Document 7: Fair Employment Practices Council and Democracy

The projects on this site all began as class assignments. Students work together in teams of two or three work together to create a “mini-edition” based on documents in the Oberlin College Archives identified by Professor Lasser and Archivist Ken Grossi for their potential to illuminate aspects of feminisms. Each student individually selects a document from the team’s collection, transcribes and annotates it, and produces a headnote for it. Together, the members of the team cooperate to write an introduction to the project identifying how the contents contribute to understanding the history of American feminisms.

Before posting on this site, all projects received editorial attention from Professor Lasser. Jen Graham OC 2013 assisted with mini-editions completed in Spring 2013. Hanna Van Reed OC 2015 assisted the Spring 2015 class, and Summer 2015 Student Editors, Rebecca Debus, Natalia Shevin and Joanna Wiley-- all OC 2017--edited and extended projects completed in Spring 2015.

See the projects here...

Oberlin College History Professor Carol Lasser teaches “First Wave American Feminisms” and “Second Wave American Feminisms.” Each of these courses investigates the social movements, political thought, and the changing trajectories of power for women, situating female gendered persons in changing intersectional contexts, including race, religion, region, class, sexuality, household status and citizenship. Students in the class work with primary documents in order to better understand how race, class, gender, sexuality, and historical moment shape notions of gender justice, and to experience first-hand how historians make sense of evidence.