History Commons^™

Institutionalizing Femininity: A History Of Medical Malpractice And Oppression Of Women Through 19th Century American Mental Asylums, Ciara E. Pruett

Young Historians Conference

“Institutionalizing Femininity” explores the origins of the medicalization of gender norms in 19th century mental asylums. This paper examines the connections between rampant medical malpractice in 19th century American mental asylums, and how these abuses were a symptom of the patriarchy in the medical community acting to oppress the female psyche. One of the major issues this paper examines is the indistinguishability between psychiatry and gynecology in this time period. Gynecologists created the notion that women’s reproductive organs made them insane, by arguing that issues in the uterus or reproductive organs, or simply possessing female reproductive organs could cause insanity. …

Alexandra Kollontai, Bolshevik Feminism, And Zhenotdel, 1917-1930, Shauna Payne

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Unlaced:The Dress Reform Movement Of The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century, Andrea Marie Severson Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Unlaced: The Dress Reform Movement of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries examines the history of the dress reform movement in the United States with particular regard to its emphasis on corsets and pants as well as its social connections to other movements of the time. The late 1800s and early 1900s gave rise to many formalized movements, particularly during the Progressive Era. The dress reform movement took place in the United States roughly between 1840 and 1920 and sought to change women's clothing to make it healthier, less cumbersome, and more practical. On the surface, dress reform appears …

Umaine’S Wgs Department Celebrates Women’S History Month, Megan Ashe

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

March is well known as Women’s History Month and contains notable holidays like International Women’s Day and The Day of the Girl. Every year, many events celebrate the accomplishments of women and aim to bring light to gender inequality. The women’s, gender, and sexuality (WGS) department at the University of Maine is celebrating this month by hosting a series of events that students can access through their social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.

Oral Interview: Contextualizing The Women's Rights Movement In Tunisia Through Family History, Walid Zarrad

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

In their path towards emancipation and equal rights, Tunisian women have gone through a number of phases that seem to be directly linked to legal changes and cultural factors. In fact, the Code of Personal Status (CPS) of 1956 seems to be a milestone in the women’s movement, and its following amendments continued on this path. However, it is a lot more complex than that. A piece of legislation officially passing is not a simple determinant of the state of Women’s Rights in a country.

Through Dorra Mahfoudh Draoui’s “Report on Gender and Marriage in Tunisian Society” and my interview …

A Civil Society: The Public Space Of Freemason Women In France, 1744–1944, James Smith Allen

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

A Civil Society explores the struggle to initiate women as full participants in the masonic brotherhood that shared in the rise of France’s civil society and its “civic morality” on behalf of women’s rights. As a vital component of the third sector during France’s modernization, freemasonry empowered women in complex social networks, contributing to a more liberal republic, a more open society, and a more engaged public culture.

James Smith Allen shows that although women initially met with stiff resistance, their induction into the brotherhood was a significant step in the development of French civil society, including the promotion of …

20th Century Club Memento

Martha McClellan Brown Ephemera

Three small cardboard squares, 2” x 2”, tied together with yellow ribbon. Ink inscription: “Compliments of the 20th Century Club.” The first square contains an image of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The second square contains an image of Susan B. Anthony. The third square contains quotations from Stanton and Anthony.

Why Homemakers Need The Ballot, Helen Train Tannehill

Martha McClellan Brown Ephemera

The text of a talk by Helen Train Tannehill discussing why homemakers need the right to vote.

Literature For Sale By The Ohio Woman Suffrage Association, Ohio Woman Suffrage Association

Martha McClellan Brown Ephemera

A list of books, pamphlets, flyers and posters for sale by the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association, Warren, Ohio.

Women Vote

Martha McClellan Brown Ephemera

A suffrage flyer outlining countries and states where women have the right to vote

Powers Of Frances Willard, William Kennedy Brown

William Kennedy Brown Papers

William Kennedy Brown discusses a review of the work of Frances Willard, an educator and member of the temperance and women’s suffrage movements, that appeared in the Philadelphia Press. Brown compares the leadership styles of three women in the suffrage movement to those of three contemporary men, saying that the followers of Willard and General George McClellan were inspired by loyalty, the followers of Mary Livermore and Ulysses Grant by an intellectual decision, and the followers of Susan B. Anthony and Abraham Lincoln by the heroic nature of their lives.

