Women's History Commons^™

Devil In The Details: Witchcraft In Reformation England, Angela A. Luna

Theses and Dissertations

An analysis of the English Reformation’s impact on perceptions of witches and the transformation of witchcraft as a crime prosecutable in courts of law. It demonstrates English diabolism characterized by the use of animal familiars, body markings, and pacts with the Devil, which helped to shape the English witch trials.

The Inconspicuous Lives Of Dr. Susan Smith Mckinney Steward And Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Alexandra W. Bogdanovich

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines trailblazing American female doctors of the nineteenth century in New York. Through the lives of Dr. Susan Smith Mckinney Steward, who is black, and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who is white, this analysis tries to understand what motivated these women and how they succeeded in spite of the confines of women’s prescriptive role in nineteenth-century America.

Article 6.21, Tatiana Stolpovskaya

Theses and Dissertations

Article 6.21 is a short documentary film that aims to examine the state of censorship around queerness in Russia today and its effects on personal lives in the queer community.

Twenty years after Russia decriminalized homosexuality, on June 30th in 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed Article 6.21 "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values", also known as the "Gay Propaganda Law". Its broad and ambiguous wording allows the government significant leeway in deciding what kind of public queerness is punishable.

In 2020 Russia passed multiple constitutional amendments that affect many areas …

"With The Commodity In The Hand": A Practical Investigation Of The Intersection Of Material Culture With Performance Theory, Katharine M. Given

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the intersection of performance theory and material culture through the practices of garment reconstruction. In chapter 1, I examine key theorists in the fields of material culture and performance studies and articulate the connections between the two fields. In chapter 2, Using practice as research, I recount the experience of building reproduction garments from the eighteenth century using historically appropriate tools and methods, as well as the experience of wearing those garments. Finally, in Chapter 3, I walk through a possible historical examination of my encounter with these reconstructed garments, and consider the way in which feminine …

Pratiquer Ou Incarner La Vertu? L'Agentivité Des Femmes Chez Marie De France Et Christine De Pizan, Kathe Blydenburgh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the treatment of women in Medieval literature as active agents in their roles of upholding the virtues of the societies in which they live. This study focuses on works written by the female authors Marie de France and Christine de Pizan.

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.

Judith Leyster: A Study Of Extraordinary Expression, Nicole J. Cardinale

Theses and Dissertations

Judith Leyster’s innovative application of expression in her Self Portrait serves as the focus, whereby she is shown to blend conventional painting categories, preserve a sense of innocence, and confidently flaunt her skills. In turn, Leyster challenged the male-centric art market and stood apart from her artistic predecessors and contemporaries.

Benevolent Women And An Orphan Asylum: The Case Of Rochester, New York, Joseph Resch

Theses and Dissertations

Rochester, New York typified the rapid growth towns were experiencing in the early 19th century. Benevolent women established charitable societies and institutions like the Orphan Asylum to combat the social ills brought on by that growth. Their humanitarian endeavors laid the foundation for today’s child welfare agencies.

"Island Of Integration": Desegregation Of The Women's Army Corps At Fort Lee, Virginia, 1948-1954, Meika Downey

Theses and Dissertations

Countless studies exist examining President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 9981 mandating racial desegregation of the U.S. armed forces, though all singularly focus on the experiences of male soldiers in the twentieth century. This thesis examines how the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) training center at Fort Lee, Virginia implemented desegregation in 1950 in the midst of the Korean War with relative speed and tolerance. Determined through archival records including official WAC reports, photographs, newspapers, and nine newly conducted racially diverse oral history interviews with WAC veterans, I demonstrate how the Fort Lee training center became a physical and cultural “island …

Creating Herstory: Female Rebellion In Arundhati Roy’S "The God Of Small Things" And "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness", Priyanka Tewari

Theses and Dissertations

In The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness novels, the author Arundhati Roy is not only attempting to give feminist weight to the multiplicity of locations in which gender is articulated by recasting her female characters in their quest for selfhood, she is also focusing on women and women-identified characters as agents of history, thereby contributing to an ongoing project of feminist historiography.

The Romance Novel Cover, Jessica D. Spears

Theses and Dissertations

Romance novel covers dating from the 1980s and 1990s reflect complex and contradictory ideas about gender, power, and sexuality. The covers overflow with stereotypes of what women are attracted to such as enormous pink roses, lush folds of silk, and hair long enough for Rapunzel. To this socially acceptable women’s imagery, the covers add two less reputable aspects: sexual imagery and, occasionally, suggestions of female submission. Since the association of romance and conventional femininity is so strong, the covers make a visual argument that submission and sexuality are things that a conventional woman wants. Readers have to deal with what …

Women In Music: Letting A Long Story Be Long Contemplating Women’S Sonic, Musical, And Spiritual Experiences In Prehistory, Deborah J. Saidel

Theses and Dissertations

Situated within deep history, this study explores the auditory and spiritual lives of Paleolithic women. It considers their personal agency in mediating the spiritual power of sound and how doing so contributes to a multifaceted musicality. The theoretical framework involves a wide spectrum of topics, from ways of rethinking the writing of history and reckoning with time, to sound studies and the study of acoustics in ancient sites, to a critical examination through a feminist lens of normative disciplinary scholarship in anthropology and archaeology, religious studies, and musicology. I explore potential audio-visual-lithic relationships for their implications for deepening an understanding …

Embedded In These Walls, Trish J. Gibson

Theses and Dissertations

Embedded In These Walls uses photographic imagery, archival ephemera, and written text to examine a specific history of generational trauma through the lens of a singular family of a southern tradition to point to a larger systemic breakdown of accountability and truthfulness regarding abuse

