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 refi ne 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
diffi cult 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.
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