RC TWO

Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to writing the history of United States women. Buel and Buel's biography of Mary Fish (1736–1818) makes little effort to place her story in the context of recent historiography on women. Lebsock, meanwhile, attempts not only to write the history of women in one southern community, but also to redirect two decades of historiographical debate as to whether women gained or lost status in the nineteenth century as compared with the eighteenth century. Although both books offer the reader the opportunity to assess this controversy regarding women's status, only Lebsock's deals with it directly. She examines several different aspects of women's status, helping to refine and resolve the issues. She concludes that while women gained autonomy in some areas, especially in the private sphere, they lost it in many aspects of the economic sphere. More importantly, she shows that the debate itself depends on frame of reference: in many respects, women lost power in relation to men, for example, as certain jobs (delivering babies, supervising schools) were taken over by men. Yet women also gained power in comparison with their previous status, owning a higher proportion of real estate, for example. In contrast, Buel and Buel's biography provides ample raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by some historians, of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century but does not give the reader much guidance in analyzing the controversy over women's status.

76. The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) examine two sides of a historiographical debate
(B) call into question an author's approach to a historiographical debate
(C) examine one author's approach to a historiographical debate
(D) discuss two authors' works in relationship to a historiographical debate
(E) explain the prevalent perspective on a historiographical debate

77. The author of the passage mentions the supervision of schools primarily in order to
(A) remind readers of the role education played in the cultural changes of the nineteenth century in the United States
(B) suggest an area in which nineteenth-century American women were relatively free to exercise power
(C) provide an example of an occupation for which accurate data about women's participation are difficult to obtain
(D) speculate about which occupations were considered suitable for United States women of the nineteenth century
(E) illustrate how the answers to questions about women's status depend on particular contexts

 

78. With which of the following characterizations of Lebsock's contribution to the controversy concerning women's status in the nineteenth-century United States would the author of the passage be most likely to agree?
(A) Lebsock has studied women from a formerly neglected region and time period.
(B) Lebsock has demonstrated the importance of frame of reference in answering questions about women's status.
(C) Lebsock has addressed the controversy by using women's current status as a frame of reference.
(D) Lebsock has analyzed statistics about occupations and property that were previously ignored.
(E) Lebsock has applied recent historiographical methods to the biography of a nineteenthcentury woman.

79. According to the passage, Lebsock's work differs from Buel and Buel's work in that Lebsock's work
(A) uses a large number of primary sources
(B) ignores issues of women's legal status
(C) refuses to take a position on women's status in the eighteenth century
(D) addresses larger historiographical issues
(E) fails to provide suffi cient material to support its claims

80. The passage suggests that Lebsock believes that compared to nineteenth-century American women, eighteenth-century American women were
(A) in many respects less powerful in relation to men
(B) more likely to own real estate
(C) generally more economically independent
(D) more independent in conducting their private lives
(E) less likely to work as school superintendents

81. The passage suggests that Buel and Buel's biography of Mary Fish provides evidence for which of the following views of women's history?
(A) Women have lost power in relation to men since the colonial era.
(B) Women of the colonial era were not as likely to be concerned with their status as were women in the nineteenth century.
(C) The colonial era was not as favorable for women as some historians have believed.
(D) Women had more economic autonomy in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.
(E) Women's occupations were generally more respected in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.