"To Conceive With Child Is The Earnest Desire If Not Of All, Yet Of Most Women": The Advancement Of Prenatal Care And Childbirth In Early Modern England: 1500-1770, Victoria E.C. Glover

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes medical manuals published in England between 1500 and 1770 to trace developing medical understandings and prescriptive approaches to conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. While there have been plenty of books written regarding social and religious changes in the reproductive process during the early modern era, there is a dearth of scholarly work focusing on the medical changes which took place in obstetrics over this period. Early modern England was a time of great change in the field of obstetrics as physicians incorporated newly-discovered knowledge about the male and female body, new fields and tools, and new or revived …

Mother Knows Better: The Donna Reed Show, The Feminine Mystique And The Rise Of The Modern Maternal Feminist Movement, Anne M. Newton

Theses and Dissertations

In 1958, actress Donna Reed formed her own production company to create The Donna Reed Show, which ran successfully until 1966. One of only two female television producers working in Hollywood, Reed’s show foreshadowed much of the discontent illustrated in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The series explored Donna’s frustrations with housework, her interest in professional activities outside the home, and her determination to be an equal in her marriage. However, The Donna Reed Show also diverged from Friedan on key issues by elevating the housewife and establishing her moral authority, thus foreshadowing more conservative “maternal” feminism as …

"Life Under Union Occupation: Elite Women In Richmond, April And May 1865", Amanda C. Tompkins

Theses and Dissertations

This paper crafts a narrative about how elite, white Richmond women experienced the fall and rebuilding of their city in April and May 1865. At first, the women feared the entrance of the occupying army because they believed the troops would treat them as enemies. However, the goal of the white occupiers was to restore order in the city. Even though they were initially saddened by the occupation, many women were surprised at the courtesy and respected afforded them by the Union troops. Black soldiers also made up the occupying army, and women struggled to submit to black authority. With …

Women At The Crossroads, Women At The Forefront, American Women In Letterpress Printing In The Nineteenth Century, Dianne L. Roman Ms

Theses and Dissertations

The significant role of the female printer in the American home-based print shops during the colonial and early republic periods has been documented in print history, socioeconomic, labor, and women studies, yet with the industrialization of the printing trade, women’s presence is thought to have disappeared. Contrary to the belief that industrialization of the print shop eradicated women’s involvement in skilled employments such as typesetting, the creation of the Women’s Cooperative Printing Union in California and the creation and chartering of the Women’s Typographical Union in New York, both in the late 1860s, clearly indicate that women continued to work …

Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press And Fluxus, Meghan A. Dellacrosse

Theses and Dissertations

"Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press and Fluxus," positions Knowles’ Big Book (1966) as a case study of historical methodology and interdisciplinary artistic practice in the post-war period. This comprehensive analysis of Big Book, a work of art no longer extant, contextualizes its publisher, Something Else Press through Dick Higgins’ concept of “intermedia,” and important lesser-known junctures relevant to Fluxus and the group’s leader George Maciunas are illuminated. Knowles' early and lesser-known silkscreen paintings are also examined.

Living In A Gangsta’S Paradise: Dr. C. Delores Tucker’S Crusade Against Gansta Rap Music In The 1990s, Jordan A. Conway

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines Dr. C. DeLores Tucker’s efforts to abolish the production and distribution of gangsta rap to the American youth. Though her efforts were courageous and daring, they were not sufficient. The thesis will trace Tucker’s crusade beginning in 1992 through the end of the 1990s. It brings together several themes in post-World War II American history, such as the issues of race, gender, popular culture, economics, and the role of government. The first chapter thematically explores Tucker’s crusade, detailing her methodology and highlighting pivotal events throughout the movement. The second chapter discusses how opposition from rap artists, and …

"Give It All Up And Follow Your Lord": Mormon Female Religiosity, 1831-1843, Janiece L. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1750s American women have flocked to churches. Women have consistently been the majority in church populations. Religion was the central motivation of the female life experience. Likewise, women comprised a significant portion of the membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its first decade. There exists little historical analysis of the contribution and experience of these women as a whole. As a result of this lack of research some historians have made erroneous assumptions of patriarchal oppression and a lack of commitment on the part of early Mormon women. This project closely examines the …

Life's Work : The Accidental Career Of Laura Margolis Jarblum, Julie L. Kerssen

Theses and Dissertations

Laura Margolis Jarblum has been largely overlooked by history, but her story is an important one. She worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee throughout four decades, serving around the world in places including Europe, Israel, Cuba, and China. Her dedication to the welfare of her fellow Jews led her into chaotic and sometimes dangerous situations, even resulting in time spent in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. She is given credit for saving thousands of lives, both during and after the period of World War II. This paper uses letters, reports, oral histories, and other sources to reconstruct her life. …

A History Of Female Missionary Activity In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, 1830-1898, Calvin S. Kunz

Theses and Dissertations

Latter-day Saint female missionary activities informally began in the early 1830's, remaining numerically unconstant until 1879, when a significant increase began. Between 1830 and 1898 over two hundred women had been involved in missionary work, laboring mostly in California, New York, Hawaii and England.

Before 1865, Latter-day Saint women did not have any official missionary status. After 1865, Church officials began the practice of setting them apart. Finally, in 1898 women were "certified" as missionaries which placed them on an equal status with their male counterparts.

Some lady missionaries performed household chores, taught school, preached sermons and presided over female …

Woman Suffrage In Utah As An Issue In The Mormon And Non-Mormon Press Of The Territory 1870-1887, Ralph Lorenzo Jack

Theses and Dissertations

Early Utah history was characterized in part by a period of journalistic controversy and abuse that clearly reflected the differences between the Latter-day Saint and Gentile populations of the Territory. This thesis is a study of the differences between the Mormon and Gentile presses concerning the subject of woman suffrage.