Women and Law in U.S. History

This course explores the ways that law structured women's lives and how women shaped the law in U.S. history, from the colonial period to the present. While tracing changes in women's legal status over time, this course is also concerned with those issues, it also considers law as a lived aspect of people's lives: how it structured identities, relationships, and material circumstances. It also deals with diversity among women, in terms of race, class, and sexuality. You will leave with a greater understanding of women's relationship to law and current legal issues facing all Americans, not just women.