American Thought and
Culture II
Professor Bill Issel
1.
Class
Attendance, Reading Assignments and
Class Participation: (20%)
Regular class attendance is a requirement in this course. Your grade will be seriously affected if you miss more than two classes during the term.
Required Reading:
There are two kinds of reading assignments: Documents from the historical period written by politicians, activists, and intellectuals and chapters from the online textbook created for students and scholars by Mintz, S. (2007). Digital History. Retrieved May 8, 2008 http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
Students are expected to read the assigned materials before the class meeting indicated in order to prepare for discussions.
Consult
"How to Read a Primary Source" by the Bowdoin College History
Department for suggestions about using the historical documents that are listed
in the "primary sources" sections of the syllabus, available at
http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/primaries.htm
The textbook chapters in the online textbook will provide you with the background information necessary for critical reading and analysis of the historical documents.
The quality of your class participation is obviously important, and the ideal would be frequent, high-quality, participation. Your class participation grade will be based on my evaluation of your work in class in relation to the following criteria.
2. Do your comments indicate that you have been listening carefully to the lecture/discussion?
3. Do your comments clarify and highlight the important aspects of earlier comments and do they lead to a clearer statement of the concepts and data being covered?
4. Do your comments show that you are willing to interact in a positive and supportive manner with other class members and the instructor?
5. Do your comments show evidence of analysis beyond a simple reaction based on emotions, values, and ideologies?
6.
Do your comments show your ability to distinguish among different types
of analytical approaches (i.e., economic, political, social, cultural,
psychological, ideological, ethical, moral, etc.)?
7. Do your comments indicate your desire to advance our understanding of the subject matter by developing an appreciation of the complexity of human behavior?
8. Do your comments indicate your willingness to examine and entertain possible new ideas and approaches while at the same time adopting a skeptical and critical spirit?
This assignment is designed to afford students an opportunity to become familiar with some of the growing number of internet websites related to American Thought and Culture and to practice the skills used in presentations. Please follow the following guidelines in preparing and delivering your presentation. Prepare a one page outline of your report for the class, and submit a two to three page summary to the instructor, at the beginning of class the day of your presentation.
Address the Following Questions Explicitly
B. What are the main features of this website? (e.g. does it include
visual as well as documentary sources?)
(Points A and B should be covered in no more than five minutes)
C. What are three particular ways that this website could be useful
in the study of American Thought and Culture?
(Point C
should be covered in a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 15 minutes)
There will be five, unannounced,
quizzes in class. Each quiz will
consist of a question about the primary source
documents assigned for that week. The
purpose of the quizzes is to encourage you to keep up with the course reading,
to provide you with credit for completing the reading, and to allow me an
opportunity to give you feedback on your work as you progress through the
course.
Your essay should provide a critical analysis of how the documentary contributes to our knowledge and understanding of American thought and culture. These are to be analytical essays based on viewing the documentary in the context of your reading of the assigned course reading. These are not research essays using library or internet sources. Your essay should begin with a thesis statement and you should develop that thesis, using extensive references to the documentary and to the course readings. Essays should be at least three pages but not more than five pages in length.
2. How effective your writing style is in communicating your information and ideas.
3. How well informed, sophisticated, and original your essay is in its analysis of the documentary.
4. How effective you are in analyzing the documentary in relation to the primary and secondary sources in the assigned readings.
