Voices of American Women's History from Reconstruction to the Present

This collection of historical and contemporary writing by women argues that, in addition to gender, identity markers such as race, class, religion, citizenship, sexuality, and marital status have influenced women's lives in the United States for more than 200 years. Voices of American Women's History illustrates that gender alone has never defined women's experiences in America. Women from diverse backgrounds are represented in media and documents that include pamphlets, book excerpts, personal narratives, photographs, advertisements, congressional testimonies, and Supreme Court rulings. Such issues as abortion, marriage equality, domestic violence, and gender parity are shown from historical and contemporary angles, as this collection of primary sources allows readers and students to easily trace how women's lives and histories have and continue to intersect. With a historical context for each selection, the book also features structured activities to help teachers with class discussion and exams, including suggestions for further reading, document analysis, essay questions, and manageable research assignments.

Kristine Ashton Gunnell is a research affiliate at UCLA's Center for the Study of Women and a visiting scholar at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, USA.

Preface Introduction Evaluating and Interpreting Primary Documents Chronology of Women's History DOCUMENTS OF WOMEN'S HISTORY Urban Life, 1871-1920 1. Susan B. Anthony, "Suffrage and the Working Woman" (1871) 2. Jacob Riis, "Court at 24 Baxter Street" (ca. 1888 or 1889) and Lillian Wald, "Crowded Districts of Large Cities" (1897) 3. Hull House, Hull-House: a social settlement at 335 South Halstead Street, Chicago; weekly program of lectures, clubs, classes, etc., March 1st, 1892 (1892) 4. Margaret Sanger, The Case for Birth Control (1917) 5. Clara Lanza, "Women Clerks in New York" (1891) 6. Elizabeth Hirschfield, "The Woman Who Talks: Card Playing During the Day" (1897) 7. Emmet J. Scott, "Additional Letters of Negro Migrants of 1916-1918" (1919) Living in the Multicultural West, 1877-1920 8. Calamity Jane, The Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane (1896) 9. Plural Marriage (1878) 10. Homesteads in Nebraska (1886) 11. Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883) 12. Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor (1881) 13. Chinese Immigration (1906) Cultural Conflict and Changing Gender Roles in the 1920s and 1930s 14. Women's Suffrage 15. C.W. Turner, "A Flapper Girl" (1922) and Images from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog (1923) 16. Women of the Ku Klux Klan, America for Americans: creed of Klanswomen as interpreted by the Women of the Ku Klux Klan 17. Letter from Vada Churchill to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933) 18. "Mexican Young Ladies Heed the Voice of Charity" (1919) and "The Spanish Ladies of Charity" (1919) 19. Motion Picture Production Code, or "Hays Code," (1934) Women on the Homefront: World War II and the Cold War 20. Women in the Workforce during World War II 21. Japanese American Confinement during World War II 22. Loretta Collier, "A Lesbian Recounts her Korean War Military Experiences" (1990) 23. Civil Defense and Fallout Shelters 24. Domesticity in the 1950s Equal Rights Movements in the 1960s and 1970s 25. Challenging Segregation 26. Geneva Mathiasen, "The War on Poverty as it Affects Older Americans" (1965) 27. Loving v. Virginia (1967) 28. Betty Friedan, "Judge Carswell and the 'Sex Plus's Doctrine" (1970) and the Testimony of Myra K. Wolfgang (1970) 29. Michelle Wallace, "Anger in Isolation: A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood" (1975) 30. "Miss America Pageant Protest" (1968) and Carol Hanisch, "What Can Be Learned: A Critique of the Miss America Protest" (1968) Pushing Boundaries in the 1980s and 1990s 31. Andrea Dworkin, "Pornography as a Civil Rights Issue" (1986) 32. Elizabeth Glaser, "Pediatric AIDS" (1990) 33. Anita Hill, Testimony at the Clarence Thomas Hearings (1991) 34. Rosalynn Carter, "Caregiving" (1998) 35. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, "Women, Men, and Children in Need" (1996) 36. Hillary Clinton, "Women's Rights are Human Rights" (1995) Contemporary Voices: Challenging Stereotypes and Confronting Violence 37. Condoleezza Rice, Opening Remarks to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004) 38. Michelle Brané, "Crossing the Border: Immigrants in Detention" (2007) 39. Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry (2009) 40. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) 41. "Missing and Murdered: Confronting the Silent Crisis in Indian Country" (2018) 42. Feminista Jones, Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets (2019) 43. Testimony from Rosa Walker during "Ensuring Women Can Thrive in a Post-Pandemic Economy" Hearings (2022) Bibliography Index