What was life like for women who stood at a major crossroads of history? What was required, in tumultuous times, to think and act boldly? This course focuses on women from diverse racial and regional backgrounds who labored to abolish slavery in the United States and then enlarged their political visions to include a range of progressive causes: racial equality, temperance, black suffrage, and women’s suffrage. We will explore the texture of women’s experiences in the 19th century, the conditions that gave rise to multifaceted societal change, and the ways in which that change unfolded. Finally, our course will consider how these women’s stories are remembered in present-day public culture and whether knowledge of this era can play a role in the urgent societal issues of our own time.
HIST 12M