HISTORY 108: Rise and Fall of the USA

SEMESTER 1, 2018

15 points

 
Course Director:                                                                                                                               

Dr Paul Taillon - Arts  1, Room 723; 923-7365; p.taillon@auckland.ac.nz

Office Hours: Thursday, 1-3pm, and by appointment

Graduate Teaching Assistants:

Sam Denny - sden520@aucklanduni.ac.nz

Tutorial: Wednesday @ 2pm & 3pm; Thursday @3pm & 4pm

Office Hours: Thursday, 11am-12pm, Arts 1, Room 305 & Thursday, 2-3pm, Arts 1, Room 306

Thursday 11-12 in room

Tess Mazey-Richardson - tmaz299@aucklanduni.ac.nz

Tutorials: Thursday @ 1pm; Friday @1pm, 2pm & 3pm

Office Hours: Wednesday, 1-2pm; Friday, 12-1pm, Arts 1, Room 306

Tuakana Mentor:

Marco de Jong: m.dejong@auckland.ac.nz

History 108 session: Thursdays - 1-2pm, Arts 1, Rm 308.

 

Summary of Course Description:              

This course examines the social, political, and economic development of the United States from the American Revolution to the present. It asks how can a nation founded in slavery and offering equality and opportunity for only some claim to be a land of freedom? Is the increasing gap between rich and poor a sign that the age of American power and prosperity is over? Approaching the history of the United States as one of triumph, tragedy, and, ultimately, paradox, this course tackles these and other questions as it explores how Americans have contended with one another over the meanings of freedom, equality, opportunity, and justice from the founding of their nation to the present.

Over the course of the semester we will examine critical periods—the revolutionary era; the antebellum expansion of democracy and slavery; the Civil War and Reconstruction; the era of industrialization and ‘progressive’ reform; the Great Depression, World War II and the age of “modern” liberalism; the 1960s and the rise of a new conservative era—during which Americans challenged and changed their ideas, cultures, practices, and institutions. We will seek to understand how Americans’ conflicts over freedom and struggles for justice shaped the building of a great but imperfect nation.

Course outcomes:

(1) Learning and Doing U.S. History: In the course of engaging with these questions, we expect you to acquire a basic knowledge of the history of the United States from the eighteenth century to the present. You will also come away understanding that history is not merely concerned with discovering what happened but also explaining why and how things happened. In History 108, we will try to get you to think ‘historically’ by introducing you to the practice of history and the skills of the historian.

(2) Skills and the Practice of History: We are as concerned that you learn something of the historian’s craft as we are that you learn something of U.S. history. Thus, we wish you to develop a number of skills essential to the study of history involving the assimilation, assessment, and presentation of information. These include:

• the ability to read effectively and critically;
• the ability to take notes and organize information;
• the ability to construct and present a well-reasoned argument, written in standard English;
• and the ability to reference work in accurate footnotes and bibliographies.

The course will also introduce you to the practice of history through the use of primary historical documents to illustrate the kinds of evidence on which historians base their interpretations and explanations and by exposing you to some of the varying interpretations of, and manners of presenting, U.S. history.

 Assessment Summary:

Weighting of assignments and due dates if available, eg:

20% Tutorial Assessment

35% essay           due 28 March

50% exam

 

Lecture Program

February 28     An Empire of Liberty?

Establishing the “United States”

March 1      Colonial British America and the Road to Revolution

March 7      The American Revolution, 1763-1783

March 8      Containing the Revolution, Securing the Republic

The Expansion of Freedom and the Expansion of Unfreedom

March 14    The Market Revolution, 1800-1850s

March 15    Slavery in the Land of Freedom

• Tutorial Assignment #1 due in tutorial

March 21    Democracy and its Limits

March 22    The First Age of Reform and the Antislavery Crusade

March 28    Essay DUE, 11:00am, Arts Assignment Centre

The Failure of the Union

March 28    Expansion and the Impending Crisis

March 29    The Civil War, 1850s-1865

March 30 - April 14               MID-SEMESTER BREAK

April 18       Reconstruction, 1863-1877

The Making of Modern America

April 19       Industrialization and the Crisis of Free Labor

April 25       ANZAC Day

April 26       Race, Rights, and Empire at Century’s End

May 2         The Second Age of Reform: The Progressive Era

May 3         The New Era

The Age of Liberal Consensus 

May 9          The Great Depression and the New Deal

May 10        Wilsonianism and World War

May 16        The 1950s and Cold War America

May 17        Atomic Cafe

The Age of Division

May 23        The 1960s and the Unmaking of Modern America

May 24        End of the New Deal Order, 1970s-1990s

May 30        Culture and Society at Century’s End

May 31        The Crises of the Early 21^st Century

• Tutorial Assignment #2 due in tutorial

 

