contested spaces of social change and debate. Overtime, from about 1880 to 1940, social restrictions loosened at the beach, allowing men, women, and people of color to express themselves in ways that had been previously controlled, curtailed, or proscribed. The emergence of mass popular amusements at the beach attracted a wide array of the American population. Both working-class and middle-class Americans absorbed the culture of new beach attractions, such as amusement parks, piers, boardwalks, and bathhouses. In doing so, they interacted more with each other …

Whose Story Is It, Now? Re-Examining Women’S Visibility In 21st Century Secondary World History Textbooks, Erica M. Southworth, Jenna Kempen, Melonie Zielinski

Faculty Creative and Scholarly Works

In 2005 Clark, Ayton, Frechette, and Keller (2005) conducted a content analysis study on secondary world history textbooks to determine whether women’s inclusion had increased or decreased between 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s. They reported women’s severe marginalization in the texts even though the percentages of women’s inclusion had increased over the course of the decades. We conducted a replication study of the content analysis performed by Clark et al. from a feminist research lens and analyzed 2000 and 2010 editions of the same textbooks to determine if female inclusion had increased. Our findings revealed that very little to no progress …

Maine Coalition To End Domestic Violence - Legislative Review (2019), Maine Coalition To End Domestic Violence Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

"A Bias Steam-Ironed Into Women's Lives": A Conversation With Author Phyllis Chesler About Women And Madness, 47 Years After Publication, Jody Raphael

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A conversation with Phyllis Chesler about Women and Madness, 47 years after publication, conducted by Jody Raphael. Chesler discusses her motive for writing Women and Madness and its early reception. She reflects on changes and lack of changes in views and treatment of women by society and the mental health system in the years since its publication. Her feminist analysis now includes Islamic fundamentalism, prostitution, and surrogacy, which are not always politically correct views among feminists today.

Volunteer Women: Militarized Femininity In The 1916 Easter Rising, Sasha Conaway

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Women were an integral part to the Easter Rising, yet until recently, their contributions have been forgotten. Those who have been remembered are often women who bucked conservative Irish society’s notions of femininity and chose to actively participate in combat, which has led to a skewed narrative that favors their contributions over the contributions of other women. Historians and scholars favor these narratives because they are empowering and act as clear foils to the heroic narratives of the male leaders in the Easter Rising. In reality, however, most of the women who joined Cumann na mBan or worked for the …

Bringing The Norm To The ‘Burgs: Gender And Design At Two Virginia Normal Schools 1908-1928, Inga H. Gudmundsson

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this presentation is to compare James Madison University and the University of Mary Washington from their start with the passing of a 1908 General Assembly bill creating state normal schools for women in Harrisonburg and Fredericksburg, Virginia. The focus is on the two schools from their creation, with an emphasis on how gender contributed to the architectural styles of both campuses and how Southern cultural ideals and Progressive Era ideals of the early 20th century shaped the experiences of the women during the first two decades of the two institutions' histories.

Film Review: The Impure: An Abolitionist Documentary Film Of The 19th Century Traffic In Jewish Women, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Looking Through The Grille : An Analysis Of Ursuline Religious Agency In An Early French Colonial Context., Molly If Laporte

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the agency of the Ursulines in French New Orleans from 1727 to 1732. It analyzes the letters of Marie Hachard and several other documents from the Ursuline archives and places them within the context of French colonial New Orleans. The Ursulines’ establishment in Louisiana and their missionary efforts were situated in a larger colonial context of violent conflict between the French and the native populations, the colonists’ endless struggles to develop an economy and secure funds to survive, and the slow evolution of official systems of power. The Ursulines’ decisions to leave their homes for the …

Beyond Suffrage: Intermarriage, Land, And Meanings Of Citizenship And Marital Naturalization/Expatriation In The United States, Shiori Yamamoto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation investigates how the laws of marital naturalization/expatriation, namely the Citizenship Act of 1855, the Expatriation Act of 1907, and the Cable Act of 1922 and its amendments throughout the 1930s, impacted the lives of women who married foreigners, especially in the American West, and demonstrates how women directly and indirectly challenged the practice of marital naturalization/expatriation. Those laws demanded women who married foreigners take the nationality of their husbands depending on the race of women and their husbands, making married women’s citizenship dependent on that of their husbands. Particularly under the Expatriation Act of 1907, all American women …

