Writing Assignments, Women in New York City


Assignment 1: Crane, Maggie

Write a brief informal essay (2-3 pp.) which answers the following questions. Draw concrete examples from the readings to support your assertions.
What sort of a person does Crane represent Maggie as? What are we supposed, as readers, to think about her, what she represents, and what kind of person she is?

Due Monday 14 September

Assignment 2: Women's Labor History

Using Campbell's "Shop Girls and Piece Workers," Lanza's "The Office Clerk," and Frowne's "A Sweatshop Girl's Story," write a brief informal essay (2-3 pp.) which answers the following questions. Draw concrete examples from the readings to support your assertions.
What sorts of work did women do in New York City? What other kinds of work did they do which are not represented in the readings? What governed the work they did and how they did it?

Due Wednesday, 23 September

Assignment 3: Working Women's Cultural History

Using Stansell's "Women, Children, and the Uses of the Streets," Peiss's essays ("Putting On Style" and "'Charity Girls' and City Pleasures"), Israels's "Dance Hall Madness," and letters to the Jewish Daily Forward, write a brief informal essay (2-3 pp.) which answers the following questions. Draw concrete examples from the readings to support your assertions.
Describe the culture of working women in New York City. What sorts of activities did they engage in, both at work and outside of it? What were their reasons for these activities? What did they gain by engaging in them?

Optional, Extra Credit Assignment.

Assignment 4: Maggie and Working Women's Cultural History

Using Campbell's "Shop Girls and Piece Workers," Lanza's "The Office Clerk," Frowne's "A Sweatshop Girl's Story," Stansell's "Women, Children, and the Uses of the Streets," Peiss's essays ("Putting On Style" and "'Charity Girls' and City Pleasures"), Israels's "Dance Hall Madness," and letters to the Jewish Daily Forward, write a brief informal essay (3-4 pp.) which fulfills the following request. Draw concrete examples from the readings to support your assertions.
Argue both for and against the following statement: Stephen Crane's Maggie accurately portrays the experiences of working-class women in New York City during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Due Monday, 5 October

Assignment 5: The Triangle Shirtwaist Strike and Fire

Using John McClymer's text, The Triangle Strike and Fire, write a brief informal essay (3-4 pp.) which discusses the following question. Draw concrete examples from the readings whenever appropriate.
If you were called upon to teach a group of secondary students about the Triangle Shirtwaist Strike and Fire, what two points would you want them to understand about the historical events and their meanings, and what would you do to teach them those two points? In order to answer this question, you will need to determine which documents from McClymer's collection would be most important for students to utilize in order to understand the points you want to make.

Due Monday, 19 October


Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender for HST/WMS 386 (Women's Pasts--Women in New York City), The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York, Fall Semester 1998. Send email to lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu
Last modified: Monday 28 September 1998.