Texts:
- Rebecca Plant, Mom: The Transformation of Motherhood in Modern America (U of Chicago Press, 2010).
- Ricki Solinger, Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America, (New York University Press, 2005, paperback 2007)
- Regina G.Kunzel: Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945, Yale Historical Publications (Yale University Press, 1993).
- Ruth Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930-1965. (Cornell U Press, 2000).
Available online (Go to America: History and Life database in the library. Search by last name and some unique word from the title. Click on UBO at the bottom to get the link to the full text version.)
- Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820-1860" American Quarterly 18 (1966) 151-174.
- Nancy F. Cott, "Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 1790-1850," Signs 4 (1978) 219-236.
- Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual," Signs 1 (Fall 1975) 1-29.
- Journal of Women’s History retrospective of Smith-Rosenberg’s article. http://www.swetswise.com/eAccess/viewToc.do?yevoID=699999&titleID=116618
- Nancy Pottishman Weiss, “Mother, the Invention of Necessity: Dr. Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care,” American Quarterly 29:5 (1977) 519-546.
- William Graebner, “The Unstable World of Benjamin Spock: Social Engineering in a Democratic Culture, 1917-1950 Journal of American History 67:3 (Dec 1980) 612-629.
- Melody Rose and Mark O. Hatfield, “Republican Motherhood Redux?: Women as Contingent Citizens in 21st Century America,” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 29:1 (2007) 5-30.
Additional pensum reading:
- Each student will choose one major article which everyone will read and discuss. (The student will put either the link or the scanned article on Fronter.) Students may work in small groups to gather different articles on one topic. Suggestions for potential topics are listed below.
Films:
- Imitation of Life
- A Midwife’s Tale
Potential topics for the additional readings
- Portrayals of mothering, or women’s identity/purpose in movies or on TV
- Sexuality (by race or class or era)
- Lesbianism
- Femininity or mothering on the trail west, or in a region, or by race in an historical period
- A particular woman (Catherine Beecher, Jane Addams, Margaret Sanger, etc.)
- Advice literature
- Evangelical ideology about women
- Feminism and motherhood
- Birth control, fertility, and forces which encourage or discourage childbearing
- Eugenics
- Intersections of Race and gender or sexuality
- Women reformers and female identity
- Mothering the Nation
- First Lady as Nation’s Mother, Grandmother, wife…
- Work and Family tensions
- A Law covering women’s opportunities (employment, abortion, sexuality)? Surrogate mothering
- Childlessness
- Choose a scholar who has written several things on the topic and assess the changes in interpretation by that scholar.
- Other? Talk to me about your own ideas.