Women and the National Experience Sources in Women's History, Volume 1 to 1877

A graduate of Smith College, Ellen Skinner received an MA from Columbia University and a PhD from NYU.  She chaired the History Department at Pace University’s Westchester campus from 1987 to 2006. Her teaching career spanned four decades and in 2008 she was appointed Professor Emerita.  In both her teaching and writing she strives to make women’s history accessible to students and relevant to their lives. Now in its third edition, Women and the National Experience first was published in 1995. Professor Skinner continues to teach women’s history online and to search the archives for women’s lost voices. Her current research focuses on women’s human rights as well as the connections between women’s history and the environment.

*New to this edition

1 Gender, Race and Class in the Colonial Era                 

    Anne Hutchinson, Trial 1638)

    Sor (Sister ) Juana Ines de la Crux, “Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess, Sor Filotea De La Cruz”*

    Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children (c.1650)

    Assembly of Virginia, Statute Outlawing Interracial Unions (1691)*

    Cotton Mather, Th e Wonders of the Invisible World: Trial of Susanna Martin (1692)

    Benjamin Wadsworth, A Well-Ordered Family (1712)

    Chrestien Le Clercq, The Customs and Religion of the Indians (1700)

    Mary Jemison, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison                        

    Elizabeth Sprigs, Letter from an Indentured Servant 1756)

    Eliza Pinckney, Birthday Resolutions (c.1750)

    Phillis Wheatley, Letter to the Reverend Samuel Occom  (Feb.11, 1774)*

    Judith Cocks, Letter to James Hillhouse (1795)                                                           

2 From Revolution to Republic: Moral Motherhood and Civic Mission 

   Anne Hulton, Letter of a Loyalist Lady 1774)                                                             

    Esther DeBerdt Reed, Sentiments of an American Woman 1780)

    Molly Brant Letter to Daniel Claus (June 23^rd, 1778)*

    Abigail Adams, Letters to John Adams and His Reply (1776)

    Molly Wallace, The Young Ladies, Academy of Philadelphia (1790)

    Eulalia Callis, Petition to Divorce her Husband Pedro Fages (1784-85)*

    Abigail Abbot Bailey, Excerpt from Memoirs (1788-89)*

    Judith Sargent Murray, On the Equality of the Sexes (1790)

    Ladies Society of New York, Constitution (1800)

    Colored Female Religious and Moral Society of Salem, Massachusetts, Constitution 1818)

    Emma Willard, Plan for Female Education (1819)

    John S. C. Abbott, The Mother at Home 1833)

3 Emerging Industrialization and Expanding Roles: The Intersection of  Opportunity and Domestic Ideals

   Prudence Crandall, Advertisement in The Liberator, “Regarding the Opening of A High School

        for Young Colored Ladies and Misses” (1833)*

   Mary Lyon, Mt. Holyoke Seminary, Letter to Mrs. Cooley, Feb. (1843)*

   Barilla Taylor, Letter to Her Family (1844)*

   Harriet Hanson Robinson, Lowell Textile Workers (1898)

   Letters to the Voice of Industry (1846)

   Sarah Bagley, Letter to Mrs. Martin (March 13, 1848)*

   Ellen Monroe, Letter to the Boston Bee (1846) 

   Female Labor Reform Association,Testimony Before the Massachusetts Legislature (1845)

   Catharine Beecher, The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children (1846)*

   Sarah Josepha Hale, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Editor’s Table, Copy of Petition sent to Congress, Jan. (1856)*     

   Sarah Josepha Hale, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Editor’s Table, Twelve Reasons Why Women Should Received a

        Medical Education (1857)*  

   “We Are Not Slaves,” New York Times, Female Shoe and Textile Workers Strike Marblehead, Massachusetts, (Feb. 28^th 1860)*

   Betsy Cowles, Report on Labor, Proceedings of the Woman’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio (1851)   

   Caroline Dall, Women’s Right to Labor (1860)     

