Carnegie Mellon University,
Fall 2000
Credit: 9.0 Units
Meetings: MWF, 12:30-1:20,
Scaife Hall 324
Instructor: David Wolcott,
Ph.D.
Office: Baker Hall
240F
Office phone: 268-6871
Office Hours: Mon
& Weds, 11:00 - 12:00
Email: dw4m@andrew.cmu.edu
Expectations Policies Reserve Readings Calendar Timelines Lecture Notes Home
Overview
This course examines the history
of the United States from the 1900s to the 1990s with an emphasis on how
political, economic, and social developments shaped the conditions, attitudes,
and values of present-day America. Subjects to be discussed in readings
and in class include the Progressive Era, the Roaring Twenties, the Great
Depression, Rooseveltís New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil
Rights movement, the Vietnam War, Johnsonís Great Society, the student
protest and counterculture movements of the 1960s, and social changes in
recent decades.
Course Objectives:
ï This course will develop basic
skills in the discipline of history. Primary among these is the skill of
shaping, substantiating, and communicating historical arguments.
The course will be taught by a combination
of lecture and discussion. This design requires active learning on your
part. The assignments have been designed to help you to engage with the
material and to evaluate your learning on that basis.
A. Participation and Attendance
Class meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 12:30 and 1:20 AM in Scaife Hall 324 (unless otherwise noted). You are expected to attend class regularly and on time, to read the material assigned before class, and to participate in discussion in a frequent and substantive manner. You should involve yourselves in class discussion by asking questions, participating in group activities, and contributing your thoughts, interpretations, and ideas.
Obviously, you need to attend class
in order to participate. Attendance will be recorded. You will be allowed
three absences; subsequent absences will result in the loss of one-third
of a letter grade from the "participation" grade for each day missed.
B. Reading Credits
On ten randomly chosen days throughout
the semester, I will give you a chance to show that you have completed
the reading assigned for that day. You will answer a single question drawn
from that dayís reading assignment, and will receive one percentage point
when you correctly answer the question. The questions will be very simple;
if youíve done the reading assignment for that day, you should have not
trouble receiving full credit. If you are not in attendance that day of
class, you may not make up the reading credit opportunity unless you have
an approved and verified excuse (e.g., doctorís note).
C. Papers
This course includes two papers, due on September 22 and November 20. You will be asked to answer a thematic question (on topics that will be assigned at least three class sessions before the paper is due) in between 4 and 5 pages. You are expected to base these papers on classroom lectures, discussions, and reading assignments; no extra research is necessary. This paper should make an historical argument, must have a clear thesis statement, and must use evidence to support that thesis. What is an historical argument? Historical arguments are well-defended, original interpretations of historical events based upon evidence. Itís not easy to make your own historical argument; this course will give you practice doing so.
Papers will be due in my mailbox in Baker 240 by 5:00 PM on the dates assigned. For late papers, one letter grade will be deducted for each weekday that they are late. Papers are to be typed, proofread, and double-spaced in a 12-point font.
D. Exams
This course will have an in-class midterm exam on October 18 and a final exam on a date to be determined by the registrar. The exams will be in essay format.
A. Grading
I do all the grading for this course. Please feel free to come to office and discus any question concerning grading that you might have. I grade on a point system; even if I put a "letter" grade on your papers, I will indicate how many point out of the total for that assignment you have earned. At the end of the term, total point out of 100 will be translated into letter grades as follows: 90 to 100 = A; 80 to 89 = B; etc.
Grades will be distributed in the following way:
Attendance & participation
5%
Reading credits
10%
Paper 1
20%
Paper 2
20%
Midterm Exam
20%
Final Exam
25%
100%
B. Classroom Behavior.
This course is designed to encourage
students to develop opinions and arguments concerning history and film.
Therefore, it is important that all members of the class feel that they
can come to class and express their ideas in a free and accepting environment.
Any actions that might tend to limit that freedom of expression is discouraged.
Please be considerate of your fellow classmates.
