The United States, 1877-1945: The Search for Order

History 336
Fall 2007

Sarah McNair Vosmeier

VOSM@hanover.edu

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Course Description
This course is a survey of American history between the end of Reconstruction and the end of World War II. We will analyze primary and secondary sources, and we will draw on them to make historical arguments. Among the questions we will consider are:

Is the period from 1877 to 1945 best characterized by an expansion in equality, freedom, and individualism?
Is the period best characterized by the spread of new "modern" attitudes about work, family, and politics, and were those attitudes caused by changes in the technologies for industrial production, consumer products, transportation, and communication?
Is the period best characterized by the end of American provincialism and the transformation of the United States into an ethnically diverse world power?


Required Texts
Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent (2003)
David M. Kennedy, Over Here (1980)
Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal (1990)
Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time (1994)

Diana Hacker, Rules for Writers

These texts are available at the bookstore and on reserve at the Duggan Library. Other assignments are available online or on reserve at the library. Be sure to budget for printing online documents.


Calculating Final Grades
transcription 7%
primary source analysis 13%
midterm exam 20%
final paper 20%
final exam 25%
participation 15%

Late papers/projects will be penalized, and in-class assignments cannot be made up. Students with emergencies who wish to request an exception to this rule should contact me before the due date.

 

A note about exams, written assignments, and participation:

The exams will include identifications and essay questions.

The written assignments will include
an edited transcription of college news published between 1876 and 1945
an analysis (4-5 pages) of two primary sources related to World War I, with a research prospectus
a final paper (6-9 pages) that can be either a historiographical analysis or a more extended primary source analysis

Participation refers to collegial participation in class discussions as well as the satisfactory completion of brief assignments that complement those discussions. (Brief assignments include such things as contributions to a study guide and brief in-class essays.) Students with "excellent" participation complete all brief assignments, attend virtually every class, and make regular contributions to discussions, either with useful comments or intelligent questions.


 

Assignments

Sept. 3, 2007 (Mon.) Introductions.

The Gilded Age
Sept. 5, 2007 (Wed.) Jackson and Coolidge, descriptions of railroad travel, 1872-1878 (excerpts online); Zitkala-sa, American Indian Stores, 1921 (excerpt online).
Sept. 7, 2007 (Fri.) Birth of a Nation, 1915 (film, on reserve).

Sept. 10, 2007 (Mon.) Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," 1893 (excerpt online).
Sept. 12, 2007 (Wed.) Oblinger letters, 1873 (excerpts online); Hamer sharecropping contract, 1875 (online).
Sept. 14, 2007 (Fri.) Meet in Duggan Library Archives. Rosenzweig, "Can History Be Open Source?" Journal of American History, 2006 (online); "Avoiding Plagiarism" (online). Note that the archivist will be available after class for help with the transcription project.


Progressive Era
Sept. 17, 2007 (Mon.) McGerr, A Fierce Discontent (2003), xiii-xvi; Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1890 (excerpt online); Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, 1905 (excerpt online); Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906 (excerpt online); Sixteenth Amendment, 1913 ( online); Seventeenth Amendment, 1913 ( online).
Sept. 19, 2007 (Wed.) McGerr, 40-74; Addams, "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements," 1892 (excerpt online).
Sept. 21, 2007 (Fri.) Transcription due. Discussion: Hanover College, 1876-1945.

Sept. 24, 2007 (Mon.) McGerr, 77-104, 107-17; Willard, Do Everything, 1895 (excerpt online).
Sept. 26, 2007 (Wed.) Bibliographic Instruction. Meet in the Duggan Library.
Sept. 28, 2007 (Fri.) McGerr, 118-55, 160-64, 178-81; Jackson and Coolidge, descriptions of railroad travel, 1872-1878 (excerpts online); Dunne, "Dooley's View [of the Pullman Strike]," 1894 ( online); Altgeld letters, 1894 ( online).

Oct. 1, 2007 (Mon.) McGerr, 182-218; Wells-Barnett, The Red Record, 1895 (excerpt online); Dubois, Souls of Black Folk, 1903 (excerpt online); Spooner and Tillman, Senate speeches on lynching, 1908 (excerpts online).

Oct. 3, 2007 (Wed.) McGerr, 221-24, 226-35, 245-78; Nineteenth Amendment, 1920 (online); equal rights amendments, 1923-1972 (online).

World War I

Oct. 5, 2007 (Fri.) Kennedy, Over Here (1980), vii-ix.

Oct. 8, 2007 (Mon.) Kennedy, 45-93
Oct. 10, 2007 (Wed.) Kennedy, 93-144
Oct. 12, 2007 (Fri.) Eli Mace Project due. Discussion of primary sources, t.b.a. See list online.

Oct. 15, 2007 (Mon.) Review of thematic questions.
Oct. 17, 2007 (Wed.) Midterm exam.
Oct. 19, 2007 (Fri.) Writing as a historian. Articles on Goodwin and plagiarism (online). Rosenzweig, "Can History Be Open Source?" Journal of American History, 2006 (online); "Avoiding Plagiarism" (online).

Fall Break

Oct. 24, 2007 (Wed.) In-class brief assignment: "Experiencing the Past."
Oct. 26, 2007 (Fri.) t.b.a.

The 1920s
Oct. 29, 2007 (Mon.) Cohen, Making a New Deal (1990), 1-9. Eighteenth Amendment, 1919 (online); Billy Sunday, "John Barleycorn Funeral," 1920 (handout); Wickersham Commission Report, 1930 (excerpt online); Twenty-first Amendment, 1933 (online).
Oct. 31, 2007 (Wed.) The Sheik (film, 1921, on reserve).
Nov. 2, 2007 (Fri.) Cohen, 51-97.

Nov. 5, 2007 (Mon.) Cohen, 99-158.

The Great Depression
Nov. 7, 2007 (Wed.) Hoover, Radio Address on Lincoln's Birthday, 1931 (excerpt online); Ford, "Self-Help," 1932 (online); Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, 1933 ( online); Lange, "Migrant Mother," 1936 (online).


Nov. 9, 2007 (Fri.) Cohen, 213-49.

Nov. 12, 2007 (Mon.) Cohen, 251-89.
Nov. 14, 2007 (Wed.) "Plains Farmers Learn from Past" transcript, 2007 (online); The Plow that Broke the Plains, 1936 (film, on reserve); The River, 1938 (film, on reserve).

World War II
Nov. 16, 2007 (Fri.) Begin reading Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 1994 (see below).
Nov. 19, 2007 (Mon.) Goodwin: the war through Pearl Harbor, 9-39, 283-84, 287-99; the war in 1942, 315-17, 339-42, 355-59; D-day (1944), 505-11; Yalta (1945), 573-77, 580-85.

Thanksgiving Break

Nov. 26, 2007 (Mon.) Goodwin: FDR and ER (biographical), 87-91, 97-98, 119-22, 218-25, 241-46, 371-78, 432-35, 517-21, 591-94.
Nov. 28, 2007 (Wed.) Goodwin: race relations and the war, 101-5, 161-65, 246-53, 321-23, 421-24, 427-31, 444-47, 453-55, 513-16, 564-68.
Nov. 30, 2007 (Fri.) Final paper due.

Dec. 3, 2007 (Mon.) Goodwin: labor issues and conclusion, 225-31, 362-71, 412-18, 440-44, 448-51, 554-60, 603-15, 622-33.
Dec. 5, 2007 (Wed.) Casablanca, 1942 (film, on reserve)
Dec. 7, 2007 (Fri.) Review of thematic questions.