The Underlying Effects Of Religion In Puerto Rico, Claudia A. Chardon

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore the role religion has played in the Puerto Rican society. Growing up in this culture entails a deep and implicit connection with the religious world. Religious values, beliefs, and attitudes are firmly entrenched and amplified through the family, culture, and schools. Because it is so deeply entrenched, it is difficult to find a place to leverage a critique of its impact. Thus, in order to understand the societal matters and challenges the island faces, an in-depth study that explores the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of Puerto Ricans is necessary.

The South African Women's Movement: The Roles Of Feminism And Multiracial Cooperation In The Struggle For Women's Rights, Amber Michelle Lenser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the historiography of South Africa’s recent past, focus has been most heavily placed on apartheid and the anti-apartheid movement, with much emphasis placed on male involvement and men as the primary agents of change in the country. Women are largely viewed as playing a supportive role to male activists throughout the movement, and far less has been written on female involvement or women’s activism in its own right. Running parallel to the anti-apartheid movement, however, was a women’s movement characterized by women across the racial and socioeconomic spectrum struggling to secure their own rights in a very hostile and …

United States V. Dennett:The Battle For Sex Education In The Early 1900s, Hannah Breda

History Honors Program

The 1873 Comstock Act outlawed the production and distribution of any materials that were deemed to be obscene or capable of arousing adolescents. Mary Ware Dennett, a women's rights activist and pioneer in birth control and sex education, was one of the many who fell victim to this law. Dennett was arrested in 1929 for distributing her sex education pamphlet, The Sex Side of Life, written for her teenage sons after finding the sex education materials produced by the government to be insufficient. This paper argues that Dennett's pamphlet was scrutinized in United States v. Dennett because it …

Throwing Off The "Draggling Dresses": Women And Dress Reform, 1820-1900, Laura J. Ping

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1851 a group of woman’s reformers adopted a radical garment called the bloomer costume and thus launched a dress reform movement. During this era women typically wore corsets and layers of underclothes beneath dresses with tight bodices and voluminous skirts. In contrast, the bloomer costume included a loose dress, shortened to the knee, and harem style trousers. Underclothes, including corsets, were discouraged. The purpose of adopting such clothing was twofold; social reformers believed that women were in need of comfortable garments and they also hoped that by rejecting fashion woman’s rights activists could cast off the stereotype that women …

Revolutionary Era Women In War: A Move For Societal Reform, Claire Williams

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

As tensions grew in the British colonies in the late eighteenth century, colonists began expressing their new hopes for an independent nation. While the call to action for the physical fight against the British was directed toward men, women could not help but respond in kind. After centuries of domestic confinement and the new Enlightenment period showing possibilities for secondary roles, women used the coming war as a showcase for their capabilities. Some chose to act on the home front, boycotting British goods and fundraising for the soldiers, while others stepped outside of their bounds and participated in battle. Later …

Women, The Church And Equality: The Religious Paradox, Donna M. Nowak

History Theses

ABSTRACT OF THESIS

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.[1]

Traditional religion and biblical interpretation helped to cement the passive role of women in the United States for hundreds of years. The emergence of spiritualism and communal societies, however, challenged the traditional role of women, and the very fabric of American …

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2015

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

No abstract provided.

The Bicycle Boom And Women's Rights, Jenna E. Fleming

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The increasing popularity and widespread use of the bicycle in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries directly contributed to the movement for women’s rights in the following decades. The sense of independence cycling afforded to women, as well as the opportunities for unification in defense of a cause that arose in light of controversies over the pursuit, were important in forming the foundation for later events.

The Moroccan Women's Rights Movement, Amy Y. Evrard

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Among various important efforts to address women’s issues in Morocco, a particular set of individuals and associations have formed around two specific goals: reforming the Moroccan Family Code and raising awareness of women’s rights. Evrard chronicles the history of the women’s rights movement, exploring the organizational structure, activities, and motivations with specific attention to questions of legal reform and family law. Employing ethnographic scrutiny, Evrard presents the stories of the individual women behind the movement and the challenges they faced. Given the vast reform of the Moroccan Family Code in 2004, and the emphasis on the role of women across …

Uncompromising Spirits: The Entwined Careers Of William Lloyd Garrison And Josephine Butler, Anne A. Salter, Charles O. Boyd

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

William Lloyd Garrison and Josephine Butler challenged the political structures of their times. Both employed similar strategies to turn the mind set of American and British citizens. Garrison’s work as an American abolitionist inspired Butler and her work to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts in Great Britain. Their life long commitment to liberty and justice was successful proving that one person can make a difference. Brief character sketches of each serve to revive interest in these important but somewhat neglected individuals.