C. Academic Integrity
I expect all students to uphold the
highest standards of academic integrity. Any violations of university policies
regarding cheating or plagiarism, as outlined in the Student Handbook,
will not be tolerated.
D. Alternative Arrangements
The Office of Equal Opportunity Services provides support services for both physically disabled and learning disabled students. For individualized academic adjustment based on a documented disability, contact Equal Opportunity Services at eos@andrew.cmu.edu or (412) 268-2012.
Course Materials
I. Required readings available for purchase at Carnegie Mellon Bookstore
Arthur S. Link and Richard L. McCormick,
Progressivism.
Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1983. ISBN 0-88295-814-3; 12.95.
Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday:
An Informal History of the 1920ís. 1931; reprint, New York: Harper,
1964. ISBN 0060800046; $8.00.
Robert McElvaine, Down and Out
in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1983. ISBN 0807840998; $13.95.
William Chafe, The Unfinished
Journey: America Since World War II. 4th ed. 1986; New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999. ISBN 0195116186; $29.95.
Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years
of Hope, Days of Rage, revised edition (1987; New York: Bantam, 1993).
ISBN 0553372122; $17.95
II. Required readings available as photocopies on reserve at Hunt Library Circulation Desk or on-line [call numbers in brackets].
Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull
House (New York: Macmillan, 1910), 281-309.
[PH
Wolcott - 49]
David Brody, "The American Worker
in the Progressive Era: A Comprehensive Analysis," in Brody, Workers
in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle, 2nd
ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 3-47.
[PH
Wolcott -50]
Carey McWilliams, "What We Did About
Racial Minorities" (1946) in While You Were Gone: A Report on Wartime
Life in the United States, ed. Jack Goodman (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1946), 89-111.
[PH
Wolcott - 51]
Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism:
A Brief History With Documents (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 210-230.
[PH
Wolcott - 52]
Elaine Tyler May, "Cold War -- Warm
Hearth: Politics and the Family in Postwar America," in The Rise and
Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, ed. Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
[PH
Wolcott - 53]
Thomas J. Sugrue, "Crabgrass-Roots
Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction Against Liberalism in the Urban
North, 1940-1964," Journal of American History 82 (September 1995):
551-578.
[PH
Wolcott - 54]
Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter
from a Birmingham Jail," in A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar
America, ed. William H. Chafe and Harvard Sitkoff, 5th ed. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 159-172.
[PH
Wolcott - 55]
Malcolm X, "Message to the Grass
Roots," in A History of Our Time, 173-182.
[PH
Wolcott - 56]
Estelle Freedman and John DíEmilio,
"The Emergence of Gay Liberation," in A History of Our Time, 244-255.
[PH
Wolcott - 57]
Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty:
A History of Women in America (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 287-314.
[PH
Wolcott - 58]
Ginia Bellafante, "Feminism: Itís
All About Me!" Time (June 29, 1998): 54-62.
[PH
Wolcott - 59]
Monday, August 28 - Introduction
Wednesday, August 30 - Tensions of
the 1890s
Reading: Link & McCormick, Progressivism,
1-25
Friday, September 1 - Turn-of-the-Century
Activism
Reading: Addams, Twenty Years
at Hull House, 281-309 (RESERVE)
Monday, September 4 - No Class;
Labor Day
Wednesday, September 6 - Progressive-era
politics
Reading: Link & McCormick, Progressivism,
26-66
Friday, September 8 - Progressive
social reform
Reading: Link & McCormick, Progressivism,
67-104
Monday, September 11 - World War
I on the Home Front
Reading: Link & McCormick, Progressivism,
105-118
Wednesday, September 13 - Labor
Reading: Brody, "The American Worker
in the Progressive Era" (RESERVE)
Friday, September 15 - The 1920s:
Return to Normalcy
Reading: Allen, Only Yesterday,
1-72
