American Social History

In our last class on Monday 5/2, we’ll consider whether, as some argue (or wish), America is a “post-racial” society. Is this more true, or less true, since Obama’s election, for instance?

Reading – some links are below: start with the top one, and proceed as time and interest allow, taking note of the core questions and issues in this ongoing cultural discussion in America today:

• “The Myth of Post-Racial America,” June 2010 column in the Washington Post by Steven Levingston
• Commentary on CNN.com, “Post-Racial America Isn’t Here Yet” by Leonard Pitts Jr.
• “Not in my Neighborhood” author Lawrence Bobo also says no – a view from black America, posted on The Root blog
• NPR radio clip (20 minutes) on “Are We Living in a Post-Racial America?“
• “What is Post-Racial America?” – a conservative viewpoint posted on “View From the Right” blog
• “Edging (At Times Clumsily) Toward a Post-Racial America,” Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 16 March 2008
• “Post-Racial America?” by University of California professor John Iceland
• “Post-Racial,” by Michael Crowley, in New Republic, March 2008

Deadlines and Grades

I will be doing project data input to the Digital Worcester website, aiming to get that done before the end of finals period. If anyone would like to help me with the data entry, I will give extra credit for that service. Let me know if you’re interested, I would love to get those all into the database before summer. Since everyone completed the project & submitted all necessary parts, everyone will be receiving the full 20 points for that project.

Your research paper can be submitted anytime from now until May 9th. It needs to be in by the afternoon of May 9th. If you want it returned to you with comments (or electronic markup if it’s submitted in electronic form), let me know. Otherwise I do not plan to write extensive comments–I’ll just give it a grade, since I rarely have students ask for their final papers or exams back.

The exam on the third unit will be Monday, May 9th at 12:30 pm in our regular classroom. You don’t need to bring anything special, just something to write with. It will be similar to the other two exams: essays based on our class discussion and on our course readings. I always get this question at the end of the term, so let me address it now: no, you do not HAVE to take the 3rd exam. Doing so will help you provide closure on the unit and will demonstrate your learning in the course to yourself as well as to me. That in itself is reason enough to take it, in my opinion. However, since the lowest exam is dropped, if you have 2 exam grades that you are happy with, you are not required to take the third one or to show up on that day.

The last assignment is a reflection paper, which is due on or before May 9th. Please respond to these questions in a well-constructed paper of 2-3 pages long:

1) The course objective is:

In this course, we will explore topics in the social history of the United States, through a wide variety of sources including newspapers, periodicals, tracts, photographs, archival records, didactic literature, fiction and oral history. You will gain experience with the work of social history in your readings and assignments. You’ll consider and experiment with ways of writing history that take “the little guy” (and gal) into account.

Discuss how well you’ve achieved this course objective through your participation in class, your written work, and your scholarly research.

2) Provide feedback on the Digital Worcester project. What did you learn from it? How could it be improved?

3) Reflect on your learning in this course. What was your approach to learning social history? How well did it work for you? And if you have specific suggestions on the course’s design (either what worked or what didn’t), I would welcome your feedback.

The reflection paper can be dropped off in my office mailbox (S-327B) along with your research paper if you don’t plan to be there on the 9th.

Thanks for a great semester!

Monday 25th: Discussion/lecture on Asian-American immigration, identity and citizenship. Why are Asians frequently omitted from the national narratives of immigration and from the concept of the melting pot? How does their history and experience differ from, or resonate with, that of other immigrant groups?

Topics: “Golden Door,” Chinese Exclusion Act, “Yellow Peril,” Rock Springs Wyoming riot (1885) and other anti-Asian riots of the same era, Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), Chinatowns (when/where), Japanese immigration, Issei/ Nisei, 1924 Oriential Exclusion Law, Executive Order 9066.

Wednesday 27th, our reading is a digital archive website, JARDA (Japanese-American Relocation Digital Archive), found at: http://www.calisphere/universityofcalifornia.edu/jarda/

Questions to consider as you explore this archive:

• What kinds of sources does this repository make available to historians interested in the Japanese-American experience during World War II?
• What can you learn from these sources about the experience of Asian-Americans in the 20th century?
• What customs, cultural practices or worldviews clashed during the internment process?
• Were interned Americans able to maintain their cultural practices?
• What questions do these materials raise for you?

