DESCRIPTION
The Bulletin describes this course as "A broad and interpretative study of the United States before the Civil War." We therefore seek to press beyond mere knowledge of the "facts" to an understanding of American history from the beginning of European colonization to the end of the Civil War. Lectures, readings and exercises are designed to help you achieve that understanding. As such you should approach them critically, as source materials from which to develop a reasonable, defensible, satisfying interpretation of the past. The final responsibility for doing so rests with you.
This semester in HST 111-H we will be exploring what it has meant to be an "American" in different parts of the region of North America that became the United States and at different times in the history of that region. We will begin by exploring what the early European immigrants to North America thought they were coming for and how the original inhabitants responded to those aims. We will explore who was included in the original visions, who was excluded, how the visions changed over time and produced cooperation and conflict as people debated and fought over what it meant to be an American. Ultimately, we want to understand how those old struggles have shaped the way we see ourselves today.
The University Program
This course fulfills a portion of the University Program requirement, Group III-B, and holds a twofold place in your liberal arts education at Central. In content, you will explore the development and transformation of American institutions and social structures throughout early American history. In skills, you will develop your abilities to analyze historical data and to communicate the results of your analysis to others both verbally and in writing. The various assignments are designed to achieve both aims.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
On completion of this course, students will have
1) gained a comprehensive introduction to major themes of U.S. history through the Civil War;
2) gained experience in reading and analyzing historical argumentation;
3) gained experience in analyzing primary sources;
4) gained greater understanding of the development of American institutions and social structures;
5) improved their capacity for thinking historically;
6) improved their facility for communicating their findings verbally and in writing.
REQUIRED BOOKS
John A. Garraty, ed., Historical Viewpoints: Notable Articles from American Heritage
David Grimsted, ed., American Visions and Revisions 1609-1865
Charles W. Akers, Abigail Adams: An American Woman 2d ed.
Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Long, Bitter Trail
William Faulkner, The Unvanquished
REQUIREMENTS
Your final grade will arise from your participation in all class activities (10%), weekly thought journals based on readings and class discussion (10%), a book critique (10%), a book review (15%), a website review (10%), and three take-home essay examinations (15% each).
Thought Journals: In a notebook or composition book, make at least one entry per week, at least one full page in length, recording your reflections on the week's readings, lectures, and discussions. The entries may take a variety of forms, including creative writing or drawing as well as prose entries. They should, however, demonstrate your effort to understand the readings, raise questions about the readings, and set those readings within a broader context of American history that extends up to the present day and ultimately includes your own personal history as an American. Your thought journal must be turned in three times during the semester along with your examination essays.
Writing Assignments: Good writing skills will enhance your marketability and your performance no matter what career you choose, and are crucial to your ability to think clearly, critically and consistently. Good writing is essential for anyone entering the teaching profession. Because it is so important, the University Program requires writing across the curriculum rather than restricting it to your English composition courses. In HST 111 you will hone your writing skills in the following assignments in addition to the essay components of each exam:
Book Critique: Each student will complete a book critique of Charles W. Akers' Abigail Adams. Forms for this critique will be handed out in class. The completed form must be turned in by the date specified in the course schedule below. We will discuss your findings in class on that day.
Book Review: Each student will also write one book review (not a report) on Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Long, Bitter Trail. The review will build on the skills you began developing in the book critique assignment. Good reviews of history books do much more than report a book's contents: at minimum they identify the author's thesis, summarize the argument, and evaluate the book on its clarity, logic, and use of sources. Approached properly, this assignment will provide you a close look at an example of historical research, interpretation, and argumentation. Each review should evidence a critical reading of the book chosen and an awareness of its place in the context of the period covered by HST 111. Papers will be graded according to the intelligence of their purpose, the logic of their development, the strength of their factual substantiation, and their expression in good prose style.
Take-Home Essays: You will write three such essays during the course of the semester. The essays will give you an opportunity to reflect on and synthesize course material discussed through the weeks prior to the date each is due. You will receive a choice of three broad synthetic questions to which your essay will respond. Essays will be assessed according to the strength of their purpose, the logic of their argumentation, the quality of their evidence and their expression in good prose style.
