Research Subtopics for Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier

Research Subtopics for Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier 1901 -1910 1. “And the other comfort: Kitty Coleman’s At Homes are Tuesday afternoons, just as mine [Gertrude] are” (36). subtopic: What are “At Homes”? What do they mean socially for women?

2. “I [Kitty] think I should like to be cremated, now that I know it will be no more of a challenge to God than interment” (79). subtopic: attitude towards cremation 3. “I [Kitty] don’t want to go anywhere I’ll be known. It must be a place far away, but not too far that I couldn’t get there easily” (135). subtopic: early 20 th century practice of abortion and attitudes toward it

4. “I am Caroline Black” (155). subtopic: Who was Caroline Black? Was she a real suffragette? 5. “I’ve [Kitty] just come back from Cannon Row Police Station with your father” (198). “I did not add that many of those bruises came from the ride in the Black Maria” (198). subtopic: Is Cannon Row Police Station a real place? What is a Black Maria?

6. “The Castle, they call it round here” (200). “Maude has been avoiding me for weeks now, ever since I [Kitty] came out of Holloway” (225). subtopic: Holloway prison, a. k. a. The Castle 7. “‘To Clements Inn. But not for long, ’ I [Kitty] added quickly, knowing that she did not like the WSPU” (226). “I [Lavinia] had not thought that I would go to the Hyde Park march” (235). subtopic: What is the WSPU? Did they have headquarters at Clements Inn? Was there really a huge suffragette march in Hyde Park in June 1908?

Sample Source Card Last name of author, first name. Title of Book. City of publication: Publisher, date of publication. Medium. Series name.

Summary of Falling Angels Works Cited Entry: Chevalier, Tracy. Falling Angels. New York: Plume, 2001. Print.

Summary of Falling Angels is set during a ten year span at the turn of the 20 th century, right after Queen Victoria dies in January of 1901. The narration alternates first person points of view of people living in London connected to the Coleman family. Some of the characters are upper class, some are middle class—such as the Waterhouse family that lives next door—and some are lower class—such as Jenny Whitby, the Coleman’s maid, and Dorothy Baker, the Coleman’s cook.

The main plot line follows Kitty Coleman, the mother of an upper class family, who is bored with her life and has an affair with the supervisor of the cemetery behind her house, John Jackson. After getting pregnant, she has an abortion and falls into a deep depression. She finds a renewed interest in life by joining the suffragette movement. At a march in Hyde Park, she is killed by a horse that rears up and comes down on her chest. Her daughter, Maude, is left to find her own way in the world, and while she did not appreciate her mother’s feminism, she follows in her footsteps by wanting to go to college. A new, more open generation is formed at the death of King Edward VII in May 1910 at the end of the story.

Sample Source Card 1 “Great Depression, Causes of (Issue). ” Gale Encyclopedia of U. S. Economic History, edited by Thomas Carson and Mary Bonk, Gale, 1999, U. S. History in Context, ic. galegroup. com/.

Sample Source Card 2 “Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire. ” West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, edited by Shirelle Phelps and Jeffrey Lehman, 2 nd ed. , vol. 10, Gale, 2005, pp. 109 -111. U. S. History in Context, ic. galegroup. com/.

Sample Source Card 3 Trimarchi, Maria. “What Caused the Dust Bowl? ” How. Stuff. Works: Science, 2015, science. howstuffworks. com/environmental/ green-science/dust-bowl-cause. htm.

Sample Note Card Source Card # • Notes Topic page # of notes

Sample Note Card Summary 1 Causes of the Great Depression • The Great Depression was caused by several factors: international economic instability, overproduction of goods, rise in consumer credit, and the stock market crash on October 24, 1929.

Sample Note Card Paraphrase 1 Causes of the Great Depression • The banks made huge unsound loans and investors were greedy for profit. • There was not much government regulation over business, stock trade, or banking.

Sample Note Card Direct Quotation 3 Causes of the Dust Bowl “Economic depression coupled with extended drought, unusually high temperatures, poor agricultural practices and the resulting wind erosion all contributed to making the Dust Bowl. ”