0762: Sally Cyrus Collection, 1910-2005, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The Sally Cyrus Collection is the donated papers of Sally Cyrus, Peggy Cyrus, and Judy Cyrus. This collection chronicles their material contributions to several prominent Huntington organizations. This collection provides an in-depth look at the lives of one of Huntington’s upper-class families beginning in the 1920s and extending through the 1960s, a period in which Huntington experienced an economic boom and a population increase. The women whose lives are showcased in this collection were educated, socially elite, and financially secure. It is an insight to the gender role of the educated woman in high society and the activities she chose …

The Origins Of The First Women S Rights Convention: From Property Rights And Republican Motherhood To Organization And Reform, 1776-1848, Deborah Jean Lengyel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the origins of the first women's rights convention held at Seneca Falls, NY during the summer of 1848. Taxation without representation was one of the foundations that the Continental Congress used as a basis for Independence from England. But when the revolution ended and the Republic was formed, the United States adopted many English laws and traditions regarding the status of women. Women, who were citizens or could be naturalized, were left civically invisible by the code of laws (coverture) once they married. They were not able to own property, form contracts, …

Ms-036: Radical Pamphlets, 1965 – 1975, Christine M. Ameduri

All Finding Aids

This collection is divided into two sections. Radical Pamphlets, consists of pamphlets on broad topics such as labor, communism, ecology, poverty, racism and women’s rights. The second series is the Peace Movement and consists of pamphlets, papers, newspaper clippings and correspondence dealing with the Vietnam Conflict and Peace Movement in the United States compiled by David Mozes, a friend of Scott, Nancy and Jim Scott, and Michael J. Hobor, Class of 1969.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each …

Lavinia Dock: Adams County Suffragette, Mary Lou Schwartz

Adams County History

In the aftermath of the anniversary celebrations held to commemorate women's right to vote, it is fitting to remember an Adams county resident who figured prominently in the most militant phase of the suffrage campaign-Lavinia Lloyd Dock.

Lavinia Dock was born February 26, 1858, the second child of Gilliard and Lavinia Lloyd Bombaugh Dock. Gilliard, who had attended Gettysburg College, was a well-to-do engineer and machinist. Both parents were liberal in their views. Lavinia said that "Father had some whimsical masculine prejudices, but Mother was broad on all subjects and very tolerant and charitable towards persons." Although the family, eventually …

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter 07/1984, Maine Lesbian Feminist

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter (1976-1984)

• Letter re: the murder of Charlie Howard
• Letter from Doris Raven Darkwing Foster
• Calendar Events
• YWCA of Lewiston/Auburn; Youth Intervention Programs
• The 4th New England Women's Musical Retreat
• The 9th Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
• Third Annual Healing Ritual Gathering
• Interweave Benefit Concert in Memory of Charlie Howard

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter 06/1984, Maine Lesbian Feminist

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter (1976-1984)

• Calendar Events
• In Case You're Interested...
• Emma Dyke Advice Column
• Take Back the Night - 1984: Pornography and Violence Against Women by Lucie Bauer

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter 05/1984, Maine Lesbian Feminist

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter (1976-1984)

• Calendar Events
• Take Back the Night 1984 Coalition
• Waldoboro Days Triathalon
• National March for Lesbian/Gay Rights
• In Case You're Interested...
• Poetry

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter 03-04/1984, Maine Lesbian Feminist

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter (1976-1984)

• UMO Womyn's Center Womyn's Health Symposium on Sexism, Racism, Classism and Health Care
• Worry Column

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter 02/1984, Maine Lesbian Feminist

Maine Lesbian Feminist Newsletter (1976-1984)

• Calendar of Events
• Boycott Nestle Products
• Support Christine Madsen
• Books
• Personals
• Valentine's Day Dance
• The Worry Column
• Poetry