Women Have Always Worked

Overview

Please note that you have the option to enroll in each individual course either as an auditor (free of charge) or with a verified certificate, by going to the course page and selecting the “Enroll Now” button. A list of the 4 courses in this series is available below.

Without women’s history we have only a partial and incomplete knowledge of our past. The Women Have Always Worked four-part series will explore women’s participation in the economy, politics, and social life of the nation, from Colonial America to the present day. We will challenge old truisms about the past and learn to view American history from a new and rich historical perspective. These four MOOCs investigate the practice of women’s history; they explore how and why we write women’s history, and why it is important that we do so.

Together we will learn how women began to ask for equality and what the word equality meant and still means for different women. But we'll also ask you to consider a more difficult set of questions that revolve around whether equality for some women might limit the freedom of others. Will women demand benefits for themselves that provide a few with equality with men while fomenting inequality with each other? What about sisterhood? Will some of us move forward while others are left behind? These are questions that haunt us today.

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Seeking Women’s Rights: Colonial Period to the Civil War
Learn about the emergence of women's history and its impact on the study of history as a whole. Then, examine the experiences of women in Colonial America. We will learn the ways that women struggled to loosen the constraints of family by proclaiming that they, like men, possessed individual rights.

Course 2: Wage Work for Women Citizens: 1870-1920
Departing from the Civil War years, examine how gender shaped women's work outside the home in the late 19th century. Explore efforts to affirm domesticity while providing women with paths to independence, and uncover how the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments impacted women’s political participation.

Course 3: Negotiating a Changing World: 1920-1950
Beginning with the passing of the 19th Amendment and on through World War II, explore the new cultural and economic opportunities that emerged for women in this period while gaining an understanding of how racial, familial, and legal structures placed constraints on that independence. Learn how women's contributions to the war effort provided both new opportunities and new barriers.

Course 4: Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018

This course begins with an examination of how the Cold War reinforced the ideals of the suburban, nuclear family and how these ideals impacted women's trajectory towards independence and equality, and ends with the rise of the Me Too movement and a look at how the 2018 midterm election ushered in a new era of women in politics.

Courses

1 review
10 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
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As we see American women coming into positions of economic and political influence, we start to wonder: why now? The Women Have Always Worked MOOC, offered in four parts, explores the history of women in America and introduces students to historians’ work to uncover the place of women and gender in America’s past. After a brief survey of the emergence of women's history as an academic field and its impact on the study of history as a whole, we will begin course one with a look at the experiences of women in Colonial America. We will explore the lives of enslaved women, of indentured servants, and of the rural housewife. We will learn the ways that women struggled to loosen the constraints of family by proclaiming that they, like men, possessed individual rights.

As this course progresses through the emergence of an industrial era, we will follow women from the home into the workplace, and explore how this shift influenced family life, power relationships within the family, and the ability for women to organize politically. Together we will examine the customs, cultures, and ideologies that governed women's lives in Colonial America and the early 19th Century.
1 review
10 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
View details

As we see American women coming into positions of economic and political influence, we start to wonder: why now? The Women Have Always Worked MOOC, offered in four parts, explores the history of women in America and introduces students to historians’ work to uncover the place of women and gender in America’s past. Part two of this series departs from the Civil War, examining how gender shaped women's work outside the home in the late 19th century and how gender influenced the shape of the labor force. We will explore simultaneous efforts to affirm domesticity and provide women with paths to independence during this period, and will uncover how the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution impacted women’s political organizing and participation.

The lives of women in the garment industry at the turn of the 20th century, and their involvement in unions, consumer's leagues, and coalitions, take center stage as we work to understand how women made efforts to improve the lives of industrial workers. Using an Intersectional approach, we demonstrate how women with different interests and identities formed alliances around legal and social causes in the early 20th Century, and how this culminated in women's fight for the vote in the early 20th century.
0 reviews
10 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
View details

As we see American women coming into positions of economic and political influence, we start to wonder: why now? The Women Have Always Worked MOOC, offered in four parts, explores the history of women in America and introduces students to historians’ work to uncover the place of women and gender in America’s past.

The 19th Amendment–which gave women the right to vote–is our launching point for course three. We will explore the new cultural and economic opportunities that emerged for women in the 1920s, while gaining an understanding of how racial, familial, and legal structures placed constraints on that independence. We'll conclude course three with a look into World War II and how the massive changes wrought by women's essential contributions to the war effort provided new opportunities and new barriers that emerged over the twenty-year interwar period.
0 reviews
12 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
View details

As we see American women coming into positions of economic and political influence, we start to wonder: why now? The Women Have Always Worked MOOC, offered in four parts, explores the history of women in America and introduces students to historians’ work to uncover the place of women and gender in America’s past.

The final segment of the Women Have Always Worked series begins with an examination of how the Cold War reinforced the ideals of the suburban, nuclear family and how these ideals impacted women's trajectory towards independence and equality. We will explore the growing discrepancy and conflict between the breadwinner-homemaker system of beliefs and efforts for peace, economic fairness, and gender equality. We will discover how the feminist movement grew and evolved from the 1960s to today.

This exploration into the evolution of the feminist movement continues with a new section thatexamines the current climate in America. We will take a look at the 2016 presidential campaign and how women across the globe reacted to the results of that election; the rise of the Me Too movement and other grass roots activism led by women and aimed at social and economic inequality; and how the 2018 midterm election ushered in a new era of women in politics.

Together we will learn how women began to ask for equality and what the word equality meant and still means for different women. But we'll also ask you to consider a more difficult set of questions that revolve around whether equality for some women might limit the freedom of others. Will women demand benefits for themselves that provide a few with equality with men while fomenting inequality with each other? What about sisterhood? Will some of us move forward while others are left behind? These are questions that haunt us today.

Taught by

Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning, Alice Kessler-Harris, Nick Juravich, Intelligent Television and New-York Historical Society

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Women Have Always Worked

Overview

Syllabus

Courses

Seeking Women’s Rights: Colonial Period to the Civil War

Wage Work for Women Citizens: 1870-1920

Negotiating a Changing World: 1920-1950