Mon 2/15 No Class
(12) Wed 2/17 Kennedy Years and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Reading: HOT 81-93 = Port Huron, YAF, JFK Inaugural, and “The Showdown,†from Time Magazine, 11/2/1962 [PDF]
Background reading: Moss 89-112, 106-112/ GML 909-921
In-class link: JFK’s inaugural, on video
(13) Fri 2/19 Exam #1 (covers 1945-1963)
(9) Mon 2/8 Youth Culture and “Juvies”
Reading: 2 document packets in PDF form, “Bringing Up Parents” (Time magazine), and Ruth Alexander, “What Price the Fatted Calf?” AND Hine, “Luckiest Generation,” (HOT 65-74)
Background reading: Moss 68-72, 76-78/ GML 896-899
In-class links: Memories of ’50s childhood, Alan Freed, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Blackboard Jungle, Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause, Teenage Doll, Senate Comic Book Hearings
(10) Wed 2/10 Congress Day 2 – No class, due to snowstorm!!
Note changes to the syllabus schedule below. We will have our Congress Day 2 on Friday instead, and push the discussion of HOT 81-93 reading onto Wednesday along with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(11) Fri 2/12 Congress Day 2
Truman and Eisenhower-era policy debates and discussion & I will hand out the Exam #1 study guide in class
(6) Mon 2/1 Tube of Plenty (Little Paper #2 due)
Reading: Scheiner, “Would You Like to be Queen for a Day?†[pdf]
Background reading: Moss 57-61, 63-75/ GML 871-884
In-class links: Ford Freedom, Queen for a Day, Brylcreem
(7) Wed 2/3 Congress Day 1
You’ll meet in committees and brief one another on what your committee is, what it does, and why it was important in postwar America. Committees will also need to handle any new business I will give in class.
(8) Fri 2/5 The Fair Deal, Labor, Organization Man & Woman
Reading: Evans, “The Cold War and the Feminine Mystique†[pdf]
Background reading: Moss 45-50, 61-63/ GML 854-859, 868-869, 885-890
(3) Mon 1/25 Atomic Age & the Cold War
Reading: HOT 17-22, 31-40 = Kennan, Eisenhower, Good Housekeeping
Background reading: Moss 19-34/ GML 840-851
In-class links: BBC interactive map, Duck&Cover, Atomic Alert, THEM!
(4) Wed 1/27 McCarthyism
Reading: HOT 41-64 = HUAC, McCarthy, Haynes/Klehr
Background reading: Moss 40-44, 50, 79-93/ GML 851-854, 860-870
(5) Fri 1/29 Korea & Vietnam Wars – in class, you’ll get your Congress Committee Assignments
Reading online = read and compare two accounts of the Korean War, “The Korean War: An Overview” by Michael Hickey (BBC) and “Korean War: The Forgotten War,” (Military.com). Each one has 4 or 5 sections – navigate by clicking on the left hand sidebar links.
Background reading: Moss 34-40, 86-89/ GML 847-849, 895-896
(1) Wed 1/20 Course intro: the American People in the 21st century. Bring History of Our Time (hereafter abbreviated HOT), as we’ll read and discuss pp. 496-500. The syllabus will be handed out in class, or download the PDF here.
(2) Fri 1/22 America in 1945 (Little Paper #1 due)
Reading (bring to class): HOT 1-16 = McMahon
Background reading – read your textbook for what America was like in 1945. If you have, for example, the Moss book, that’s on pp 1-18, and if you’re using Foner’s Give Me Liberty! (GML), pp. 832-840.
Books for Professor Hangen’s Spring 2010 sections of HI 113:
Our textbook will be William Chafe, Harvard Sitkoff and Beth Bailey, editors, A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America 7th edition (Harvard University Press). You need to own this one, so buy it (in any condition, as long as it’s 7th edition).
You should also make sure you have a history survey textbook. If you took US History II at this college or elsewhere and still have a textbook that covers the period of 1945 to the present, then use the one you have, don’t go buy a new one.
If you don’t have a survey textbook that covers 1945 to now, then purchase the e-text of George Donelson Moss, Moving On: The American People Since 1945 4th edition (Pearson Longman). There are print copies in the bookstore, but you can buy the e-text directly from the publisher, which gives you online access to the book until summer at about half the price of the printed textbook. If you’re not a history major, or don’t plan to keep the book as a cherished possession forever, this is your most cost-effective option.
Additional course readings can be found on the web or will be posted online as PDFs; you will need (free) Adobe Reader or FoxIt Reader in order to open and use a PDF document. I recommend that you print the readings if you have your own printer, or bring your laptop to class to access them during our discussion.