1. Explain how gender is a social construct, providing examples from at least two course materials (readings or screenings).
2. Explain how slave life was different for women than it was for men.
3. Using Martha Ballard's story, describe gender roles for women in early America, paying special attention to domestic duties, marriage, and family.
4. What do the Salem witch trials tell us about women in Puritan society? What specific anxieties surrounding women's roles are thought to have prompted the hysteria?
5. "Housework" goes from an important and economically relevant set of skills to a trivial and unpaid duty for women by the 19th century. Describe the work conducted by housewives in early America and explain how it becomes "pastoralized" in the Victorian era.
6. Explain how definitions of womanhood differed between the different geographic areas of the north, south, and west in the 19th century.
7. The Cult of True Womanhood marks a significant shift in women's roles in the 19th century. Why does this shift occur and what are the new rules for women in Victorian America?
8. Explain how Chinese prostitution in the west was connected to both material and ideological conditions in China and America.
9. Mill towns like the one in Lowell, Massachusetts offered new opportunities for young white women in the industrial age. Explain how conditions at Lowell led these women to organize protests.
10. What are the conditions that lead to a larger political role for women in Revolutionary America?