US History II

Reminder – please bring the Fernlund book AND your laptop to our workshop on Wednesday March 13th!

Exam #2 will be on Friday during class. Download the study guide here if you didn’t get one in class yet. Remember that the online quiz closes at 9:00 am on Friday morning, so make sure you’ve taken it at least once by then.

Over the next 2 weeks, we’ll go from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression to the New Deal and slow economic recovery. What happened? Why? And with what effect? What kinds of sources do historians have to help us understand the causes and impact of the financial crash? Where do historians disagree about the Depression and the 1930s? What does the Great Depression have to tell us about the Great Recession?

Reminder – keep working on your Primary Source paper due Friday. I do have office hours this week – stop in with a draft & your Fernlund book in hand if you want help. I have also let the Writing Center know that some of my students might be stopping in this week and sent them a copy of the assignment and handouts (location: Sullivan 306).

Last Friday’s handout: Test Your Thesis + Checklist for the final draft (PDF)

Mon 3/4 – The Crash and Great Depression. Reading ACH Ch 22/23 p. 678-700; want more information? Short version: “Overview of the Great Depression” (Digital History). Longer, more detailed version: “An Overview of the Great Depression” (Economic History Association)

We screened and discussed this documentary clip in class (excerpt from PBS American Experience New York)

Wed 3/6 – The First New Deal (1933-1935). Reading ACH Ch 23 p. 700-707.

Clips for viewing and discussion:

FDR’s First Inaugural (3 March 1933)

“Remember My Forgotten Man” from Gold Diggers of 1933

Fri 3/8 – Second New Deal (1935-1938). Reading ACH Ch 23 p. 707-711. Primary Source Paper due. On this day, the online quiz (on ACH Ch 20) will open, and remain open until Friday March 15 at 9:00 am. You can take it up to three times during that week. Update: snow day. Paper deadline extended to Monday.

Mon 3/11 – Impact of the New Deal. Reading ACH Ch 23 p. 711-723. Final printed Primary Source paper due in class if you haven’t emailed it to me already.

Wed 3/13 – Workshop Day on the 1930s. Bring Fernlund Documents AND YOUR LAPTOP to class, and review ACH Ch 23.

Fri 3/15 – Exam #2 in class. Online quiz closes at 9:00 am. NO SKILLBUILDER DUE.

Spring Break – Week of March 18 – have a wonderful vacation!

This week we’re talking about the 1920s: an introduction to modernity and modernism on Monday based on the first part of Chapter 22, and on Wednesday an in-class workshop on the Harlem Renaissance (read ACH Ch 22 673-687) – please bring laptops on Wednesday 2/27. If you want a sneak preview of online resources, check this page of Harlem Renaissance links.

Reminder: be working on a draft of your Primary Source paper, using any two documents of your choice from the reader. The draft is due as a printed paper in class on Friday 3/1.

For your MDQ (Monday Daily Question) this week you practiced writing identifications and also making footnotes. In checking my advice handout I found I had made a mistake myself on the handout (believe me, I know it’s hard to get footnotes right!).

The correct form for citing a document in Fernlund’s book is (using Document 20-8 as an example):

3. Booker T. Washington, “Atlanta Exposition Address,” Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (1900), in Documents for America’s History: Volume 2: Since 1865, ed. Kevin J. Fernlund (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011), 142.

Reminder: No class on Monday, Feb 18th (President’s Day)

Unit Overview: This week we begin unit #2, on the US from 1890-1940. Our main chapters will be 22 and 23, with a short 2-day overview of Chapter 21. This unit’s online quiz will cover Chapter 20 and will be open March 8-15. Also during this unit, you will be writing a longer (5-page) essay based on two primary sources of your choosing (see the tab above for guidelines). A draft of the paper is due on March 1 and the final version due on March 8. The unit exam will be on Friday, March 15.

Wed 2/20 Imperialism and Foreign Policy – Reading ACH Ch 21 pp. 629-641 (slides posted below)

Fri 2/22 World War I – Reading ACH Ch 21 pp. 641-658. SkillBuilder #4 due by the time class starts – pick a SkillBuilder document from Chapter 20 or 21. Also – by this date, choose the two documents you plan to write about for the Primary Source Project.

Questions to think about as you read this week:
How and why did the US become an “emerging world power” at the start of the 20th century?
What were the international and domestic consequences of American military, cultural and economic expansion?
Who supported and who opposed American imperialism?
How did the nation move from neutrality to participation in World War I?
What kinds of sources and documents do we have to help us understand this era?

Wednesday’s slides were rather text-heavy, so I’m posting for easier notetaking – click fullscreen icon to enlarge

This week, we’ll be reading Chapter 17 and exploring the history of business, industrialization, labor unions, and immigration. Those are big forces, so we will try to understand them not only as broad collective movements and trends, but also at the level of the individual, the family, and the community. Also, don’t forget to take the online quiz (on Ch 19) by 9:00 am Friday 2/8!

Mon 2/4 – Big Business Getting Bigger. We will have our first Monday Daily Question (MDQ) right at the start of class. Come having read ACH Ch 17 p. 506 – 521 (the syllabus says 522 but it ends on 521). The reading is once again posted on Blackboard in case there’s still someone without a 5th edition. Click here for a link to Harvard’s trade card exhibit I mentioned in class, and here are Monday’s slides (click the fullscreen icon to enlarge):

Wed 2/6 – Immigrants, East and West. Reading = ACH Ch 17 p. 533 – 528. Who was coming to the US as an immigrant in the late 19th century? What were their prospects as new Americans? Who could, and who couldn’t, become a US citizen? Where did new arrivals live and find work?

