A History of Gender in Early America

Exploration, conquest, settlement, revolution, and nation-building: no course in early American history should ignore such traditional topics. In this course, though, we will examine the various ways that gender shaped these historical processes. How, for example, did colonials’ assumptions about manhood and womanhood affect the development of slavery in America? Or how did the Founding Fathers’ identities as men inform their attitudes about democracy and citizenship? We will scrutinize historical documents, of both a private and public nature, and discuss several recent scholarly works on gender from 1600-1850 to consider these kinds of questions. Pre-1800. 2 hrs. lect./1 hr. disc.