The Process
Task 1: Getting into Groups, Dividing Research & Doing Web Research
1. Get into groups of four students.
2. Divide the research so that each student has 2 categories of websites to review, such as "Native American Women" and "Indentured Servants." Since the first category, "General Early American Women's History" has four websites, one student should only research this category, as all the other categories only have two websites.
3. Each student will fill out a copy of the PERSIA ditto with information you find in your research about women in early America. For example, what was Abigail Adams' political status? What was her economic and social status? What was her religion? Did she make any intellectual contributions? Artistic contributions? Fill in as many categories as possible from the information you read on the websites. I suggest bullet pointing this information in the chart.
Task 2: Reporting Findings and Deciding on Women of Focus
1. After a 30-minute research period, students will come together as a group. Each student will report to the group their PERSIA findings.
2. You will then have 10 minutes to discuss and decide, as a group, which two specific women or two general types of women you will focus on for your compare and contrast vendiagram. You also can choose one specific woman and a general category of women for your vendiagram.
Task 3: Creating Your Vendiagram
1. As a group, create a vendiagram poster board that contains PERSIA information about your focus women. Make sure to label the top of the two circles with the specific or categorical name of your focus women such as, "Martha Washington" & "Indentured Servant Women" The vendiagram should clearly show their similarities and differences by putting different aspects in the main circles and the similarities in the overlap section of the tow circles.
Task 4: Answering the Guiding Questions
1. After you have completely filled out your vendiagram, get together as a group to discuss the three guiding questions. Please designate one person to record your conclusions. Discuss and answer the questions together. The recorder will neatly record the answers bullet point form.
2. The recorder will give one of these bullet point answers to the other three group members. Each other group member is responsible to prepare a 5-10 sentence paragraph response for each question to report in your oral presentation.
3. Finally, for the oral presentation, your group must decide which students will present which material during the in-class presentation.
Here are your links. Happy researching!
1. General Early American Women's History
Colonial Williamsburg
While this site is not specifically about women, it has a great chart about average life expectancy of women and men as well as other information about people's lives in colonial America. This would be a good flesh-out page to get a feel of what the day to day life in colonial Virginia
The Not So Good Lives of Colonial Women
This site contains great information about the difficulties of women's lives in the colonial era. Much of the material included on this site has been taken from book sources. It has many pages of rich information on general women's lives with some specific examples and primary source material.
Women of the Mayflower
This page contains information on the women who came over on the Mayflower. It has information on the general rights of women at this time and has links a chart of possessions of what kinds of things a woman on the Mayflower would have brought with her.
2. Female Indentured Servants
Indentured Servants
This page gives general information about what life was like for indentured servants and particularly female indentured servants. It is a nice alternative to the "rich and famous" women of colonial history sites.
America: A Promise Land? Indentured Servants in the Colonial Chesapeake
This site contains information on the kinds of difficulties and abuse that female indentured servants and indentured servants in general often faced.
3. African American Slave Women
Vilet Lester - Slave Woman 1857/Hannah Valentine - Slave Woman
The information on this site is from a later period of slavery and obviously not from the colonial or federalist era. However, I do feel it sheds light onto the condition of African American slave women in the antebellum period and is therefore useful. This page is part of the Duke University Archives and gives biographical information about a slave woman, Vilet Lester and Hannah Valentine, another slave woman who wrote letters during the first half of the 19th century. These letters shed light into the hardships of being a slave and, in particular, a woman slave.
Phillis Wheatley
This site gives biographical information about the African American slave poet Phillis Wheatley. While her story is not typical of most slave women, it sheds light into the artistic abilities of slave women that went untapped during this time period.
4. Native American Women of the Colonial Era
The Real Pocahontas
This site gives information about Pocahontas in a fun way by comparing the Disney version to the real Pocahontas. It also has information on John Rolfe, John Smith and colonial Jamestown.
Women's Spirit
This site contains historical information of various Native American women such as Sacajwea, during early United States history. It contains information about their tribes and the regions they inhabited. This site is great for Native American Women's resources.
5. Famous or Distinguished Women of Early American History
Distinguished Women Past and Present
This site has a variety of ways to search for important women in history. You can narrow down the search to women in colonial America by searching by subject, chronologically.
Notable Women of Early America
This site leads you to biographical information about women in colonial American history.
6. Persecuted Women Outcasts
Anne Hutchinson
This site contains biographical information about Anne Hutchinson, her beliefs and the conflict she ran into in colonial Massachusetts. Her story sheds light on the position of women in the colonies.
Salem Witch Trials Home Page
This site is the home page for a detailed history on the Salem Witch Trials
7. Revolutionary Era Women
The Contemplator's Short History of Women in the Revolutionary Era
This site provides general information about women's lives and conditions during the Revolutionary Era and has other links to women's colonial history sites.
Daughters of Liberty
This page provides information about Abigail Adams, as well as a description of the Daughters of Liberty.