MODERN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION
 
 
HIST 104
Spring 2006
M W F 12:00-1:00pm
LH14
 
  Professor: Sarah Boyle
Email: sboyle@binghamton.edu
Office: LT608
Hours: M 4:00 - 5:30, W 2:00 - 3:30
 

TEACHINIG ASSISTANTS:

 
  Stewart Anderson
Email: sanders3@binghamton.edu
Office: LT805
Hours: TBA

Loretta Charles
Email: lcharle1@binghamton.edu
Office: LT813
Hours: TBA
 
  Jeff Cronk
Email: jcronk1@binghamton.edu
Office: LSG 272
Hours: M 1-3 T 1-2

Derek Lan
Email:
Office: TBA
Hours: TBA
 
  Eve Snyder
Email: esnyder2@binghamton.edu
Office: TU 3J
Hours: M/W 10:30-12

   
 


This course explores social, political, and cultural trends in the United States from 1865 to the present.

Lecture Decorum: Basic respect and maturity will be expected of everyone. Come to lecture on time. Do not talk during lecture. Do not fall asleep during lecture. Turn off all cell phones, pagers, etc. If you act inappropriately, I will ask you to leave. Let's not embarrass either one of us, all right?

Discussion Participation: Your participation in discussion is 20% of your grade. Make the most of it! Come to discussion on time each week, and come prepared.

Written Work: For 104a students: There will be three papers for this course, each 3-5 pages long. Topics TBA.   There will be an in-class midterm and an in-class final.  The midterm and the final will be a mixture of essay and short answer questions.  For 104b students: There will be three papers for this course, each 5-7 pages long.  Topics TBA.  There will be a take-home midterm exam and an in-class final.   The midterm exam will be an essay exam, for which you will be expected to produce a 5-7 page paper, and the final will be a mixture of short answer and essay.

Paper Due Dates for Students in 104A/B: Paper #1 - February 24.  Paper #2 - March 31. 
Paper #3 - May 5.

Make Ups and Extensions: There will be no extensions for papers.  Late papers will be graded down accordingly.  Make up exams are given at the discretion of the professor and the teaching assistants, but anything short of severe illness or family crisis probably will not be considered grounds for a make-up exam. 

Plagiarism: If your teaching assistants or I discover anyone submitting plagiarized work as their own, he/she will fail the course and I will report him/her to the Academic Honesty Committee. 

Grading:
  • Papers: 10% each
  • Midterm: 25%
  • Final: 25%
  • Discussion: 20%
Texts: There are three required texts for this course, all of which are available through the campus book store.  They are:
Hoffman and Gjerde, Major Problems in American History, vol. II
Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
In addition to these texts, you are responsible for a large amount of material on the web.  You need to print out web citations that are preceded with an asterick (*), read them, and bring them to section.  Web sites that are not preceded with an asterick, you do not have to print out.  However, you are still responsible for knowing the material they contain.

 
  Week 1   Week 2   Week 3   Week 4   Week 5   Week 6   Week 7      
Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Week 15 Week 16  




  WEEK 1 January 23 - 27: THE LEGACY OF RECONSTRUCTION  

    Monday: Intro to the Course
Wednesday: Overview of Reconstruction

Assignments: Major Problems, chapter 1
*"Freedmen's Bureau report of outrages in Louisiana--the case of Mary Stewart" http://freedmensbureau.com/louisiana/outrages/marystewart.htm
Reports of murders in Georgia, 1865-1868
http://freedmensbureau.com/georgia/gaoutrages2.htm#Macon%201867
Index of marriages in Tennessee. Spend some time going through the names and reading the entries. Get a feel for the importance of marriage to the freed population. http://freedmensbureau.com/tennessee/marriages/tennesseemarriages.htm

 
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  WEEK 2 January 30 - February 3: THE WEST AND THE SOUTH  

    Monday: The West: Conquest and Conflict
Wednesday: The South: The Rise of Jim Crow

Assignments: Major Problems, chapter 2
*“A Red Record” Ida B. Wells (This is a document from a BU only database, so you need to be on campus or logged in on your BU account in order to access it) http://www.alexanderstreet6.com/wasm/wasmrestricted/aswpl/doc4.htm
*“Their Own Hotheadedness: Senator Benjamin Tillman Defends Violence Against Southern Blacks”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/55

 
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  WEEK 3 February 6 - 10: INDUSTRIALIZING AMERICA  

    Monday: The Gilded Age
Wednesday: The Progressive Era

Assignments: *Herbert Gutman, “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919” The American Historical Review 78:3 (June 1973), 531-588. Available through JSTOR. (JSTOR is available through the BU library's metaLINK databases, which can be found on the Bartle Library homepage.)
*“United We Stand?: Tom Watson on Interracial Southern Populism”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5348
*“Carnegie Speaks: A Recording of the Gospel of Wealth”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5766
Virtual Tour of The Elms, Andrew Carnegie’s Newport Mansion
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/sfeature/tour.html
Virtual Tour of a Tenement Apartment Building, Lower East Side, NYC
http://www.tenement.org/Virtual_Tour/index_virtual.html
*“Thugs for Hire: Ads for Security Agents”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5664
*“Working Her Fingers to the Bone: Agnes Nestor’s Story”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5728
*“The Great Debate: Gompers vs. Hilquit”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5757

 
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  WEEK 4 February 13 - 17: ACTIVISM AND IMPERIALISM