4 From Moral Reform to Free Love and Voluntary Motherhood: Issues of Vulnerability and Sexual Agency     

    Female Moral Reform Society NYC, Excerpt from First Annual Report: “Licentious Men”(1835)*

    Important Lectures to Females (1839)*                                                                                  

    Friend of Virtue, Died in Jaffrey, N.H., Aged 27 (1841)

    Caroline Healy Dall, Letter to Paulina Davis and the Woman’s Rights Convention (1851)*

    Dr. William W. Sanger, Excerpt from The History of Prostitution, Its Extent, Causes, Effects throughout the

           World (1859)*

    Lucy Stone, Letter to Antoinette Brown Blackwell (July 11, 1855)*

    Paulina Wright Davis, Letter to Women’s Rights Conference, Akron, Ohio (1851)*

    The Unwelcome Child (1845)*

    Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Address: The Whole World’s Temperance Convention, September (1853)*

    A Temperance Activist (1853)

    Victoria Woodhull, And the Truth Shall Make You Free (1871)*

    Winnifred Harper Cooley, The New Womanhood (1904)*

    Benjamin Drew, Narrative of an Escaped Slave (1855)                                                 

    Harriet Tubman, Excerpts from A Biography by Her Contemporaries c.1880)

    Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent), Excerpt from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)*

    Elizabeth Keckley, Excerpt from Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (1868)*

    State v. Celia, a Slave, Excerpt from her Trial for Murder, Missouri (1855)*

    Rose Williams, Interview, Texas, W.P.A., (1930’s)*

    Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Confederate Lady’s Diary (1861)*

    Gertrude Clanton Thomas, Excerpt from The Secret Eye (Sept. 17, 1864)*

    Letitia Burwell, A Girl’s Life in Virginia Before the War (1895)*

6 Abolitionist Women and the Issue of Racial Equality [New Chapter]

    Maria M.Stewart, Farewell Address to my Friends (Sept. 21^st 1833)

    Elizabeth Emery and Mary P. Abbott, Letter to The Liberator (1836)

    Sarah Mapps Douglass, Letter to William Basset, a Lynn Massachusetts abolitionist (1837)

    Lydia Maria Child, Excerpt from the Appeal: “Prejudices Against People of Color, and our Duties in Relation to this

             Subject” (1833)

    Pastoral Letter to New England Churches (1837)

    Sarah Grimké, Reply to Pastoral Letter (1837)

    Angelina Grimke Weld, Speech at Pennsylvania Hall (1838)

    Angelina Grimké, An Appeal to the Woman of the Nominally Free States (1838)

    Julia Hardy Lovejoy, Letter to The Independent Democrat, Concord New Hampshire (August 1^st, 1855)

    Elizabeth Jennings Graham, “A Wholesome Verdict” New York Tribune, 23^rd Feb. pp.7: 4 (1855)

    Frances Watkins Harper, Excerpt from Speech (1857)

    Sarah Remond, Excerpt from her Autobiography (1861)

7 Women’s Rights and the Contest over Woman’s “Place”

    Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments 1848)

    Catharine Beecher, An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism in Reference to the Duty of American Females, 1837

    Caroline Gilman, Recollections of a Southern Matron (1838)

    Lucretia Mott, Discourse on Women 1849)

    Emily Collins, Reminiscences of the Suffrage Trail (c.188 )

    Elizabeth Cady Stanton, On Marriage and Divorce (c.1850)

    Sojourner Truth, A’n’t I a Woman? (1851)

    Ernestine Rose,This Is the Law but Where Is the Justice of It? (1852)

    Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell,Marriage Contract (1855)

    Rebecca Gratz, Unsigned letter on Behalf of Founding a Jewish Orphanage (1850)

    Elizabeth Smith Miller “Reflections on Woman’s Dress and the Record of a Personal Experience” (1892)

    Frances Willard “A Wheel within a Wheel; How I Learned to Ride a Bicycle” (1895)

