Introduction

Week 1, Meeting 1

Topics:
Course overview
Studying women in American history
Doing history with online resources
Blogs, RSS and other technical questions

Readings:
“Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past” by Roy Rosenzweig
The Heavy Metal Umlaut  by Jon Udell

In-class Activities:
Evaluating Wikipedia entries
Evaluating Websites
Finding primary sources
 

Week 1, Meeting 2

Topics:
Studying trials
Criminal trials as theater or entertainment
Public obsession with crime
Women and the law
Coroners inquests and jury trials, what are the differences?
Finding trial records online
Blog setup help

Readings:
“In Search of Lost Crime,” by Caleb Crain
Blood on Her Hands, Introduction, pp ii-xiii.
Inquest of Lizzie Borden for assignment (see below)

Writing:
Read the Inquest of Lizzie Borden, and write a blog post reacting to the questions she is asked.

Keep in the mind that the Inquest was performed before her trial at police headquarters, not in front of a jury. Based on her answers to this inquest, she was indicted for murder.  What do you notice about the types of questions she was asked? How was the District Attorney characterizing her? Do any of these questions strike you as specific to Lizzie because she was female? What about her answers? Were they consistent or contradictory?