    Monday: Racial Violence, Black Resistance
Wednesday: The Rise of A World Power

Assignments: Major Problems, 98-106, 114-120
*“If You Believe the Negro Has a Soul: ‘Back to Africa’ with Marcus Garvey”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5124
*“Let Us Reason Together: W. E. B. DuBois Defends Black Resistance”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5128
*“We Thought the Street Would Be Heaven Itself: Black Migrants Speak Out”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5337
*“Don’t Have to Mister Every Little White Boy: Black Migrants Write Home”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5339
*“The Chicago Daily Tribune Reports the Chicago Race Riot, 1919”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4975
*“The Chicago Defender Reports the Chicago Race Riot, 1919”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4976
*“The White Man’s Burden”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478
*“The Real White Man’s Burden”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5477
*“The Black Man’s Burden”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5476
*Political Cartoons on imperialism (print out 3-5 and bring them to discussion)
http://www.boondocksnet.com/gallery/us_intro.html

 
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  WEEK 5 February 20 - 24: THE PROGRESSIVES
FIRST PAPER DUE!
 

    Monday: The Presidents
Wednesday: The Reformers

Assignments: Major Problems, chapter 5
*“Mind Your Business!: One Woman’s Encounter with Reformers”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5002
*“The Solitude of Self: Elizabeth Cady Stanton Appeals for Women’s Rights”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5315
*“A Heritage of Scorn: Frances Harper Urges a Color-Blind Case”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5316

 
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  WEEK 6 February 27 - March 3: WORLD WAR I AND THE RED SCARE  

    Monday: Film: Woodrow Wilson
Wednesday: The Red Scare

Assignments: Major Problems, 164-180
*The Sacco And Vanzetti Trial. Go Through the entire site and be ready to discuss the trial. Print out Sacco and Vanzetti's statements at sentencing and bring them to discussion
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/SaccoV.htm

 
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  WEEK 7 March 6 - 10: THE 1920S  

    Monday: Midterm
Wednesday: Cultural Conflict

Assignments: Major Problems, chapter 7

 
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  WEEK 8 March 13-17: HAVE A GOOD BREAK!  


  WEEK 9 March 20 - 24: THE JAZZ AGE, THE CRASH, AND THE NEW DEAL  

    Monday: The Jazz Age
Wednesday: FDR and the New Deal

Assignments: Terkel, Hard Times.  Book  One:  "Hard Travelin'," "The Big Money," "Three Strikes."  Book Two: "The Farmer is the Man." Book Three: "Concerning the New Deal," "An Unreconstructed Populist," "The Circuit Rider," "Scarlett Banners and Novenas." Book Five: "Evictions, Arrests, and Other Running Sores," "Strive and Succeed."

 
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  WEEK 10 March 27 - 31: THE DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II
SECOND PAPER DUE!
 

    Monday: Labor Activism and Racial Violence in 1930s America
Wednesday: World War II: Over There

Assignments: "Trio: Father Coughlin, Huey Long, and Upton Sinclair; Voices for the Disaffected in 1930s America." Read the entire project. Because of its length and because if its extensive use of photographs and video, you do not have to print out the site. However, you are responsible for knowing the information. So take notes as you read. 
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Kidd/thesis/index.html
*The Scottsboro trial. Print out the trial account by Douglas Linder and bring to discussion.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm
*"The Republic is Imperiled: John L. Lewis Warns of Ignoring Laboring People"
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5135
*“Orville Quick Remembers Pearl Harbor”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/139
*“I Saw the Walking Dead: A Black Soldier Remembers Buchenwald”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/142


 
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  WEEK 11 April 3 - 7: WORLD WAR II AND THE AGE OF CONTAINMENT
 

    Monday: World War II: The Home Front
Wednesday: The Age of Containment

Assignments: Major Problems, 270-277, 293-308
*Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html
Classic TV Ads. Navigate using the categories menu on the right.
http://www.roadode.com/classicindex.shtml

 
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  WEEK 12 April 10 - 14: THE COLD WAR  

    Monday: Film: Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Wednesday: Cold War Culture

Assignments: Major Problems, chapter 10
 
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  WEEK 13 April 17-21: COLD WAR, CONCL.  

    Monday: NO CLASS
Wednesday: JFK, Nixon, and the Cold War

Assignments: Interview with Henry Kissinger on Nixon's China visit
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/china/sfeature/kissinger.html
*John F. Kennedy's address to the nation on the Cuban missile crisis (Be patient. this page is slow to load)
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkcubanmissilecrisis.html

 
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  WEEK 14 April 24-28: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT  

    Monday: Post World War II and the 1950s
Wednesday: The 1960s and 1970s

Assignments: Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
*Civil Rights Movement Veterans, oral histories and memoirs. Got to "Our Stories." Print out one memior or interview and bring to discussion.
This page uses frames. It will not print properly if you just hit the button on the tool bar. So in order to print, do the following: in Internet Explorer, right click on the page you want and select the "print" option. In Netscape, right click on the page you want, select the frames option and click on "show this frame only." Then print.
http://www.crmvet.org/

 
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  WEEK 15 May 2 - 5: VIETNAM AND CULTURE WARS
THIRD PAPER DUE!
 

    Monday: The War in Vietnam
Wednesday: Culture Wars

Assignments: Major Problems, 374-385, chapter 14.

 
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  WEEK 16 May 8 - 12: THE 1980S AND THE 1990S  

    Monday:1980s
Wednesday: 1990s

Assignments: Major Problems, chapter 15

 
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