8 Western Expansion: Diverse Stories, Different Viewpoints [New Chapter] 

    Nancy Ward and Cherokee Women Petition their Tribal Leaders (1817)

    Ladies of Steubenville Ohio, Petition Against Indian Removal (Feb.15^th 1830)

    Harriet L. Noble, Excerpt from her Recollections recorded in Elizabeth Ellet, Pioneer Women of the West (1852)

    Journal of Narcissa Whitman, Letter to her Mother (May 2^nd 1840)

    Guri Olsdatter, Letter to her Family (1866)

    Eulalia Perez, Reminiscences Transcribed, 1877

    Isadora Filomena, Testimony of the Widow of Prince Solano (1874)

    Rosalia Vallejo Leese, “Hoisting of the Bear Flag” (1877)

    The Biography of Guadalupe Lupita Galligos Federal Writers’ Project,( Oct. 27, 1938)

    Luzena Stanley Wilson‘49er, “Memories Recalled for her Daughter, Correnah Wilson Wright” (1881)

    Mary Ballou California Gold Rush, “Hogs in my Kitchen”(1852)

    Bridget (Biddy) Mason (1818-1891), Court Trial, Mason v. Smith (1856)

    Labor Contract for Chinese Prostitutes, (1886)

9 Civil War, Reconstruction, Racial and Gender Politics 

   Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Letter to the Hon. William H. Seward Nov. 1, 1861

    Clara Barton, Nursing on the Firing Line (c.1870)                                                         

    Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, A Southern Woman’s Story 1879)

    Charlotte Forten, Letter to William Lloyd Garrison (1862)

    Elizabeth Packard, Excerpt from the Prisoner’s Hidden Life or Insane Asylums Unveiled (1868)

    Frances Watkins Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together,” Address to the 11^th National Women’s

    Convention, New York (1866)

    Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Why Women Should Not Seek the Vote (1869)

    Susan B. Anthony, Proceedings of the Trial (1873)

    Edward H. Clarke, Sex in Education; Or a Fair Chance for the Girls (1873)

    Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)                                                                                                

    Amelia Barr, Discontented Women (1896)

10 Separate Sisterhoods: Identity and Division

    Anna Julia Cooper, Address to the World’s Congress of Representative Women, Chicago (1893)

    M. Carey Thomas, Present Tendencies in Women’s Education (1908)

    Anna Manning Comfort, Only Heroic Women Were Doctors Then (1916)

    Martha E.D. White, Work of the Woman’s Club (1904)

    Grover Cleveland, Woman’s Mission and Woman’s Clubs (1905)

    National Association of Colored Women, Club Activities (1906)                                  

    Frances Willard, On Behalf of Home Protection (1884)                                              

    Zitkala–Sa, The School Days of an Indian Girl  (1900)

    Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Bible and Church Degrade Women (1898)

    Ida Wells Barnett, A Red Record (1895)                                                                               

    Selena S. Butler,The Chain Gang System  

11 Women’s Roles: Americanization and the Multicultural West

    Martha (Mattie) Virginia Oblinger, Letter to her Family (June 16^th 1873)

    Sarah Thal, Recollections of a German-Jewish Woman in North Dakota (1882)

    Helen Hunt Jackson, Excerpt from A Century of Dishonor (1883)

    Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among The Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883)

    Alice Fletcher (1838-1923) Dependent Races, National Council of Women (1891)

    Sister Blandina Segale, Excerpt: At the End of the Santa Fe Trail

    Johanna July, Interview, Federal Writers Project (1936-1940)

    Emmeline Wells “Is It Ignorance?” Woman’s Exponent (July 1st,  1883)

    Fanny Stenhouse , Tell It All: A Woman’s Life in Polygamy  (1875)

    Elizabeth Piper Ensley, Suffrage Victory in Colorado (1893)

    Mary McGladery Tape A Chinese Mother Protests School Segregation in San Francisco, Letter to

        School Board (1885) 

    Elinoir Pruitt Stewart, Letter from a Woman Homesteader,”Filing a Claim”(1911)

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