Like Civil Rights Movement in Context, this assessment gauges students’ ability to contextualize two historical documents and place them in the correct chronological order. Document A is excerpted from Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963. Document B is from the trial of Susan B. Anthony, who voted illegally in the election of 1872. This assessment draws on students' knowledge about changes in women’s rights over time but in a way that goes beyond just the simple recall of facts and dates. Students must show that they have a broad understanding of how women’s rights changed over time and demonstrate the ability to use knowledge about the past to place the two documents in context.
In this question, students who correctly contextualize the documents will see that Document B (an excerpt from the trial of Susan B. Anthony), which discusses the ban on women’s suffrage, was likely written before Document A (an excerpt from Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique), which describes discontent with post-World War II gender roles.
