Feminism and Mainstream Narratives in American History, 1780-2000

Abstract

Our co-directed Web site, Women and Social Movements in U.S. History, 1600-2000, forges new connections between womeris history and general contours of U.S. history. Visitors to site (who numbered over 40,000 a month in 2004) can explore many such connections. Since 1997, hundreds of college and high school teachers have drawn on Web site for documents and interpretations that enliven students' excursions into U.S. history. The site is currently available through institutional subscription, priced on a sliding scale so that secondary schools can afford it. Schools and libraries may sign up for a 30-day trial subscription to evaluate resource by accessing . We are in process of transferring document projects from our Binghamton editorial site to subscription site, but presently some two dozen projects remain freely available at . Document projects, created by scholars as offshoots of research, comprise site's central content. In creating such projects, schol ars enjoy sharing their favorite documents in their areas of expertise and can display selected topics in greater detail than articles or books permit. The site now offers 57 projects, including some 20,000 pag es of documents, more than 600 images, and an extensive section of Teaching Tools with lesson plans and document-based questions. The format for each project is same. Each focuses on a question and offers between 20 and 50 documents that address question. Each document has a complete citation as well as a headnote that places it in context. An introduction provides a historical framework for project as a whole. Each project has a scholarly bibliography, footnotes, and annotations (1). This array of documents permits readers to explore questions from a variety of perspectives and experience history as it unfolds on a daily basis. Documents encourage readers to draw their own conclusions and develop skills of historical analysis. For example, one project is organized around question, How did Ladies Association of Philadelphia shape new forms of womeris activism during Ameri can Revolution? Another asks, How did abolitionist women and their slaveholding relatives negotiate their conflict over issue of slavery? Another inquires, How did white women aid former slaves during and after Civil War? Such projects reconfigure mainstream nar ratives of U.S. history to make women's presence palpable. While projects are designed to carry students, teachers, and scholars into new questions that pull women's history and U.S. history together, readers can draw on materials to construct their own historical analysis. This essay models that possibility by selecting a few representative doc uments from four projects that illuminate changing relationship between feminism and mainstream aspects of U.S. history. Defining feminism as the belief that gender inequalities are so cially constructed and can be changed, we browsed through Web site's document projects to locate examples of documents that illumi nate intersection of feminism and mainstream narratives of U.S. history (2). Because site focuses on women's collective action in social movements, hundreds of documents fit this description, but we limited our selections to documents from four projects. First, a pre-feminist group in 1780s that supported Conti nental army during American Revolution exemplified limited resources that women's activism could command before feminism be came a force in American life (3). Second, women's rights move ment of 185 os changed American history by adopting chief rhetorical strategy of American political culture?the political conven tion (4). Third, woman suffrage movement illuminates 1910s debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois over best means for advancing African Americans in American society (5). Finally, Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and Supreme Court's review of its civil rights component in 2000 clarifies current debates about power of federal government versus power ofthe states (6). Members of Philadelphia Ladies Association collected money to reward soldiers for staying in field in 1780. During previous disastrous winters at Valley Forge and Morristown inadequate supplies led to great suffering and whole companies were abandoning their posts and heading home. Led by Esther Reed, wife ofthe Governor of Pennsylvania, and Sarah Bache, daughter of Benjamin Franklin, Ladies Association collected more than $200,000. The question then arose?in what form should money be given to soldiers? In a