Professor Jennifer Burns
Spring 2006
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
What does it mean to be an American? Far from being a fixed concept, over the past 150 years American identity has been constructed and reconstructed through the conflicts, interchanges, and negotiations between different ethnic, cultural, and religious groups. In this course, we will pay particular attention to two major transformations in American identity: the shift from a conception of citizenship grounded on race to one grounded on shared democratic ideals; and the development of the United States from a colonial backwater to a global superpower. Through a combination of lectures, readings, films and small discussion groups, we will examine the past as both a “foreign country” with its own customs, mores and rituals, and the source of deeply rooted patterns that continue to play out in contemporary society. Beyond covering just facts and figures, this course will focus on how the everyday lives of Americans looked, sounded, smelled, and felt. By the end of the semester, you will have a basic understanding of the major ideas, events, cultures, peoples, and personalities that have shaped the United States from the Civil War to the present day.
Perhaps most importantly, through the required weekly discussion section meetings you will learn to question and evaluate historical sources and evidence, in the process becoming informed thinkers and critical readers, rather than passive recipients of conventional wisdom. You will also develop a sense of how historians analyze and interpret the past, and through the writing of a historical research paper, try your hand at the craft of history. Sections are collaborative enterprises, so please complete the assigned reading beforehand and come prepared with questions, concerns, or ideas you would like to discuss. Your Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) will provide more specific information on section
Requirements: attendance at lecture, active participation in weekly discussion sections (20%), midterm (20%), research paper (20%), and final exam (40%). You must receive a passing grade in section to pass this class.
Lecture podcasts are available through iTunes University.
REQUIRED READINGS
Textbook: Nash, Jeffrey et al, The American People, Vol. 2, Brief Fifth Edition
Sourcebook: Michael P. Johnson, Reading the American Past, Vol 2., Third Edition
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
Robert A. Clark, The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers
Richard Wright, Black Boy
Lawson Inada, Only What We Could Carry
Robert F. Kennedy, 13 Days
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
LECTURE SCHEDULE AND MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
Please complete all assigned reading by the time your section meets. Written assignments are due in section, unless your GSI specifies otherwise.
Week One: The Civil War and its Aftermath
Jan 18 – Introductory Lecture
Jan 20 – Civil War and Its Aftermath
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 16
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery, Chs. 1-3.
Week Two: Reconstruction and National Expansion
Jan 23 – Reconstruction
Jan 25 – Conquest of the West
Jan 27 – Settling of the West
Readings: Textbook, Chs. 16 & 17
Robert A. Clark, The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse
Week Three: Industrialization and Its Discontents
Jan 30 – Economics of Industrialization
Feb 1 – The New South
Feb 3 – Gilded Age Politics
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 18
Washington, Up From Slavery, Ch 7., Chs. 11-15
Sourcebook, pp. 116-120.
Week Four: Immigrants and Labor
Feb 6 – Workers and Unions
Feb 8 – Immigrant Culture
Feb 10 – The Meaning of Whiteness
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 18
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers
Week Five: Populism and Progressivism
Feb 13 – Social Thought in the Gilded Age
Feb 15 – Progressivism
Feb 17 – Victorian Women
Readings: Textbook, Chs. 19, 21
Sourcebook: 80-84, 152-155
STATEMENT OF TOPIC FOR RESEARCH PAPER DUE
Week Six: The Spanish-American War
February 20 – President’s Day, No Class
Feb 22 – The Spanish-American War
Feb 24 – The Election of 1912
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 20
William G. Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain” (section handout)
Week Seven: Midterm Week
Feb 27- Midterm Review
MIDTERM EXAM MARCH 1
Week Eight: The Roaring 20’s and WWI
March 6 – The Great War
March 7 – 1920s: The Scopes Trial
March 8 – No Lecture
Reading: Textbook, Chs. 22-23
Richard Wright, Black Boy
Week Nine: The Great Depression & New Deal
March 13 – 1920s: The Jazz Age
March 15 – The Great Crash and Depression
March 17 – The New Deal
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 24
Sourcebook p. 160-180.
Film: “The Grapes of Wrath,” Monday/Wednesday, 7:30 pm, Wheeler Auditorium
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Week Ten: World War II
March 20 – WWII: The War Economy
March 22 – WWII: Pacific Front
March 24 – WWII: The Good War?
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 25
Lawson Inada, Only What We Could Carry (selections)
PRIMARY SOURCE EXERCISE DUE
March 27-31: SPRING BREAK
Week Eleven: The Cold War and the “Complacent” 1950s
April 3 – The Postwar Order Emerges
April 5 – The Cold War: Domestic Front
April 7 – In the Shadow of the Bomb
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 26-27
Sourcebook, 215-219.
Robert Kennedy, 13 Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Week Twelve: Civil Rights
April 10 – “Eyes on the Prize” film shown in lecture (Episode 1)
April 12 – Civil Rights: Building a Movement
April 14 – Civil Rights: Reconstruction Redux
Readings: Sourcebook pp. 230-234, 245-250.
Film: “Eyes on the Prize,” Monday/Wednesday, 7:30 pm, Wheeler Auditorium
Week Thirteen: The 1960s: Protest and Retrenchment
April 17 – Barry Goldwater and the Right
April 19 – From Reform to Revolution
April 21 – Feminism and Antifeminism
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 28
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (selections)
Film: “Berkeley in the 60s,” Monday/Wednesday, 7:30pm, Wheeler Auditorium
RESEARCH PAPER DUE IN SECTION
Week Fourteen: Vietnam, Watergate, and Legacies
April 24 – The Vietnam War
April 26 – The Rise and Fall of Richard Nixon
April 28 – Iranian Hostage Crisis
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 29. Sourcebook, pp. 278-282.
Film: “The Fog of War,” Monday/Wednesday, 7:30pm, Wheeler Auditorium
Week Fifteen: Conservatism Reborn – from Reagan to W. Bush
May 1 – The Christian Right
May 3 – Reagan Revolution
May 5 – Conclusion: 9/11 and Beyond
Readings: Textbook, Ch. 30
GOP, “Contract with America” (distributed in section)
May 15: FINAL EXAM