 

 

Tutorial Program

Tutorial 1: Thinking like a Historian: Perspective and Evidence in the Social History of Early Virginia

• Required:
• James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton West, “Serving Time in Virginia,” in Davidson and West, eds., After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection: Vol. I, 3^rd, New York, 1992, pp. 1-19. ISBN: 0070156107
• History 108 Course Guide.
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 1-4.

 Tutorial 2: The American Revolution and the Forging of American Freedom

• Required:
• “People at War: Society During the American Revolution,” in Binder and Reimers, eds., The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History, Vol. 1, 4^th, New York, 2000, pp.112-29. ISBN: 0395959608
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 5-8.

 Tutorial 3: Slavery, Resistance, and the Contradictions of American Freedom

• Required:
• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845 (Dover Thrift Editions, 1995), pp. 1-69. ISBN: 9780486284996
• Tutorial Assignment #1, due in tutorial (see Course Guide, p. 6)
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 9, 11.

 Tutorial 4: Slavery, Reform, and the Contradictions of American Freedom

• Required:
• Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, edited by David W. Blight, Palgrave, 2006, pp. 146-71.
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 10, 12.

 Tutorial 5: Why did they fight the Civil War? Conflicting Definitions of American Freedom

• Required:
• James M. McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, Baton Rouge, 1994, pp. 9-26. ISBN: 0385476345
• Alonzo Ameli (1838–1912) to brother Peter Ameli and Sister, September 18, 1861 (Alonzo Ameli Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress) (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-war-in-america/april-1861-april-1862.html#obj20)
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 13-14.

 Tutorial 6: Reconstruction, was it a failure?

• Required:
• “‘A Letter ‘To My Old Master…,’ c. 1865,” in Gary B. Nash and Ronald Schultz, eds., Retracing the Past: Readings in the History of the American People: Vol. II, Since 1865, 4^th, New York, 2006, pp. 4-5. ISBN: 0321048504
• Adam Fairclough, “The Failure of Reconstruction and the Triumph of White Supremacy,” in Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000, New York, 2001, pp. 1-17. ISBN: 0674011694
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 15-16.

 Tutorial 7: Progressive Reform and the Redefinition of American Freedom

• Required:
  • Glenda Gilmore, ed., Who Were the Progressives? Boston, 2002, pp. 3-20. ISBN 0-312-18930-3
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 17-18, 20.

 Tutorial 8: The American Century and the Four Freedoms

• Required:
  • Jeffrey A. Engel, “The Four Freedoms: FDR’s Legacy of Liberty for the United States and the World” and extract of Four Freedoms Speech, in The Four Freedoms: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Evolution of an American Idea, New York, 2015, pp. 1-14. ISBN: 9780190459192
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 19, 21-22.

 Tutorial 9: Affluence, Suburbia, and Cold War Definitions of Freedom

• Required:
  • “Moving to Suburbia: Dreams and Discontents,” in Frederick M. Binder and David M. Reimers, eds., The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History, Vol. 2, 4^th, New York, 2000, pp. 213-233. ISBN: 0395959616
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 23-24.

 Tutorial 10: Civil Rights, Racial Conflict, and Conflicting Definitions of Freedom

• Required:
  • Ione Malloy, “Southie Won’t Go” (1975) and Robin D. G. Kelley, “After Civil Rights: The African American Working and Middle Classes,” in Gary B. Nash and Ronald Schultz, eds., Retracing the Past: Readings in the History of the American People: Vol. II, Since 1865, 6^th, New York, 2006, pp. 272-88. ISBN: 9780321333803.
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 25-26.

 Tutorial 11:

• Required: Tutorial Assignment #2, due in tutorial (see Course Guide, p. 6)
• Recommended: Give Me Liberty!, chapters 27-28.