Black Feminism: Switching The Script On Traditional Feminist Narratives, Monee Reis

Senior Honors Projects

MONEE REIS (Gender and Women’s Studies, Africana Studies) Black Feminism: Switching the Script on Traditional Feminist Narratives

Sponsor: Kathleen McIntyre (Gender and Women’s Studies, Honors Program)

I developed a 300-level undergraduate course aimed at exploring the history of Black feminism. This idea came to me after reading Audre Lorde’s 1984 article “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” Lorde detailed the various ways Black women’s contributions to feminism are underrepresented in the overarching historical narrative. Lorde’s 1980s activism and feminist scholarship ultimately influenced legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to coin the term intersectionality in 1989. Intersectionality, the multiple ways that …

Women Of The War: Female Espionage Agents For The Confederacy, Sarah Stellhorn

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

Although historians have frequently examined the role of women on the home front during the Civil War, women who contributed to the cause in more direct ways, such as espionage, are often neglected. An in-depth examination of specific females spying for the Confederacy, such as Rose O’Neal Greenhow and Belle Boyd, proves that their actions, both remarkable and uncharacteristic of women at the time, had a direct impact on the war. A vast network of spies and smugglers existed not only in the southern and border states but also throughout the North, even in Washington D.C. itself. This network was …

More Than Republican Motherhood: How Education Helped Women Find Agency In Revolutionary America, Emily J. Miller

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This thesis is a case study examining the lives of three women who lived in the early American republic: Theodosia Bartow-Burr, Margaret Shippen-Arnold, and Angelica Schuyler-Church, within the context of republican motherhood. While republican motherhood remains a vital concept in the field of early American women’s history, the role was more expansive than historians originally thought. Though all three of these women would remain republican mothers, they would also become “intellectual friends”, “deputy husbands,” and “female politicians,” respectively. By understanding the lives that these women lived within the construct of republican motherhood we gain a fuller and more diverse picture …

Ruined Ingénue And Redeemed Sister: Representations Of The Sex Worker In Late-Nineteenth-Century American Fiction, Helen Stec

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

Male-authored novels written in the mid-to-late nineteenth century frequently denied female sexual desire and agency and adhered to themes of poverty and seduction. Often, male authors explicitly punished their female characters for their sexual indiscretions, typically by imposing death sentences upon them and emphasizing how surviving sex workers were spiritually irredeemable. However, the few female-authored novels from this time that address prostitution were less encumbered by this patriarchal framework and more aware of the nuances of the female sexual experience. Female authors were generally more forgiving and sympathetic to the sex workers they wrote about. They often allowed these women …

Modina, Modina, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Modina fled Myanmar after experiencing and witnessing extreme violence, including the destruction of her village and the violent murder of her uncle by soldiers. She arrived in Bangladesh by boat after paying smugglers a large sum.

Rohima, Rohima, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Rohima was brutally raped and tortured by soldiers during an attack. After witnessing other women receive the same treatment, she fled Myanmar for Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Once there, she got married while pregnant as a result of the rape.

Shobika, Shobika, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Shobika escaped Myanmar amid widespread chaos. After being separated from her husband and experiencing the kidnap of her two children, she was raped by soldiers and became pregnant. Her husband now rejects this child.

Sins Against Our Soles: The Morality And Hygiene Of Nineteenth-Century Women's Shoes, Nicole Rudolph

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Our understanding of the Victorian woman has long centered around the idea of the “Angel in the House,” made famous by Coventry Patmore’s 1854 poem. This mythical ideal to which a middle-class woman should endeavor can be found in endless numbers of nineteenth-century texts and has become an oft-referenced concept in modern historiography. Representations of the attributes of the ideal woman circulated widely in society, pictured in etiquette books, medical journals, and especially advertisements. They were an ever-present reminder to women of the social norms governing their roles and life trajectories. As consumers, women were responsible for the presentation of …

Leaking Women: A Genealogy Of Gendered And Racialized Flow, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

Through a feminist and critical race analytic, this paper theorizes the disruptions evoked by leaky women—actually doubly leaky women—those whose nipples, peri-menopausal uterus’ and mouths have “leaked” in ways that rupture/stain/expose the white-patriarchal-capitalist enclosure of work, home and the streets and then dared to leak again by suing for justice in court. In a closing coda, I address the race/class policing dynamics between she who leaks and the “respectable” [usually white] women recruited to plaster up the hole and cauterize the leaker.