1. Till Divorce Do Us Part
American Gender History Through the Lens of Divorce History
Julia (Di Long) 龍荻
History Department
University of Georgia

2. What are the Major Issues in
American Gender History?
The development of women’s citizenship and rights
overtime (defined by marriage mainly, facilitated by public
policy and law)
The concept that Women’s experience has been shaped by
categories gender, race, and economic development.
The popular notion that women have been shaping
historical experience and historical discourses.
The gendered power relation between men and women.:
How did patriarchal power fall, and how did women
respond to changes in the power dynamics of gender
relation?

3. Images of American Women
from Colonial era to 1960s
From Goodwives to Hippies

4. Women in Colonial Era
Colonial White Housewives
Slave Girl Native
American
Women

5. Republican Mothers
(Motherhood)
Abigail Adams

6. Victorian Wives and Separate Spheres
Women belong to the private sphere, they were
expected to make the home a harmonious place for
husbands and Children.
Men belong to the Public sphere, they were expected to
make money and to be bold in their quest for success
in both career and women.

7. Flappers
Zelda Fitzgerald
Women’s Suffrage Movement and
19th
Amendment

8. Rosie the Riveter in WWII
Women on the home front

9. Women in the 60s
Suburban Housewives, Secretaries, Activists, etc.

10. Marriage and Divorce
Women and men’s citizenship has long been defined
and shaped by marriage. Common-Law tradition of
Coverture: Married women as feme covert.
Family is the single unit that founded the society.
Politicians and lawmakers constantly make analogy
between the society and family: Revolution and
Divorce.
Divorce marks many conflicting issues of gender
relations in marriage.

11. Why New York?
History of divorce in America. Fault Based
History of divorce in New York. New York
has the strictest divorce law in the nation,
and its legislature was the last one of this
country to pass no-fault divorce law in 2010.
Sources.

12. Divorce Cases
Walker Divorce Case of 1852
DIVORCED


13. Peaches Browning Case
DIVORCED 

14. Rockefeller Case
DIVORCED 

15. Tentative Summary
Catholic Church was the strongest opponent of
divorce law reform in New York.
Women did not have much bargaining power in 19th
century. But things changed in 1920s.

16. Trends in Gender History and
Books I like