The Institute for Common Power strives to facilitate the creation of a just and inclusive democracy while working to eliminate racial inequity. Education can and must lead to action. To this end, the Institute offers a series of courses taught by award-winning scholars who are widely recognized experts in their fields of study. The courses provide clear, comprehensive examinations of multiple topics related to race, culture, and politics in America.
Meeting Days: Wednesdays, March 1, 8, 15
Meeting Start Time: 4:30pm PST - 5:45 PST / 7:30pm EST - 8:45 PST
One ticket gives access to all four lectures. Lectures will be recorded and available to view for two weeks for those who purchased tickets
Women and the Politics of History with Dr. Cathleen D. Cahill
Description: This course begins with the questions why history matters and why it can be so contested. Many of our contemporary debates such as those over the removal of Confederate Monuments or the 1619 Project grapple with these questions, but they are not new. This course explores contested histories in the period from roughly the 1870s to the 1930s, or between Reconstruction and the New Deal. Although extremely few women were professional historians at the time, diverse groups of women played important roles in the writing, conservation, dissemination, and contestation of US history in this period. Our sessions will therefore focus on several moments where these discussions and debates were particularly visible including the writing of women's suffrage history, contests over the history of slavery and the Civil War, and how ideas about who has a history shaped federal Indian policy.
One ticket gives access to all four lectures. Lectures will be recorded and available to view for two weeks for those who purchased tickets
Lecture Titles and Descriptions
Our three sessions will each focus on a specific topic.
Session One looks at how women suffragists both embraced and challenged the historical conventions in the nineteenth century that were based on "great man" history. They asserted their own history as important and worthwhile as part of their fight for the right to vote.
Session Two analyzes the struggle over the history of slavery and the Civil War as it played out between the Daughters of the Confederacy and the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs.
Session Three explores the stereotypes of Native Americans as trapped in the past or a people without a history. Those ideas shaped federal Indian policy at the turn of the century, including boarding school curriculum, and also motivated Native activists to educate non-Native audiences about their history.