Monday, September 18 - Prosperity,
Prohibition, & a Revolution in Morals
Reading: Allen, Only Yesterday,
73-101, 132-154, 204-224
Wednesday, September 20 - From Prosperity
to Depression
Reading: Allen, Only Yesterday,
225-297
Friday, September 22 - Lecture: Race,
"Jim Crow," and the Great Migration
Paper 1
due (no reading)
Monday, September 25 - Class cancelled
due to electric outage in Scaife
Wednesday, September 27 - The Great
Depression
Reading: McElvaine, Down &
Out, 1-19, 33-48
Friday, September 29 - The New Deal
Reading: McElvaine, Down &
Out, 19-32, 49-65, 79-119
Monday, October 2 - Reactions to
FDR and the New Deal
Reading: McElvaine, Down &
Out, 121-229
Wednesday, October 4 - World War
II on the Home Front
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
3-31
In class video: The Life and
Times of Rosie the Riveter (1987)
Friday, October 6 - Discussion: World
War II on the Home Front
Reading: McWilliams, "What We Did
About Racial Minorities" (RESERVE)
Monday, October 9 - The Cold War
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
32-78
Wednesday, October 11 - Anti-Communism
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
79-110
Schrecker, Age of McCarthyism, 210-230 (RESERVE)
Friday, October 13 - Suburbanization
and Post-War Prosperity
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
111-145
Monday, October 16 - The Baby Boom
Family: Masculinity, Femininity, & Discontent
Reading: May, "Cold War - Warm Hearth"
(RESERVE)
Wednesday, October 18 - Midterm
Exam
Friday, October 20, and Monday, October
23 - No class; mid-semester break
Wednesday, October 25 - The ë50s
Roots of the ë60s
Reading: Gitlin, The Sixties,
1-77
Friday, October 27 - The Kennedy
Camelot
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
177-205
Monday, October 30 - The Civil Rights
Movement from World War II until 1960
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
146-176
Wednesday, November 1 - Massive Resistance
in the Urban North
Reading: Sugrue, "Crabgrass-Roots
Politics" (RESERVE)
Friday, November 3 - The Civil Rights
Movement, 1960-1967
Reading: Chafe, UnfinishedJourney,
205-220, 302-320
Monday, November 6 - Divisions within
the Black Freedom Struggle
Reading: Martin Luther King, Jr.,
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" (RESERVE)
Malcolm X, "Message to the Grass Roots" (RESERVE)
Wednesday, November 8 - Lecture:
Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
221-246
Friday, November 10 - Lecture: The
Vietnam War
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
247-301
Monday, November 13 - Origins of
New Left
Reading: Gitlin, The Sixties,
81-126, 177-188
Wednesday, November 15 - The 1960s
Counter-Culture & Anti-War Movement
Reading: Gitlin, The Sixties,
195-221, 242-261
Optional reading: Gitlin, The
Sixties, 222-241
Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 320-328, 336-342
Friday, November 17 - 1968
Reading: Gitlin, The Sixties,
285-340
Optional reading: Chafe, Unfinished
Journey, 343-380
Monday, November 20 - Paper
2 due
In class video: Berkeley in the
Sixties (1990; selections)
Wednesday, November 22, and Friday,
November 24 - No class; Thanksgiving
Monday, November 27 - Activism, 1969-1974:
Decline or Expansion?
Reading: Gitlin, The Sixties,
341-361, 377-419
Optional reading: Chafe, Unfinished
Journey, 404-419
Wednesday, November 29 - Womenís
Liberation and Gay Liberation
Reading: Gitlin, The Sixties,
362-376
Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 328-336
Freedman & DíEmilio, "The Emergence of Gay Liberation" (RESERVE)
Friday, December 1 - The Nixon Presidency
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
381-404; 420-429
Monday, December 4 - The End of the
Post-War Boom
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
439-450
Wednesday, December 6 - Women, 1970-1999
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
430-439
Evans, Born for Liberty, 289-314 (RESERVE)
Bellafante, "Feminism: Itís All About Me!" (RESERVE)
Friday, December 8 - The "New
Right" and Ronald Reagan
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
450-496
Monday, December 11 - State and Society
in the 1990s
Reading: Chafe, Unfinished Journey,
497-535
Friday, December 15, 9:30 - 11:30
AM, Baker Hall A53 - Final Exam
Top Home