Week 1: Introduction to the Course, Requirements and Procedures
PART
1: GILDED
AGE AMERICA
Week 2: Social Darwinists and Anti-Social Darwinists
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
The
Rise of Big Business
Primary Sources:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/malu/documents/amend14.htm
William Graham Sumner, “What the Social Classes Owe Each
Other” (1883)
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4998/
Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth” (1889)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1889carnegie.html
Henry George, “Progress and Poverty” (1879)
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/reform/progress.htm
Lester Frank Ward, (online biography)
http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/governance/past_officers/presidents/lester_f_ward
Pope Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum” (Rights and Duties of
Capital and Labor) (1891)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
The
Huddled Masses
Image Archives of
the American Eugenics Movement
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/list3.pl
Primary Sources:
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay2text.html
The Anti-Chinese Movement and Exclusion, an Online Exhibit
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/cubhtml/theme9.html
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chinex.htm
Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896)
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/plessy/plessy.htm
Niagra Movement Declaration of Principles (1910)
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1152.htm
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay7text.html
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
Primary Sources:
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=910&nm=Knights-of-Labor
Eugene V. Debs, “Proclamation to the American Railway
Union” (1893)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1895/aru.htm
Samuel Gompers, letter to Judge Peter Grosskup (1894)
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/reform/gompers.htm
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Women and Economics” (1898),
chapter IV
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/gilman/economics/economics.html
Lochner v. New York
(1905)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1901-1939/1904/1904_292/
Emma Goldman, “Samuel Gompers” (1925)
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Essays/gompers.html
The
Struggle for Women's Suffrage
Primary Sources:
http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm
Donaldina Cameron, “The San Francisco Mission Home for
Chinese Girls” (nd)
http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/ew15.html
Carrie Chapman Catt’s “The Crisis” (1916)
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/catt_the_crisis.html
Week
6:
Plutocrats and Populists
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
The
Political Crisis of the 1890s
Thorstein Veblen, “The Theory of the Leisure Class”
(1899) excerpts
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1899veblen.html
Populist Party Platform (1892)
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/reform/populist.htm
President Grover Cleveland, “Message on the Repeal of the
Silver Purchase Act” (1893)
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/reform/grover.htm
William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold Speech”
(1896)
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/
Week
7:
Pragmatists and Progressives
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
The
Progressive Era
William James, “What Pragmatism Means” (1906)
http://www.uwplatt.edu/~drefcins/254james.html
Muller v. Oregon
(1908)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/30.htm
Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism” (1910)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/31.htm
Woodrow Wilson, “First Inaugural Address” (1913)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/32.htm
PART
3:
CONFRONTING THE WIDER WORLD
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
America
at War: World War I
Primary Sources:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/alfred.htm
The Platt Amendment (1901)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1901platt.html
President Woodrow Wilson’s “Peace Without Victory”
Speech (1915)
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ww15.htm
President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points Speech to
Congress (1918)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/51.htm
U.S. Senate debate on the League of Nations (1918)
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc41.htm
Digital History
Textbook Chapter:
Primary Sources:
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1901-1939/1918/1918_437/
Abrams v. United
States (1919)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1901-1939/1919/1919_316/
Whitney v. California
(1927)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/44.htm
Paul Lombardo, “Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration”
essay
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay9text.html
Christopher Armstrong and Grant Wacker, “The Scopes
Trial” essay
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/tscopes.htm
Digital History
Textbook Chapters:
1930s
America
at War: World War II
Postwar
America: 1945 - 1960
Primary Sources:
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/45.htm
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933)
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
Harlan Fiske Stone’s Carolene Products Footnote
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/34.htm
President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech
(1941)
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs36b.htm
The Marshall Plan (1947)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/57.htm
Peter Viereck, Review of “The Irony of American
History” by Reinhold Niebuhr (1952)
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/niebuhr-irony.pdf
The Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/60.htm
Digital History
Textbook Chapters
Vietnam
War
The Sixties Project
website
Primary Sources:
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/66.htm
Engle v. Vitale (1962)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/47.htm
The Port Huron Statement (1962) excerpts
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111hur.html
NOW Statement of Purpose (1966)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/69.htm
The Black Panther Party Platform and Program (1966)
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/Panther_platform.html
Griswold v.
Connecticut (1969)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1964/1964_496/
New York Times
Company v. The United States (1971)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/48.htm
Week 12:
Coming to Terms with Diversity and Postmodernity
Primary Sources:
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1951-1975/mlk/dream.htm
George C. Wallace, “The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud,
Sham, Hoax” (1964)
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1951-1975/integration/wallace.htm
Noam Chomsky, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals”
(1967)
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19670223.htm
Roe v. Wade (1973)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_18/
Edward Said, “Orientalism” (1978) essay
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html
Secretary of State James Baker’s Democracy and Foreign
Policy speech (1990)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/69.htm
Rev. Hopeton Scott, Conversation on Race and Ethnicity (1998)
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1027.htm
Henry Louis Gates, interview with Jane Slaughter (1998)
http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gates/jsinterv.html
Bowers v.
Hardwick/Lawrence v. Texas (1986/2003)
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/bowers_v_hardwick.html
President George W. Bush, speech to the National Religious Broadcasters
conference (2008)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080311-3.html
You may also find the following worksheet useful (from Wisconsin State Library "Document Analysis" guidelines, accessed on January 27, 2009): http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/pdfs/documentanalysisworksheet.pdf
Document
Analysis Worksheet
___ Newspaper ___ Letter ___ Diary
___ Government Report ___ Interview ___ Legal document
___ Debate transcription ___ Jesuit relation ___ Index
___ Memoir ___ Other
1.
2.
3.
from the document to support your opinion.
1.
2.