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Women's History Commons

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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Women's History

'Were We Hard On Teachers Or What?': The Female Rural Schoolteacher Of Wabaunsee And Pottawatomie Counties, Kansas, 1908-1950, Katie Goerl Oct 2017

'Were We Hard On Teachers Or What?': The Female Rural Schoolteacher Of Wabaunsee And Pottawatomie Counties, Kansas, 1908-1950, Katie Goerl

Online Journal of Rural Research & Policy

Immortalized in pioneer tales and rural history as an icon of early Kansas, the female one-room schoolteacher represents more than an instructor of readin', 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Sometimes called a "school mother," historians often note that she also served as nurse, janitor, fire builder, ash carrier, snow shoveler, program director, and coat buttoner. Popular media and museum exhibits tend either to reference the longstanding cliché of the strict, prudish, old "schoolmarm" or paint a rosy portrait of a plucky yet feminine youth. Upon careful consideration of the evidence, a more nuanced profile emerges of a young, single woman, who labored …


Integrity & Incentives: Seeking Equity In Historic Preservation Law, Anneka Olson Sep 2017

Integrity & Incentives: Seeking Equity In Historic Preservation Law, Anneka Olson

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

In this article, the author presents a case study of mobile home park residents seeking historic designation in the face of neighborhood demolition. The neighborhood’s ineligibility to become a historic site under current law can help demonstrate larger patterns of inequitable outcomes within historic preservation practice. In particular, the author argues that the application of preservation law—despite being formally neutral regarding issues of racial and socioeconomic equity—reinforces existing racial, economic, and spatial inequities. Drawing on the challenge of legal closure from critical legal studies (CLS), the author argues that law and historicity are mutually constituting, and that subjective notions of …


Book Reviews: Recent Books On Pornography: From Discussions Of Harm To Normalization, Robert Brannon Sep 2017

Book Reviews: Recent Books On Pornography: From Discussions Of Harm To Normalization, Robert Brannon

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Nine books addressing the specific harms linked to adults’ viewing of heterosexual pornography are examined. All were published since 2010, and range from some that are opposed to all pornography, to others that approve of pornography. The books differ considerably in scope, quality, and scientific rigor. Several include discussions of the feminist anti-pornography movement, in the U.S. and worldwide, from 1975 to the present. These accounts range from criticism of the anti-pornography movement to praise and appreciation. This collection of books provides a useful view of the remarkable diversity of thought about all issues connected with pornography’s effects on adult …


Making An Impression: Butter Prints, The Butter Market, And Rural Women In Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Pennsylvania, Jennifer L. Putnam Jun 2017

Making An Impression: Butter Prints, The Butter Market, And Rural Women In Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Pennsylvania, Jennifer L. Putnam

Madison Historical Review

Pre-industrial butter-making was an arduous process, involving milking, churning, proper storage, printing, and, sometimes, transport to market. The 19th-century economy in Philadelphia was forever changed by the practice of rural women selling their surplus butter as a response to the rise of consumerism. Butter-making provided rural women with the means to earn their own income, providing economic agency and increasing their independence by allowing them to work outside of the home. Butter prints emerged as a way to brand one’s butter with a signature trademark. A print’s size and shape, the materials and methods used in its construction, and the …


Single, Unwed, And Pregnant In Victorian London: Narratives Of Working Class Agency And Negotiation, Virginia L. Grimaldi Jun 2017

Single, Unwed, And Pregnant In Victorian London: Narratives Of Working Class Agency And Negotiation, Virginia L. Grimaldi

Madison Historical Review

Unmarried working women who got pregnant in Victorian London and were abandoned by the fathers were in a sticky situation. If a woman kept the baby, she would unlikely be able to provide for it, especially under the ‘Bastardly Act’ of the 1834 Poor Law, which deemed all illegitimate children under the sole responsibility of the mother. If she concealed her pregnancy and abandoned the child, or risked her life by having an illegal abortion, she would at best be held liable for infanticide, at worst, dead. One institutional option available to these vulnerable mothers was the London Foundling Hospital …


Depending On Sex? Tongue, Sieve, And Ladle Shaped Pendants From Late Iron Age Gotland, Meghan P. Mattsson Mcginnis Jun 2017

Depending On Sex? Tongue, Sieve, And Ladle Shaped Pendants From Late Iron Age Gotland, Meghan P. Mattsson Mcginnis

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Artifacts of female dress such as brooches and pendants have long been objects of interest to scholars of late Iron Age /early medieval Scandinavia. They figure in dating and tracing stylistic developments, and their presence is often (controversially) used to help assign gender to burials. There are three types of pendants which constitute a type of feminine adornment unique to Viking Age Gotland: the so-called tongue, sieve, and ladle pendants. The purpose of this paper is to examine these pendant types and the possible symbolic and magical functions behind their forms and manner of use, and how these functions intersected …


She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo May 2017

She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo

The Downtown Review

Mae West, an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, used her fame on stage, in films, and on the radio to offer social commentary on relationships between men and women in society. Her irreverent style of addressing issues of female sexuality and power certainly caught peoples attention and made them think about these issues in new ways. At the same time, her racy delivery made her a target of stage, film, and radio censorship. She refused to be silenced and continually pushed against restrictions to deliver he message of empowerment in her trademark provocative manner.