Friday 29th: Our last presentation day. If you are missing a 3rd response paper, please turn one in today on this week’s readings.

Presenter ideas: Presenters this week can focus either on the experience of Mexican-Americans in the American West using resources from last week, or on Asians in the American West using JARDA, or can compare/contrast the two in their presentations. If you need additional ideas:

• Listen to the recent NPR “Morning Edition” 5-part series, by reporter Jason Bobien, traveling the entire US-Mexican border. What is so important about this region? What are some of the current issues, problems, and stories from the border?
• Explore some of the experiences of Vietnamese Boat People. How do their stories intersect with changes in US immigration policy in the 20th century?
• Peruse some of the images, photographs and other resources in the Library of Congress American Memory archive “The Chinese in California, 1850-1925.” How is this website different from JARDA, and what use might social historians make of the items within it?
• Use the online Bracero Archive to understand the bracero program and how it fits into immigration history in the 20th century.

Image: Mrs. Fong Soon, undated photograph, from Library of Congress American Memory Collection, “The Chinese in California”

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2010/05/13/nat.ethnic.study.protest.kgun.html

Divided Families/ Familias Divididas

No class Monday April 18

Wed 4/20 – Hispanic America

Topics for lecture & reading: Mexican-American War, Texicans, Hispanic vs. Latino/a, LULAC, Cesar Chavez, Chicano/a, Bracero Program, Aztlan

Fri 4/22 – Discussion Day, of Pam Munoz Ryan’s youth novel Esperanza Rising (entire) (No presentations this week)

We’ll discuss this award-winning novel for young people.

Some questions for thought and discussion:

• What do you learn from this text about the Mexican-American migrant worker experience?
• How does Esperanza’s experience compare with the “undistinguished Americans” we discussed last week?
• Does the fact that this book is based on the author’s own family story give this work of fiction special authority or power?
• What are some of the themes and symbols explored in this book?
• What makes Esperanza “American”?
• How might (or should?) this book be used in a public school classroom?
• What is the social/political/racial context of this novel’s publication (2000)?

Mon 4/11 – Immigration and Migration

On Monday we’ll discuss differing views about American multiculturalism, including defining terms like nativism, assimilation, pluralism, the “melting pot,” and we’ll discuss the history of immigration history. Reading: “Huddled Masses” on the Digital History site (and Chapter 11 in Zinn if you have that book). You don’t have to read every essay online, but click on those which are least familiar to you or where you feel your background knowledge may be weak.

Wed 4/13 – Discussion Day: “Undistinguished Americans”

This remarkable book, first published in 1906, records oral histories with “ordinary Americans,” many of them immigrants. Much of the book has also been published at the Digital History site. We’ll divide up the stories; you’ll read 2 of them. Not everyone will be reading the same ones. Our class discussion will focus on these immigrant voices:

Who are they?
Why did they come?
What were the pushes and pulls?
What were their experiences after arriving in America?
What does it mean to be an immigrant?
Is America a pluralistic society or a melting pot (the title of Israel Zangwill’s popular 1908 stage play)?

In addition, EVERYONE will read Horace Kallen’s 1915 essay, “Democracy Versus the Melting Pot,” [pdf here], which articulates many of the ideas in the early 20th century about these immigrants and their place in America.

Fri 4/17 – Presentation Day #7 AND Research Paper Topic/Bibliography Due for Everyone (Research paper guidelines posted here)

Everyone else who still has a response paper to do should write one this week, we only have one more presentation day after this.

Presentation ideas:

• Explore the website for Ellis Island. If you have an ancestor you know came through this port, search for her or him. Check out the photographs, essays, and other materials on the website. Give us a “tour” of the site and your evaluation of its scope and usability.
• Research the story of young Cuban immigrant Elian Gonzalez. Why do you think his case set off such a firestorm of controversy? What were some of the divergent views about his situation? What has happened to him?
• Listen to the recent NPR “Morning Edition” 5-part series, by reporter Jason Bobien, traveling the entire US-Mexican border. What is so important about this region? What are some of the current issues, problems, and stories from the border?
• Read the 1908 play “The Melting Pot” by Israel Zangwill. This is the source of the famous image of America as a melting pot… what is the play about? Who are the characters? How is “the melting pot” portrayed in the drama?
• What does it take to become a citizen? Has that changed over time? Research and report on naturalization laws, perhaps by starting at the Immigration and Naturalization Service website. Do you get different information here than you do from an immigrant advocacy website, such as Immihelp.com? Why or why not?
• President Barack Obama’s aunt is currently living in the United States as an illegal alien (at least this was true in 2009, maybe it still is?). Explore and report on this story for us. What does this tell us about current policy, the state of the debate about citizenship and immigration, or the experiences of recent immigrants from her part of Africa? Obviously her story is unique because of her relationship to the President; is that the only reason her story got so much press?
• Watch and write a review of a film that deals with issues of immigration, citizenship, or border-crossing. If possible, show and discuss a short clip from the film in class. This list is one place to start, but the film you choose does not have to be on this list.
• Explore the online resources of the Library of Congress about immigration, and share some of your findings. What is there for social historians or for educators looking to include more immigrant stories into their classrooms?
• Research about the Statue of Liberty and the poem engraved on its base. How and when did the two (statue + poem) become linked? Why has the statue become such a symbol of American immigration?
• Explore some of the experiences of Vietnamese Boat People. How do their stories intersect with changes in US immigration policy in the 20th century?

Looking ahead to next week –

No class Monday April 18

Wed 4/22 – Hispanic America

Topics for lecture & reading: Mexican-American War, Texicans, Hispanic vs. Latino/a, LULAC, Cesar Chavez, Chicano/a, Bracero Program

Fri 4/24 – Discussion Day, of Pam Munoz Ryan’s youth novel Esperanza Rising (entire)

We’ll discuss this award-winning novel for young people.

What do you learn from this text about the Mexican-American migrant worker experience?
How does Esperanza’s experience compare with the “undistinguished Americans” we discussed last week?
Does the fact that this book is based on the author’s own family story give this work of fiction special authority or power?
What are some of the themes and symbols explored in this book?
What makes Esperanza “American”?
How might this book be used in a public school classroom?

This coming week we begin our third unit, on Social History as Ethnic and Immigration History. While we will mostly be focusing on immigration and migration, it’s important to begin that discussion with a look at the descendants of enslaved and trafficked African people in the United States. The outlines, events, and accomplishments of the civil rights movement in the 1950s-1960s are probably quite familiar to you (or should be!) – but you are less likely to be familiar with the earlier organizations, activists, and advocates for black equality during the era of Jim Crow (1890s-1940s) so I thought we would focus there first.

(If you’re using Zinn, this is Chapter 17)

Some people, organizations, movements or concepts to know, any of which could be a focus of Friday’s presentations:

Homer Plessy
Ida B. Wells
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. DuBois
Marcus Garvey/ Universal Negro Improvement Association
Mary McLeod Bethune
A. Philip Randolph/ Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Harlem Renaissance – and here’s another great site for it
Great Migration – see also here for the Chicago piece of the story, including the Chicago Defender newspaper
Josephine Baker
Bessie Smith
Langston Hughes
Alain Locke
Survey Graphic (March 1925): Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro (the link is to a preview on Google Books, not the whole thing)
Zora Neale Hurston
NAACP/ Niagara Movement
Congress on Racial Equality (CORE)
Martin Luther King, Sr.
Jackie Robinson – see also this remembrance from ESPN.com

We won’t have class today, the university is closed.

Our Exam will be on Monday in class instead. Enjoy the weekend, and be safe.

No presentations this week, because our Exam #2 will be on Friday, wrapping up our unit on social history as women’s history.

On Monday and Wednesday we’ll discuss the women’s movement and radical feminism in the 1960s. Here are some terms you may want to define for yourself and some people you should know –

Betty Friedan and her book, the 1963 Feminine Mystique – by the way, it is getting some new press, with a recent book out by Stephanie Coontz about the impact of Friedan 47 years ago (see, for example, Coontz’s interview on NPR Fresh Air in January). For other reflections on Friedan’s book, see this story in the Atlantic Magazine from 1999, or the original New York Times review of the book from 1963.

Gloria Steinem
“Second Wave” feminism (what was the first wave? are we in the third wave?)
Women’s liberation
Feminism
NOW (National Organization for Women)
Roe v. Wade
ERA
Phyllis Schlafly
Angela Davis
Barbara Smith/ Combahee River Collective
(If you have the Zinn book – this is Chapter 19)

The reading for Wednesday‘s discussion is a packet of 8 documents from the women’s movement ranging from 1966 to 1977. It can be found ON THE COURSE BLACKBOARD under the Assignments tab or from the link on the Announcements page. Please read it before class, and either print it (24 pages) or bring your laptops to access it for our class discussion.