All papers must be typed (or printed out), double spaced, with one-inch margins all around, and must adhere strictly to the page limit specified. Proportionally-spaced fonts must be no smaller than 12-point. References to all sources should be documented with parenthetical citations accompanied by a bibliography of sources cited. Papers must be turned in at the beginning of the class on the date specified in the class schedule. Rewrites of any papers except the take-home essays to improve their quality and your grade will be encouraged. Late papers will be subject to heavy penalty unless permission of the professor is secured at least 48 hours before the due date. Papers turned in during the first 24 hours after the beginning of class will receive a 2/3 letter-grade reduction, any turned in within the following 3 days will receive a full letter-grade reduction, and any turned in more than four days to one week late will receive 2 letters reduction, and any paper more than a week late will receive a failing grade. No late paper may be rewritten. Computer-related excuses are unacceptable, so plan ahead accordingly.
Anyone wishing to improve writing style would profit by reading Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Sanford Kaye's Writing Under Pressure: The Quick Writing Process provides a very helpful approach to generating effective written work quickly.
ACCOMMODATION OF DISABILITY
CMU provides students with disabilities reasonable accommodations to participate in educational programs, activities, or services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodation to participate in class activities or meet course requirements should first register with the office of Student Disability Services (250 Foust Hall, Telephone 517-774-3018, TDD #2568), and then contact the professor as soon as possible.
Aug. 29 Introduction
Thurs. 31 Europe and America on the Eve of Colonization
Reading Due: American Visions and Revisions (hereafter AVR), 7-19, 68-70 (Native American Reactions; from A Description of New England, John Smith; Key to the Language of America, Roger Williams); Oliver La Farge, "Myths that Hide the American Indian," Historical Viewpoints (Hereafter HV), 2-14; Wieneck, "Spain in North America," HV, 36-42.
Sept. 5 New World-Old World Exchanges
Guest Presenter-Mr. Tom Hahnenberg, Education Curator for the Museum of Cultural and Natural History
Meet in Rowe Hall 101
Reading Due: Durham, "Mound Builders," and Cronon and White, " The Clash of Cultures," HV, 15-34
Thurs. 7 New England's Generation
Tues. 12 The City on a Hill
Readings: Linscott, "Daily Life in Colonial Massachusetts," HV, 42-48, Demos, "Witchcraft in Colonial New England, HV 57-67; AVR, 20-67 (from A Model of Christian Charity, John Winthrop; Selected Letters of John and Margaret Winthrop, Journal of John Winthrop, Selected Poems of Anne Bradstreet)
Thurs. 14 Virginia, Slavery, and Empire
Reading: AVR, 81-84 (Passenger Lists to Virginia and Massachusetts); Mannix and Cawley, "The Middle Passage," HV 67-79.
Tues. 19 Plantation Society and Culture
Readings: Fishwick, "William Byrd II," HV, 49-56; AVR, 93-123 (from History and Present State of Virginia, Robert Beverly; History of the Dividing Line, Secret Diary and "Upon a Fart," William Byrd II)
Thurs. 21 Commerce and Culture in the 18th-Century
Tues. 26 Life in Provincial British America
Readings: AVR, 143-181, 187-98 (from Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin; Letters from an American Farmer, Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crèvecoeur)
Thurs. 28 The Seven Years' War and its Consequences
Oct. 3 Precipitants of Conflict
1st Take-Home Essay Due
Thurs. 5 Moment for Independence
Readings: Plumb, "George III, Our Last King," HV 82-90; Bernard Bailyn, "Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson," HV 91-102; AVR, 199-202; 213-18 (Declaration of Independence as Adopted by Congress; Family Correspondence, Abigail and John Adams)
Tues. 10 Moment for Independence
Book Critique Due: Akers, Abigail Adams
Thurs. 12 The Meanings of War
Readings: Norton, "Women in the American Revolution," Kristol, "The Most Successful Revolution," HV, 103-119; AVR, 206-11 (from The American Crisis, Thomas Paine)
Tues 17 Video: Empire of Reason
Thurs. 19 Between Peace and Ratification
Reading: Vaughan, "Shay's Rebellion," HV 122-33.
