American Women's Legal History
Class
Organization:
Syllabus & Expectations
Fall, 1997
CLASS
Our work will proceed on two levels. For the first weeks, starting next week, please prepare a brief (no more than two pages), informal memorandum describing one or two ideas covered in the reading assignment which you find particularly interesting or controversial and worthy of further discussion. In class, each person will raise the issue or issues in her reflection paper for general discussion. The papers will be "due" at the end of each class. There will be 6 of these papers.
Once the student presentations begin, the weekly papers will take a different format (see Syllabus below). There will be 6 of these as well.
The second level of participation required of all students is completion of a biographical study of a pioneer woman lawyer, and presentation to the class of the work-in-progress in the last weeks of the semester. The twelve short papers will be the basis for 1 third of the grade, and the papers and class presentation/participation the basis for the rest.
TEXTS
Babcock, et. al, Sex Discrimination: History, Theory and Practice (1996) will be our main text. A number of copies are on reserve if you do not want to buy it. See syllabus for assignments.
Other assignments will be drawn from material on the Women's Legal History /Biography Project Website. http://www.stanford.edu/group/WLHP/.
Occasionally, there will be handouts to supplement material in the main text.
Finally, on reserve are various books and materials on women in the legal profession that you may want to consult in your work. Andy Eisenberg has said that you may come behind the reserve desk and browse these materials.
CLASS PLAN
Sept. 11 -- Writing about First Women
Text: 54-73
Read Babcock, First Woman
Website: Read Frances Cook on Belva Lockwood
Sept. 18 -- The First Woman's Movement: Suffrage
Text: 1-54 73-80
Website: Read Renee Hawkins on Laura Gordon,
Cris Wade on Burnita Shelton Matthews
Sept. 25 -- The Woman Citizen: Equal Protection; Jury-Service
Text: 147-160: 294-323
Handout: Babcock, "A Place in the Palladium: Women's Rights and Jury Service." 61 Cinn. L. Rev. 1139, 1160-1174
Babcock, Draft: "Foltz and Other First Women"
Robinson, "Women Jurors"
Website: Sarah Killingsworth on Lelia Robinson
October 2 -- Biographer and Subject
Guest: Diane Middlebrook (Author of Ann Sexton and of forthcoming biography of Billie Tipton)
Handout: Sanger, "Curriculum Vitae (Feminae): Biography and Early American Women Lawyers," 46 Stan. L. Rev. 1245 (1994)
Website: Laura Menninger on Betty Reynolds Cobb
John Russ on Florence Allen
Betsy Facher on Soia Mentchikoff
Charlotte Danielson on Gladys Towle Root
October 9 -- Progressivism and Post-Suffrage Reforms
Guest: Estelle Freedman, author of Maternal Justice:
Miriam Van Waters and the Female Reform Tradition
Text: 1473-- Prostitution
Handout: From Maternal Justice
Website: Cara Robertson on Georgia Bullock
Joey Horton on Annette Abbott Adams
DeDe Wells on Mary Kohler
October 16, 23, 30; Nov. 6, 13, 20; Dec. 4--Student paper presentations.
Reflection papers will be due the week after presentations and should deal with the ideas raised by the life presented, with thoughts and suggestions for the writer.