Colonial New England and Sex

PowerPoint

1. What are colonial ideas regarding race and gender?
2. What are ideas regarding women’s nature?
3. What is the legal status of women?
4. Describe libertines and rakes in 1600s and 1700s Europe.

Godbeer, “ Sodomy in Colonial New England” This article focused on the idea that the understanding of modern sexual orientations in America and Europe did not begin until the early 1900s.

1. Describe homosexuality as seen in this article.
2. Describe the actions of Sension.

Laurel Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750

Ch.5 (do not worry about following everything in the first few pages of this chapter. I do not think it is very useful. Focus on 93 onward.

1. What are examples of male dominance in this section.
2. How is women’s sexuality depicted?

Courtship and Sexual Freedom in 18th Century America. Richard Godbeer, OAH Magazine of History

9.Did people have sex before marriage in the 1700s? What is the evidence?

1. What are some of the courtship practices described?
2. What are some conclusions you can say about sex and gender in the colonial period, taking into account the Powerpoint and 1 or more readings?
3. What is an example of patriarchy from these readings?

Study guide 3
Reading Guide #3 1800s, Intimate Friendships

PowerPoint

1. What are examples of contraception from the 1800s?
2. Did people use contraception in the 1800s? What is evidence for or against this?
3. According to Welter, what were white middle class women defined as in the early to mid 1800s?
4. What is meant by separate spheres?

Smith-Rosenberg (1975) The Female World of Love and Ritual

1. How does she describe the female world in the mid1800s?
2. What are some aspects of female friendships?
3. What does the author say about homosexuality?
4. What are relationships like between males and females?

Rotundo, Romantic Friendship: Male Intimacy and Middle-Class Youth in The Northern United States, 1800-1900 (focus on p. 1-12)

1. How does the author describe these relationships?
2. How does the author describe physical contact among the male friends?
   Faderman Notes
3. According to the author, why were intimate female relationships acceptable in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries?

Study Guide # 4: Sexual Desire, Passion, Deviance and Medicine

• Carol Groneman “Nymphomania: Physicians and Female Sexuality in Victorian America.” Excerpt
• Letter to the Editor, E.P Hurd, “Masturbation in Women and Girls” Medical and Surgical Reporter Feb 18, 1888
• Timothy Verhoeven, “Pathologizing Male Desire: Satyriasis, Masculinity and Modern Civilization at the Fin de Siecle” (2015) Pages 24-29;

Lecture 4

1. What were various ways that sex was restrained during the 1800s?
2. What is meant by medicalization of deviance?

Groneman; Nymphomania:

1. What types of women were diagnosed with nymphomania in the nineteenth century? What behaviors are associated with it?
2. How was nymphomania treated?
3. How does this article relate to Welter’s?
4. How does the label nymphomania relate to changing ideas about women and gender?

“Masturbation in women and girls” (1888)

1. What are two main points from this article that we can use to learn about history?

Timothy Verhoeven, “Pathologizing Male Desire: Satyriasis, Masculinity and Modern Civilization at the Fin de Siecle” (2015) Pages 24-29;

1. How is satyriasis described?
2. What was seen to be problematic for male sexuality?

Study Guide #5

Primary sources
A Look at Marriage, Women’s Bodies, Abortion, and Sex in the mid-late 1800ss

Anonymous, “ Unwanted Motherhood,” 1845. From Gerda Lerner, ed. The Female Experience: An American Documentary

This source is a letter from an anonymous source, published in a journal in 1845. It is from a reader on Women’s history edited by Gerda Lerner and published in 1977.

1. What does this reveal about sex and marriage?
2. What does this illustrate about birth control and abortion?

W.M. Smith “The Prevalence of Abortion.” Medical and Surgical Reporter, Sept. 25, 1875

1. What does this reveal about abortion?
2. What does this reveal about marital sex?

Extracts from the Mosher Survey, 1892-1913

1. What are some of the opinions about sex and marriage seen here?
2. What type of contraception is mentioned?

J.A. De Armond, “Sexual Apathy in Women.” Times and Register, Jan 18 1890.

1. What are reasons seen in this article that women did not want to have sex?
2. How does this relate to the idea that women naturally lacked passion and mostly had sex reluctantly? (Pure woman ideal of 1800s, )

Sample Solution