Tue. 24 An Ordered Liberty: The Controversial Constitution
Reading: AVR (selections from The Federalist Papers), 233-40; Commager, "The Constitution: Was It an Economic Document?" HV, 134-44.
Thurs. 26 Federalists v. Republicans
Reading: AVR, 251-91 (from The Contrast: A Comedy in Five Acts); Wills, "America, France, and Their Revolutions," Gordon, "Alexander Hamilton: The Founding Wizard," AVR, 145-61.
Tues. 31 Rise of the Jeffersonians
Readings: AVR, 225-32, 311-14 (from Notes on the State of Virginia); Billington, "Frontier and American Character," Garraty, "Marbury v. Madison," HV 164-85.
Nov. 2 Honor, Expansion, War
Tue. 7 Dynamics of Growth
2nd Take Home Essay Due
Thurs. 9 Mechanization and the Beginnings of a Wage Labor Economy
Readings: Ellis, "Jefferson, Adams, and the American Dialogue," Welles, "Samuel Slater Imports a Revolution," HV 186-96, 248-55; AVR, 501-11, 521-29 (from William Gouge, Short History of Paper Money and Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes)
Tue. 14 Jacksonian Democracy and the Construction of Race
Book Review Due: Wallace, Long, Bitter Trail
Thurs. 16 Revival and Reform
Readings: Weisberger, "Religion on the Frontier," Kendal, "The Education of Women," 206-27; AVR, 353-4, 363-9, 428-34, 563-71 ("Importance of Religion to Society," William Ellery Channing, from "Sinners Bound to Change their Own Hearts," Charles G. Finney, "Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights," from "Fifth of July Speech," Frederick Douglass), Social Fabric, ch 14.
Tue. 21 Yeomen, Slaves, and Masters
Readings: Burnham, "Black Slaveowners," HV, 256-63; AVR, 530-35, 609-634 (from Sociology for the South, George Fitzhugh, A Disquisition on Government, John C. Calhoun, Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northrup)
Web Reviews Due: See http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/history/amhst
Thurs. 23 THANKSGIVING
Tue. 28 Crisis of the 1850s
Reading: McPherson, "A War that Never Goes Away," HV 266-72.
Thurs. 30 And the War Came
Readings: Foner, "The South's Inner Civil War," HV, 282-90; AVR, 592-600, 659-91 (from the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Abraham Lincoln; Diary of George Templeton Strong, Diary of Mary Boykin Chestnut), Dred Scott Decision (class handout)
Dec. 5 Emancipation
Readings: Oates, "How Lincoln Freed the Slaves," HV, 291-303; AVR, 692-713 (Army Life in a Black Regiment, Thomas Wentworth Higginson; "Gettysburg Address" and "Second Inaugural Address," Abraham Lincoln)
Thurs. 7 Legacies
Reading: William Faulkner, The Unvanquished
FINAL EXAM PERIOD: Thursday, December 16, 10:00-11:50 a.m.
Final Examination Question: Explore the similarities and differences between William Faulkner's depiction of Southerners' response to the war and the reflections on tensions between North and South that are evident in selections from America: Visions and Revisions. You may choose to write on one or several themes. Sample issues and themes might include, but are by no means limited to, those raised by the following questions: how does Faulkner depict the views of slave-owners such as the Sartoris family on the reasons for the war? On the place of slaves in Southern society? How does his depiction of African Americans' aspirations for freedom compare with those of former slaves such as Solomon Northrup and Frederick Douglass? Does Faulkner acknowledge the existence of a Southern "Inner Civil War," and what do you think he makes of it? What is his attitude toward the conflict between North and South, and how would you assess that attitude in light of the history of the U.S. before 1865?