HIS 204: Growing Up Female: A History of American Girls (Fall 2010)
From "sugar and spice and everything nice" to "a woman's place is in the House... and the Senate" the expectations for a girl's life mirror the ever-changing social, cultural, religious, and political conditions in the United States. In our examination of girlhood from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century we will learn of society's changing expectations for females, and the political and cultural roles Americans believed girls played in society.
HIS 290: Voyages and the Great Age of Sail (Spring 2011)
This course will explore the men and women who made their living on the sea in nineteenth-century New England. We will consider whalers, ship’s captains, lighthouse keepers, and the work of those in home ports. A major focus of this course will be on the family of Saco sea captain Tristam Jordan whose life at sea featured the excitement of world travel and the dangers of hurricanes, illness and tragedy. In the process of exploring this topic, students will create a museum exhibit on Captain Tristam Jordan’s adventures in the great age of sail. The exhibit will be displayed at the Saco Museum in late Spring 2011 and open to the public.
HIS 337: Topics in Women’s History: Women at Westbrook College
This class explores how and why girls risked ridicule, social scorn, and wrinkles to become learned. Our focus will be on higher education --- the seminaries, institutes and colleges that began to accept women students in the nineteenth century – and specifically, we will use the history of our predecessor students at the Westbrook College Campus as our case study. Women have been at Westbrook since the 1830s – what did they study? Why did they seek higher education? What did they do with that degree? As we explore the opportunities and limitations presented to women students at Westbrook College we will also come to understand a roughly one hundred year span of American women’s history: from the first stirrings of the women’s rights movement to the granting of the vote in 1920. We will also take time to reflect on our own twenty-first century educational experiences at Westbrook College (now UNE) and consider our connections to the generations of women students who studied here before us.
HIS 338: American Communal Experiments
Throughout American history, inspired individuals have grouped together in an attempt to craft a new American society, a utopia to improve, or replace, institutions of the mainstream society of the day. Some groups- such as the Shakers-chose a celibate, communal life. Others- such as the Oneida Perfectionists- chose a lifestyle of multiple marriage partners. The Woman's Commonwealth was entirely female; the Koreshan Unity believed we inhabit the inside of a hollow sphere. By studying a variety of communal experiments from the late eighteenth century to present day, we will gain insight into the social, economic, political, and other problems that challenged Americans in times both past and present and led some to attempt to create a better society.
HIS 339: Women and the Environment (team-taught with Dr. Pam Morgan)
This team-taught, interdisciplinary course is designed to take an in-depth look at the relationship between women and the environment over time. We will explore several themes, including how women relate to the natural world, living lightly on the land, nature as healer, science and nature, ecofeminism, and women as advocates for the environment. Topics will be studied from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
HIS 345: Museums and Public History
Museums offer a way to preserve and protect history, to display history, and to educate and entertain those who come to view history. In this hands-on course, students will create a museum exhibition based on a selected incident in local history. Students will select the exhibit themes, design displays, and choose artifacts. The class will write label copy and informative panels, brochures, pr and educational materials. Students will learn the complete process of creating an exhibition while also considering key issues in the public display of history. In Spring 2008, students in this class designed an exhibit based on the 1849 “murder” of Berengera Caswell, a mill girl who died in Saco after a botched medical procedure. The exhibit was displayed at the Saco Museum in the Spring 2008.
Exhibit photos coming soon!
HIS 341: Bestsellers and the Big Bad City
Before there were movies, TV or the internet, books were mass media. In this course, we will read books, pamphlets, and tracts written for and eagerly embraced by large numbers of readers. By looking at bestsellers, we will seek insights into the American cultures which produced and received these texts. We will attempt to understand not only why these narratives were so popular, but also what relationship they had to American politics, religion, labor relations, and the family. Our readings will focus on tales of the city--its dangers, its promises, and its power. While we focus on bestsellers of the nineteenth century, we will also consider how the themes and issues addressed by nineteenth-century popular literature play out in the twenty-first century.
WST 200: Introduction to Women’s Studies
In this course, we will use an interdisciplinary approach to consider some of the themes, questions, methodologies, and findings of women’s studies scholarship. Beginning with a discussion of the context in which women’s studies emerged, we will then explore various aspects of women’s experience, both with public institutions and with personal relationships, in the past and in the present. We will also consider cultural representations of women and examine how women’s and men’s lives have been shaped by the structures of gender inequality.
