While women have had a profound impact in the world of science, they struggle to gain an equal foothold in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields today. This has led to considerable public and private sector efforts to recruit women into these arenas. In order to understand how schools and nonprofits engage today's young women in STEM studies, this account includes time spent both in high school science classrooms and with ChickTech -- a Portland-based organization that works to provide a pathway into tech careers for high school-aged girls. A historical perspective reveals that modern women aren't treading into completely uncharted territory, in spite of the current disparity of representation in today's STEM arenas. This perspective is offered via an examination of the lives of a group of extraordinary women who worked in astronomy at Harvard College Observatory from the late 1800s into the 1960s. While several noteworthy women are discussed, the focus here is on Cecilia Payne, the first person to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy at Harvard, and one of the 20th century's greatest astronomers. A great many people have never heard of her . . . yet.

5th grade -- Gender socialization.

Health care played an important role in the revolutions of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Both the Sandinistas and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) prioritized popular health throughout the 1980s. Clinics and hospitals served as sites of revolution that drew healthcare solidarity activists from the United States. These health internationalists worked to build community-level networks that relied upon trained medical volunteers. In both El Salvador and Nicaragua, women comprised a bulk of the community health workers. These women chose to interact with revolution by building on radical promises of universal healthcare access. Healthcare solidarity activists trained community volunteers and encouraged women to pursue their own needs within the revolutionary frameworks. Health internationalists actively undermined United States’ policies toward Central America. In the 1980s, the United States implemented economic policies and supported military violence that targeted healthcare infrastructure. In training community health workers, treating civilians, sharing knowledge through international exchange, and sending funds and medical supplies, health activists mitigated some of the damage being done. This thesis posits that health care was an important site of revolution for Central Americans and internationalists alike. By choosing to mend bodies, medical activists stood in direct opposition to the violence of the decade. They also served as fundamental to the revolution because they helped carry out the will of the people. The revolutions rested on the hope of improving the lives of every day Nicaraguans and Salvadorans. As the violence of the 1980s forced the guerillas of El Salvador and the leaders of Nicaragua to focus on war, the people continued to implement revolutionary health goals at the community level. This thesis argues that understanding how health internationalists, women, and community activists engaged revolutionary ideas of medicine is vital to the study of 1980s Central America.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Without a public arena, the women’s abolitionist movement employed traditional women’s activities in conjunction with writing for publication as their rhetorical force. Female antislavery societies incorporated a range of tactics including sewing clothing for escaped slaves, organizing fund-raising bazaars, and petitioning politicians. As with societies of men, women elected recording secretaries, submitted reports and addresses for newspaper publication, and some groups even developed tracts for public distribution. Denied the right to speak publicly, female antislavery societies used organizational documentation not only as a device to record their activities but also as a persuasive tool to shape public opinion. Many of the female antislavery societies communicated through the antislavery press. Local, regional, and national papers published constitutions, resolutions, reports, and addresses of women’s organizations. The Henry County Female Anti-Slavery Society (HCFASS) maintained vigorous publication activities. During their eight-year existence, from 1841 to 1849, the Free Labor Advocate, a regional antislavery newspaper, published HCFASS resolutions and addresses almost every year. In addition to Indiana periodicals, HCFASS leaders sent publication requests to national newspapers. Although scholars have profiled several New England societies, the characteristics of individual societies in the Midwest remain slim. Since the HCFASS achieved the most prolific publication record of any female society in Indiana it provides a strong case study for female antislavery rhetoric in the Midwest.

No description available.

The American Civil War is often framed as exclusively masculine, consisting of soldiers, god-like generals, and battle; a sphere where women simply did not enter or coexist. This perception is largely due to the mobilization of approximately six million men, coupled with the Victorian era which did not permit women to engage in the public sphere. Women are given their place however, but it is more narrowly defined as home front assistance. Even as women transitioned from passive receivers to active participants, their efforts rarely defied gender norms. This thesis looks at Confederate female camp followers who appeared to defy societal conventions by entering the male dominated camps and blurred the lines between men and women’s proper spheres. While camp followers could be expanded to include women of the lower class, including black women, laborers, slaves and prostitutes, only middle and upper class white women are analyzed because they were the ones required to maintain respectability. More specifically, I analyze unmarried women, female soldiers, bereaved women and nurses. Barbara Welter articulated and labeled the concept of public versus private spheres, plus the attributes necessary to achieve respectability as the Cult of True Womanhood. The Cult of True Womanhood demanded that women be pious, pure, and submissive within the domestic sphere. It is with this foundation that the camp followers can be analyzed. Their actions appeared to break with the Cult of True Womanhood, but when they explained in memoirs, newspaper accounts, and journals why they entered the camps, they framed their responses in a way that allowed them to appear to conform to the cult.

This thesis analyzes efforts among frontier settlers of Upper East Tennessee to resist particular elements of state-craft from the 1750s until 1820. Building on the work of James C. Scott, this study suggests that some residents of the area may have resisted acceding to what they considered the negative aspects of residing within state sovereignty. These included, taxation, land enclosure, organized religion, and regulation of economic activity. Analyzing from outside the lens of the state, this study attempts to explore why organized government remained largely ineffective and widely disregarded in the Upper East Tennessee region even as governance rapidly and effectively took hold both in the Tidewater and central piedmont of Virginia and North Carolina, as well as middle Tennessee and Kentucky. The topography of the region, coupled with the anti-state stratagems the settlers adopted, enabled the area to retain a dimension of practical autonomy.

No study to date has been uncovered in regard to the presence of First Ladies in children's biographies. However, related prior studies, such as a study on the effect of gender in scientific children's biographies (Owens, 2009) have stated that the portrayal of women in children's biographies has evolved over time. Therefore, I wondered how First ladies were portrayed in children's books, specifically biographies, for elementary aged students. Therefore, this study examined a collection of picturebook biographies written for children about First Ladies in order to explore how First Ladies are portrayed. For the purpose of this study, I chose to analyze how the roles of the First Lady was represented, both domestic and political. Across the 11 books analyzed, there were 57 mentions of political duties, including mentions of the First Lady being a political partner (15), champion of social causes (13), and a diplomat (7). Across the 11 books analyzed, there were 20 mentions of domestic duties, including wife, mother, and hostess. According to this research, the books, as a sample, have shown a bigger focus on the political achievements of the First Lady over their domestic life, including being a wife and mother while being First Lady.

No description available.

Abstract Many historians would like to discover a time of relative freedom, security and independence for women of the past. The Germanic era, from 400-1000 AD, was a time of stability, and security due to limitations the law placed upon the mundwald and the legal ability of women to possess property. The system of compensations that the Germans initiated in an effort to stop the blood feuds between Germanic families, served as a deterrent to men that might physically or sexually abuse women. The majority of the sources used in this work were the Germanic Codes generally dated from 498-1024 AD. Ancient Roman and Germanic sources provide background information about the individual tribes. Secondary sources provide a contrast to the ideas of this thesis, and information.