Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories
Explore American women's history through 10 iconic objects from Harvard's Schlesinger Library in this engaging course.
Explore American women's history through 10 iconic objects from Harvard's Schlesinger Library in this engaging course.
This course offers a unique exploration of 20th-century American women's history through the lens of ten iconic objects from Harvard's Schlesinger Library. Led by renowned professors Laurel Ulrich and Jane Kamensky, along with experts from Harvard and beyond, the course examines how women created, confronted, and embraced change. It highlights the importance of archives in historical research and demonstrates how ordinary people have shaped history. The curriculum covers various aspects of women's experiences, including their fight for rights, challenges to contemporary norms, and contributions to art, education, and technology. By analyzing these objects, students will gain insights into the complex, nonlinear nature of history and its ongoing dialogue with the present. The course emphasizes the central role of women in American history and encourages critical thinking about how historical narratives are constructed and which stories are told.
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What you'll learn
Understand how ordinary people have created historical change
Recognize the central role of women in American history
Analyze the complex and nonlinear nature of historical progress
Interpret historical narratives through material objects
Examine how the selection of historical stories shapes our understanding of the past
Explore the importance of archives in historical research and preservation
Skills you'll gain
This course includes:
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Graded assignments, exams
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Limited Access access
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Module Description
This course provides a comprehensive exploration of 20th-century American women's history through the examination of ten significant objects from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute. The curriculum is designed to showcase how women have been central figures in creating social, political, and cultural change throughout the century. Students will learn about various aspects of women's experiences, including their fight for suffrage, involvement in social movements, contributions to arts and sciences, and challenges to societal norms. The course emphasizes the importance of material culture in historical analysis, teaching students how to extract rich historical narratives from objects. It also highlights the role of archives in preserving and shaping our understanding of history. Throughout the course, students will engage with concepts such as intersectionality, the nonlinear nature of historical progress, and the ongoing relevance of historical events to contemporary issues.
Fee Structure
Instructors
2 Courses
Pioneering Historian Revolutionizing Women's History and Material Culture Studies
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 300th Anniversary University Professor Emerita at Harvard University, has transformed our understanding of early American women's lives and material culture through groundbreaking scholarship spanning five decades. After earning degrees from the University of Utah (BA, 1960), Simmons College (MA, 1971), and University of New Hampshire (PhD, 1980), she rose from teaching at a small New Hampshire college to become one of America's most influential historians. Her 1990 book "A Midwife's Tale" earned both the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize, while her casual observation that "well-behaved women seldom make history" evolved from a scholarly article into a cultural phenomenon. As James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard (1995-2018), she pioneered innovative approaches to studying ordinary lives through material objects, exemplified in works like "The Age of Homespun" and "Good Wives." Her achievements include a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), membership in the American Philosophical Society (2003), and presidency of both the American Historical Association (2009) and Mormon History Association (2014). Through her scholarship examining diaries, household inventories, textiles, and other material artifacts, she has illuminated the previously hidden lives of early American women while mentoring generations of historians in new methodological approaches.
1 Course
Distinguished Historian Advancing American Cultural and Women's History
Jane Kamensky, newly appointed President of Monticello/The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (effective January 2024), has transformed understanding of early American history through innovative approaches to cultural and social history. After earning her BA (1985) and PhD (1993) in History from Yale University, she built an extraordinary career spanning prestigious institutions including Brandeis, Brown, and Harvard, where she served as Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History and Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library. Her award-winning book "A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley" (2016) earned multiple prizes including the New-York Historical Society's Zalaznick Book Prize, while her broader scholarship spans from colonial speech politics to America's first banking collapse. As co-founder of the digital journal Common-place and principal investigator for Educating for American Democracy, she has pioneered new approaches to public history. Her achievements include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Mellon Foundations, service as a Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Commissioner, and election to multiple scholarly societies. Through her new leadership role at Monticello, she continues to advance understanding of American history while preparing for the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026.
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4.7 course rating
23 ratings
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