If you’re interested in some of these topics for your research paper, try these for primary sources about second wave feminism:

Washington Women’s History Consortium
Notes from the First Year, Radical Women 1968
No More Miss America! (1968) – more on the Miss America protest here and here
How Feminism Works (from HowStuffWorks.com)

Enjoy your spring break!

The week we come back we’ll be jumping a century to the mid-20th century and looking at women’s lives in Cold War America (and think: does that political periodization make sense for a gendered history of that era?).

For Monday 3/21, read Rosenberg, “Cold War Fears, 1945-1961” OR Sara Evans, The Cold War and the Feminine Mystique.” Both provide good background & overview for our discussion/ presentation on Monday about mid-20th century women. If you’re presenting this week, you should read both.

Wednesday 3/23, bring your copy of Nancy Walker, Women’s Magazines, 1940-1960.
Yes, the entire book: it’s short. To prepare for class, read and be prepared to discuss at least 2 or 3 documents from each of the six chapters. We will have an in-class workshop day mining the book’s resources for what we can learn about American women in this era.

Questions to consider:

• What themes and ideas about gender and gender roles are raised by women’s magazines of this period?
• Was there more, or less, diversity in these views than you expected?
• How do these compare with or relate to prescriptive literature of the early 19th century?
• Are women following these gender roles, and how could we know?
• How can historians use these magazines as a source of information about women in this time period?
• What women are left out, defined as “unwomanly” or otherwise stretch/break gendered boundaries?
• What changes and continuities do you see over the 20 year period this book covers?

Friday 3/25 – Presentation Day #5
(Don’t forget: if you’re not presenting this week, it is a perfect opportunity to write a response paper! You can use any of the suggestions below as the basis for the response paper, or respond to any of the documents in Walker’s book or the Evans or Rosenberg readings)

Here are some suggestions and ideas for this week’s presenters:

• Listen to and use the 12/16/08 episode of NPR’s On Point radio show. The guest was Sister Soulja. How does her voice and perspective expand the notion of American women’s experiences in the 20th century?
• Discuss images of women working in factories during WW2, such as the Rosie the Riveter painting (Saturday Evening Post, May 1943) by Norman Rockwell, or the “We Can Do It” government poster. How were such depictions both feminine and patriotic? For more information, steer clear of the Wikipedia article and explore other resources on the web, such as the National Park Service, the Rosie Riveter park in California, or an archived StoryCorps oral history with the daughter of “Dot the Welder.”
• Choose one of the chapters in Walker’s book and analyze the articles by comparing them to each other. In your presentation, give us a “guided tour” of the chapter’s primary sources, providing your expert commentary along the way.
• Explore the website “Levittown: Documents of an Ideal Suburb.” Do a little research into Levittown (actually that should be plural, Levittowns: there were three), and use the photographs and memories recorded in Hale’s affectionate tribute site to explore women’s experiences in the preeminent postwar suburb.
• Black women in 1950s popular culture were frequently portrayed using the derogatory “mammy” stereotype, even when those “mammies” were major characters in film or television, giving some limited exposure to African-American actresses. Explore this as an alternative image for American women. You might use the online Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia (search under “Mammy Caricature”), for example.
• Compare what we’ve learned from Walker with women’s magazine for black women in the 1950s. You could begin here, or by reading this review of Noliwe Rook’s book Ladies Pages.
• Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 – right in the middle of this period of heightened attention to female domesticity, public presence, and women’s work. Explore her story in the context of Walker’s collection about women, work, and femininity. Primary sources about her arrest are at the National Archives website, or at a nice website maintained by the Montgomery Advertiser.
• Explore women’s fashions from 1940 to 1960 – in this case the Wikipedia article is pretty decent, or check out Costume Gallery, Glamour Daze, or 1950s Fashions, or any one of the recent blog posts or periodical articles devoted to the look of the early 1960s-era AMC program Mad Men.

(Image credit: http://getglamorous.blogspot.com/2007/11/past-glam-1953-marilyn-monroe-lustre.html)