Equal Rights? the Women's Movement from Suffrage to Schlafly
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Cover UNITED STATES HISTORY 1920-1982 Equal Rights? The Women’s Movement from Suffrage to Schlafly Contents PLEASE SEE Cover NOTES ON THE Title Page PDF, PAGE 5. Unit Introduction for Teachers California History-Social Science Standards Covered Notes on the PDF Bibliography Student Worksheets List of Images Acknowledgments Back Cover Title Page LESSONS IN U.S. HISTORY By Matthew Mooney, Department of History, The University of California, Irvine Teacher Consultant, Sara Jordan, Segerstrom High, Santa Ana Additional feedback and guidance provided by Humanities Out There teacher partners Maria Castro and Roy Matthews (Santa Ana High School) and Chuck Lawhon (Century High School). Faculty Consultant, Alice Fahs, Associate Professor of History, The University of California, Irvine Managing Editor, Tova Cooper, Ph.D. The publication of this booklet has been made possible largely through funding from GEAR UP Santa Ana. This branch of GEAR UP has made a distinctive contribution to public school education in the U.S. by creating intellectual space within an urban school district for students who otherwise would not have access to the research, scholarship, and teaching represented by this collabora- tion between the University of California, the Santa Ana Partnership, and the Santa Ana Unified School District. Additional external funding in 2005-2006 has been provided to HOT by the Bank of America Foundation, the Wells Fargo Foundation, and the Pacific Life Foundation. THE UCI HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE PROJECT The California History-Social Science Project (CH-SSP) of the University of California, Irvine, is dedicated to working with history teachers in Orange County to develop innovative approaches to engaging students in the study of the past. Founded in 2000, the CH-SSP draws on the resources of the UCI Department of History and works closely with the UCI Department of Education. We believe that the history classroom can be a crucial arena not only for instruction in history but also for the improvement of student literacy and writing skills. Working together with the teachers of Orange County, it is our goal to develop history curricula that will convince students that history matters. HUMANITIES OUT THERE Humanities Out There was founded in 1997 as an educational partnership between the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine and the Santa Ana Unified School District. HOT runs workshops in humanities classrooms in Santa Ana schools. Advanced graduate students in history and literature design curricular units in collaboration with host teachers, and conduct workshops that engage UCI undergraduates in classroom work. In the area of history, HOT works closely with the UCI History- Social Science Project in order to improve student literacy and writing skills in the history classroom, and to integrate the teaching of history, literature, and writing across the humanities. The K-12 classroom becomes a laboratory for developing innovative units that adapt university materials to the real needs and interests of California schools. By involving scholars, teachers, students, and staff from several institutions in collaborative teaching and research, we aim to transform educational practices, expectations, and horizons for all participants. THE SANTA ANA PARTNERSHIP The Santa Ana Partnership was formed in 1983 as part of the Student and Teacher Educational Partnership (STEP) initiative at UC Irvine. Today it has evolved into a multi-faceted collaborative that brings institutions and organizations together in the greater Santa Ana area to advance the educational achievement of all students, and to help them enter and complete college. Co-directed at UC Irvine by the Center for Educational Partnerships, the collaborative is also strongly supported by Santa Ana College, the Santa Ana Unified School District, California State University, Fullerton and a number of community-based organizations. Since 2003-2004, HOT has contributed to the academic mission of the Santa Ana Partnership by placing its workshops in GEAR UP schools. This unit, Equal Rights? The Women’s Movement from Suffrage to Schlafly, reflects the innovative collaboration among these institutions and programs. CONTENT COUNTS: A SPECIAL PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES This is one in a series of publications under the series title Content Counts: Reading and Writing Across the Humanities, supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Content Counts units are designed by and for educators committed to promoting a deep, content-rich and knowledge-driven literacy in language arts and social studies classrooms. The units provide examples of “content reading”—primary and secondary sources, as well as charts, data, and visual documents—designed to supplement and integrate the study of history and literature. A publication of Humanities Out There and the Santa Ana Partnership (including UCI’s Center for Educational Partnerships, Santa Ana College, and the Santa Ana Unified School District). Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California Unit Introduction for Teachers UNITED STATES HISTORY—1920-1982 Equal Rights? The Women’s Movement from Suffrage to Schlafly LESSON INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS Teacher’s Guide This lesson addresses the ated Equal” asks the students by their husbands, and couldn’t development of women’s rights what kinds of rights white men write wills. Even though such in the United States. It begins had that white women didn’t; in women could have an income, with an overview of women’s discussing this, you can explain their husbands owned their wag- roles in the nineteenth century, to students that even after they es. Women were also excluded then moves to a discussion of won the vote, in many states from jury duty. The rationale for the fight for women’s suffrage, women suffered other forms of this was twofold: not only were and concludes by looking at the legal discrimination. Married women viewed as too emotion- ultimately failed battle to ratify women were considered part of al for the job, but many people the Equal Rights Amendment. In the same legal entity as their thought that jury duty would the lesson, the students interpret husbands, which meant that interfere with their obligations primary-source documents such their husbands made decisions as wives and mothers. Surpris- as a legal ruling, cartoons and a for both them and their children. ingly, in many states this exclu- painting using a Primary Source Married women could not con- sion continued until 1975, when Analysis Worksheet that teaches sent to contracts, could only own the Supreme Court declared it them to approach such materials property through a trust signed unconstitutional. systematically. Throughout the lesson, the students work on de- tecting the perspectives of vari- Historical Background ous figures and groups in U.S. history in terms of their views on A few short years after the perennially buried in committee. the role of women in society. In Nineteenth Amendment won During the mid-to-late 1960s, the particular, the lesson addresses American women full voting political atmosphere of the na- the backlash against the civil and rights at the federal level, femi- tion shifted, and the momentum women’s rights movements of nist Alice Paul, President of the generated by the struggle against the 1960s, focusing on the figure National Woman’s Party, pro- racial discrimination, in concert of Phyllis Schlafly and her group, posed a new amendment to the with the sustained and increas- “Stop ERA.” In this part of the United States Constitution. Her ingly visible efforts of “Second lesson, the students examine pro- proposed amendment read, sim- Wave” feminists, resulted in a ERA and anti-ERA websites, and ply, “Equality of rights under series of significant legislative are asked to locate bias on these the law shall not be denied or victories for women in the early sites. Finally, the students imag- abridged by the United States or 1970s. These included the 1972 ine how they would rally both in by any state on account of sex.” Title IX of the Education Amend- favor of the ERA and against it. The Equal Rights Amendment (or ments Act (which banned sex dis- For this last exercise, the students ERA) was first introduced into crimination in all aspects of edu- make and defend billboards rep- Congress in 1923 and re-intro- cation) and the 1973 Roe v. Wade resenting both sides of the debate duced every year thereafter. Until decision (which constitutionally about equal rights for women. the civil rights movement, how- protected the right to abortion). Note: Question #4 of the sec- ever, it stood little chance of ap- tion of this lesson titled “Cre- proval in Congress, where it was Historical Background continues on page 3 Equal Rights? The Women’s Movement from Suffrage to Schlafly 3 California History-Social Science Standards Covered CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE STANDARDS COVERED IN THIS LESSON Content Standards: Grade Eleven ■ 11.5 Students analyze the major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s. ■ 11.5.4 Analyze the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the changing role of women in society. ■ 11.10 Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights. ■ 11.10.6 Analyze the passage and effects of civil rights and voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, with an emphasis on equality of access to education and to the political process. ■ 11.10.7 Analyze the women’s rights movement from the era of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the movement launched in the 1960s, including differing perspectives on the roles of women. Skills: Grades Nine through Twelve ■ Chronological and Spatial Thinking Skills ■ Students compare the present with the past, evaluating the consequences of past events and decisions and determining the lessons that were learned.