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This thesis explores trauma related to hysteria through themes of confinement, isolation, and motherhood in the works “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson, and The Babadook (2014) directed by Jennifer Kent. Hysteria is explored first as a diagnosis and then as a weaponized term meant to keep women facing isolation and grief in a continuous state of oppression. The gothic and gothic horror genres display these themes through the dark nature of the human mind, which is vital in understanding the stories of the female characters discussed and the traumas they face. The setting of the home is used to acknowledge women’s oppression related to trauma as it is a domestic setting that is known for confining women, particularly when trauma is explored through hysteria and the rest cure, the basis in which hysteria and isolation is explored.

This research examines the new social media site, Pinterest, to uncover the processes through which mothers construct self- and public-identities. Despite being valued at over $3.8 billion dollars (Perez 2013), having an impressive user retention rate (Moore 2014), and having a highly gendered user base (Tekobbe 2013), Pinterest has been the site of limited sociological inquiry. Seventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews on mothering and Pinterest use were conducted with central Florida mothers who have a Pinterest account and at least one child between 6 months and 10 years old. Through analysis based in a grounded theory approach, three central themes emerged from the data: (1) mothers negotiate motherhood ideals, perpetuated through Pinterest, through drawing on gendered ideologies; (2) mothers' use of Pinterest both supports and impairs construction of positive self-identities, complexly overlapping with concerns of technology overuse; and (3) the compartmentalized nature of Pinterest facilitates the activation of multiple identities which allow 'escapes' from the pressures of motherhood and everyday responsibilities. Insights derived from this research can also be helpful in explaining the overlaps between online and offline identities, how women manage motherhood ideals, and the compartmentalization of self-identities.

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Pebbles and Shards is a collection of personal essays based on family relationships that focus upon motherhood, responsibility, and the complexity of love and loss. The essays explore how people cope with the inevitability of loss and how they move beyond that loss to find something meaningful, perhaps even beautiful. They reflect upon success and failure in the face of loss and how, either way, life goes on, heedless of people’s desires and plans. The essays in Pebbles and Shards, while meant to stand alone, are thematically connected so that, read together, each story resonates with the others. In “Promises,” I explore the fear of watching my mother die of Alzheimer’s disease. In related essays “Frame by Frame” and “In Darkness,” I focus on my mother’s efforts to struggle with Alzheimer’s and how, as an adopted daughter, I underwent a role-reversal and became the mother figure. Other essays, such as “Heart of a Deadhead” and “Circus,” consider the mothering impulse, especially the guilt and conflict that so often accompany my desire to nurture others. In attempting to support and strengthen those who seem “weak,” I have sometimes found that my own actions and thoughts underscore a deeper weakness in myself. As a collection, Pebbles and Shards contemplates the suffering and joy that is a family

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the origins of the first women's rights convention held at Seneca Falls, NY during the summer of 1848. Taxation without representation was one of the foundations that the Continental Congress used as a basis for Independence from England. But when the revolution ended and the Republic was formed, the United States adopted many English laws and traditions regarding the status of women. Women, who were citizens or could be naturalized, were left civically invisible by the code of laws (coverture) once they married. They were not able to own property, form contracts, sue or be sued. In essence, they were "covered" by their husbands under coverture. Single women who owned property or inherited property were subject to taxation, though they had no voice in the elective franchise. Therefore, women, both married and single, who were counted for legislative purposes, were given no voice in choosing their government representatives. I conclude that there were three bases for women's rights: equity, Republican Motherhood, and women's organizations. The legal concept of equity, the domestic ideology of Republican Motherhood combined with the social model of women's organizations formed the earliest foundation of what would become the first feminist movement, leading directly to the Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls in 1848. Through an analysis of the changes in women's property ownership to the enhancement of the female domestic role in the early nineteenth century, women challenged their place in the public sphere. The sisterhood that was created as a result of the new domestic ideology and improved female education led to the creation of organizations to improve women's place in society. Through an almost fifty year evolution, the earliest women's volunteer organizations became the mid-nineteenth century reform organizations, leading to a campaign for woman's suffrage.

This dissertation analyzes the determinants of labor market outcomes, with a focus on the labor market return to post-secondary education. The first chapter analyzes the matching of firms and recent college graduates through on-campus recruiting. Based on in-depth interviews with employers and career services personnel, I develop a theoretical model describing how firms choose target campuses given relevant search frictions. The model's central insight is that the decision to recruit at a university and the wage offer are driven not just by the university's quality, but also by the quality of the surrounding universities. There is strong empirical support for this prediction using the Baccalaureate and Beyond survey and newly collected data from 39 finance and consulting firms. Holding university quality constant, a university with a better regional rank is more likely to attract firms, and its graduates have higher earnings (controlling for the individual's test score). Structural estimation suggests that search frictions have important consequences for firm hiring strategies, student outcomes, and profits in this market. The second chapter analyzes whether there is a differential labor market return to certificates and Associate's degrees from for-profit relative to not-for-profit universities. Using the Beginning Postsecondary Student Survey and Transcript Data, we find no statistically significant differential return. Point estimates suggest a slightly lower return to a for-profit certificate and a slightly higher return to a for-profit Associate's degree. There is considerable variation in the return to certification across majors, including many with negligible or negative returns. The third chapter analyzes the impact of teen motherhood on labor market investments and outcomes, using five cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth. Teen mothers who conceived pre-maritally obtained less education (especially socioeconomically advantaged teens), married earlier and faced a higher risk of never marrying (especially after 1960). Socioeconomically advantaged teens avoided this negative outcome. Women who had been teen mothers in the 1940s and 1950s appear to have been at a disadvantage in the labor market of the 1970s, and faced higher costs of divorce. Motherhood positively affected labor force outcomes for teens married before conception, perhaps driven by earlier-timed births.