HI 215 History of American Thought

For the first week of February, we continue our unit “A New Nation, Conceived in Liberty” with a look at “Founding Mothers” and at the creation of a (gendered?) public sphere.

Tues 2/4 Founding Mothers. Reading: The Judith Sargent Murray book, pages 1-60 and 133-139 (bring the book to class) and also Linda Kerber, “The Republican Mother” (PDF)

Thursday 2/6: Special Meeting Place = LRC 319B, the classroom inside the UTS Computer Cluster – not in our regular classoom! We will have a library instruction session with the History liaison reference librarian, Raven Fonfa, in preparation for your speech and research papers. Bring your laptops, please. Even though we’re not having a conventional discussion day, there *is* an assigned reading for Thursday, a fascinating article by Donald M. Scott, called “The Popular Lecture” (PDF). Scott describes the age of public oratory and the lyceum movement in the early national period – part of the scene that would make Edward Everett such a superstar in the next generation.  Also: Thursday, you will receive your group assignment for the American Argument / Current Thinkers project.

Journal Prompt #3 – due Thurs 2/6 Use this week’s journal as a way to reflect on the readings in this unit, perhaps especially on Scott’s article since we won’t have a chance to talk it over in class. Or contrast the founding mothers and fathers in the texts we have considered. Or synthesize your understanding at this point in the course of what “American thought” meant to people in the founding generation.

During this unit, we explore some foundational texts and ideas of our nation. We began with a session on the Gettysburg Address – which Wills says “reinvented the Constitution and repaired its flaws” and which, according to Widmer literally “repurposed the United States.”

Starting from the vantage of 1863 then invites us to travel backwards to reconsider the founding era, concepts, and people –

Tues 28th – Some Antecedents. Consider how each of these three antecedents will inform the American national project in the late 18th century. How do they provide contrasting/diverse roots for American idealism?

1) Iroquois Confederacy Constitution

2) John Winthrop, Modell of Christian Charity (1630)

• Manuscript original http://cdm128401.cdmhost.com/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16124coll1/id/1952
• Transcript but in Winthrop’s original English http://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html
• A more modern translation in plainer English http://www.winthropsociety.com/doc_charity.php

3) Paine, excerpts from Common Sense

Thurs 30th – Founding Fathers. 4 Readings: Federalist 10 + Federalist 51 (skim/reading for main ideas is OK), “John Locke: Father of the Revolution,” and one important scholar’s perspective = Gordon Wood, “The Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution”.

Journal Prompt #2 – Write the second journal entry on your choice of texts from this week’s readings (any or all). What foundational ideas have you identified in these documents? What intellectual currents informed the nation’s founding? Are some of these currents and ideas in conflict, and if so, how?

(1) Tues 1/19 Course Intro Day – I’ll hand out the syllabus, or you can download the PDF here. We’ll talk about some of the thinkers that we will meet in the course, and learn how to use the course tools.
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