 

Required Texts:

The following are available for purchase at The University Bookshop:

• History 108 Course Guide.
• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845.*

*Also available in Short Loan and Library e-book.

Recommended Text:

The following textbook will be helpful in supplementing lectures and tutorials: Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Brief Edition (available at The University Bookshop).

 

 

Coursework and Assessment:

Assessment in this course is divided between coursework (50%) and an examination (50%):

Tutorial Assessment (includes attendance, participation, and assignments)                       15%

Essay                         Due 28 March, 11:00am, Arts Assignment Centre                35%

Exam, 2 hours             TBA                                                                                         50%

 

Tutorial Assessment (includes attendance, participation, and assignments), 500 words

Attendance and Participation:

You are required to attend tutorials and participate in tutorial discussions and exercises. Tutorials meet weekly, from the first week of the semester.

Tutorials are small-group, discussion-based learning sessions. They complement the lectures and aim at deeply engaging you with course readings and content. To achieve this aim, you must not only attend tutorials you must do so having read the week’s assigned readings and be ready to participate in discussion.

You must attend at least eight (8) of the eleven (11) tutorial meetings to receive the 15% credit for tutorial assessment and to qualify for exam benefit. Please contact your course instructor if you are having difficulty attending tutorial.

Assignments:

You must complete the following two tutorial assignments. An successful assignment will consider the specific task in relation to the week’s topic and reading.

Tutorial assignments work in tandem with tutorial attendance and participation, and you will be expected to share your findings with your tutorial classmates.

These assignments are due in tutorial in hard copy and do not need to be submitted to Canvas. Include your name, your tutorial day and time, and a title that identifies the assignment. Also be sure you cite the source(s) you are examining and analysing, using the referencing style in the History Course Work Guide.

• Frederick Douglass and the Experience of Slavery: Due in Tutorial 3 (Week 3). In a paragraph* of approximately 250 words, describe an example of (a) a slaveholder's brutal, violent behavior or action, or (b) an enslaved African-American's act of resistance to slavery, or (c) slave culture (for example, family or community ties, religion, music, or dancing). Be prepared to discuss your paragraph in tutorial!
• Current News Story Contextualization: Due in Tutorial 11 (Week 12). Select a current news story about an issue in the United States relevant to the themes of History 108. In a paragraph* of approximately 250 words, explain how the story relates to the themes of History 108. Be prepared to discuss your paragraph in tutorial!
• A good paragraph will:
• present one main idea
• set out that main idea in a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph
• support or illustrate that idea (through discussion and presentation of evidence/examples)
• set out thoughts or statements a logical manner (i.e., thought a à thought b à thought c)
• finish with an emphatic “wrap-up” sentence

 

Essay, 1500 words

This essay is based upon, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, (Dover Thrift Editions). The tutorial for week three will focus on this text and on the key elements of a good history essay.

The assignment: consider the following quotation: “Harsh as slavery was, slaves had the ability to resist it.” Using Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, discuss what forms slave resistance took and what resources African Americans drew upon to contest the conditions of their lives.

Please hand the essay in to the Faculty of Arts Assignment Centre in Humanities Building reception with an Assignment Cover Sheet generated on Canvas and submit an electronic version on Canvas by 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday 28 March. For your essay to be marked you must hand in this piece of work manually (at the Humanities Building) and electronically (through Canvas).

 

Exam

During the examination period, you will sit a two-hour exam. The University will set the date, time, and place of the exam and will notify you in advance. The exam is cumulative and will test your command of the ‘big themes’ of History 108. You will be responsible for the entire course and all assigned reading. The exam will be composed of two parts. Your task will be to write two essays, one in response to a choice of questions from each part. We will provide additional details on the exam toward the end of the semester. NOTE: exam benefit or “plussage” applies (with attendance of at least eight tutorials).

 

 Workload and deadlines for submission of coursework:           

The University of Auckland's expectation is that students spend 10 hours per week on a 15-point course, including time in class and personal study. Students should manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. Deadlines for coursework are set by course convenors and will be advertised in course material. You should submit your work on time. In extreme circumstances, such as illness, you may seek an extension but you may be required to provide supporting information before the assignment is due. Late assignments without a pre-approved extension may be penalised by loss of marks – check course information for details.