Links we’ll use in class on Wednesday:
The Great American Melting Pot
Photos of New York’s immigrant neighborhoods from “How the Other Half Lives” (Jacob Riis/ UVA Xroads)
Immigration Explorer Map (New York Times)
The Chinese in California 1850-1925 (Library of Congress)
Ellis Island Museum and Foundation

Fri 2/8 – Labor Gets Organized. Reading = ACH Ch 17 p. 528 – 537. SkillBuilder #3 is due by the start of class. Online Quiz #1 will close at 9:00 am. Update: if the weather is bad on Friday and school is cancelled, no worries – just email your paper, and make sure you’ve taken the online quiz. I will send out or post the slides & notes from that day if we don’t have class.

Friday’s topic is the dispossession of American native peoples and their fierce resistance to these policies, especially Plains Indians in the late 19th century.

Reading: CH 16 pp. 494-505 (once again posted on Blackboard as a PDF, hopefully for the last time – everyone should have a 5th edition by this weekend; if not, please let me know via email).

Due: SkillBuilder #2. If you are still without the reader, check here for alternative documents. Consult the syllabus or the SkillBuilders tab (above) for guidelines, and here’s the advice handout in case you need it again. If you need help with Chicago Style footnotes, use the links in the left sidebar.

Online quiz: on Friday morning, an online open-book 12-point quiz will open up in “Quizzes” on Blackboard. You will have ONE WEEK to take the quiz up to 3 times, with 30 minutes per attempt. The questions and/or the possible answers may be randomized for each new attempt. The quiz questions all come from Chapter 19, which is the chapter in this unit we are *not* reading for class. The quiz will be open from Friday Feb 1st at 9:00 am to Friday Feb 8 at 9:00 am. Quiz grades are relatively low-stakes, but are required- I do not drop any of the quizzes.

(Image: Chaiwa – Tewa woman, photographed by Edward Curtis, courtesy of the Library of Congress)

This week we’re reading and working with the material in Chapter 16 of both the textbook and the reader.

General News: The new correct books are now in stock at the bookstore! To exchange, you’ll need to bring BOTH parts of the bundle you bought there, along with your receipt, and you can get the new set (same reader + 5th edition of the textbook) for a mere $4.51 more. You can’t just bring the textbook and swap it out for the new one, you need to return the entire bundle and get a new bundle in its place.

Also: in class I handed out the updated syllabus page 6, with all the due dates, readings, and topics for the whole semester, based on your votes. I’ve linked to it in the sidebar in case you need another copy at some point during the term. I also handed out a page of advice about the SkillBuilder assignments.

Monday 1/28 – Reading = ACH Ch 16 p. 475 – 484

Wednesday 1/30 – Reading ACH Ch 16 p. 484 – 494. Workshop Day on the “Wild West” – please bring your laptops to class.

Friday 2/1 – SkillBuilder #2 due – if you don’t yet have the reader, please use one of these alternative documents. Reading = ACH Ch 16 p. 494 – 505. Also on this day, an online quiz will open up in Blackboard on Chapter 19 (which we are not covering in class). It will be open until Friday, Feb 8 at 9:00 am and during that time you can take it up to three times. Please remember to take it!

Thanks to all who submitted SkillBuilder #1 today either in paper or via email. If you sent it by email you will get it back by email, by Tuesday of next week. Make sure you got an email confirmation that I received it, otherwise – I didn’t get your paper. Papers submitted in hard copy during class will likely be returned on Monday. Remember you have another one due on Friday, February 1 and for those who don’t yet have the reader I will expand the alternative/online source options over the weekend.

You might want to fill in the rest of the note page that we began in class today as you complete and review the readings from Chapter 15 (if you missed class, here’s the notes page).

The voting is in! The most popular chapters were 16, 23, 24 and 28. On Monday I’ll distribute an updated syllabus page with all the details about what to read and where our deeper focus will lie in each of the course’s four units. During Unit 1, we’ll be using Chapters 16 and 17 most. For Monday please read Henretta ACH Ch 16 p. 474-484. Those pages are posted as a PDF on Blackboard if you are still awaiting a 5th edition of the textbook.

Take the Quiz Online! Also, I’ve put up a short quiz on Blackboard that should be available now until Monday at noon. You can take it up to three times (15 minutes per attempt) and I’d recommend that you try it more than once so you get a feel for how the online quizzes and re-takes work on Blackboard. Your score will show up in My Grades (so I can check the automatic score reporting functions) but will not count towards your grade.

PS – Got 11 minutes? Listen to this podcast from NPR’s Planet Money on how (and when) we got the dollar bill. It may surprise you. In your reading for Monday, Henretta mentions on p. 478 that the Republicans, now firmly back in power in Congress and the White House after the end of Reconstruction, developed a national banking system – but there’s much more to the story. The clip’s too long to play in class but it’s worth a listen.

(a Civil War-era 2 dollar note from a New York Bank)

I’ve posted some links to online primary sources suitable for use in the first SkillBuilder, in case you don’t yet have the documents reader – just click on the SkillBuilder1 tab above. Hopefully that will get us started while we’re all waiting for the replacement texts to arrive.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our investigation groups in class today! Here’s what to do before we next meet on Wednesday, 1/23.

1) Read the syllabus. You got a paper version in class, or click in the left sidebar for a full-color PDF or online flipbook version.

2) Read Chapter 15 pages 446 to 466 in Henretta, America: A Concise History 5th edition. Your books should look like this:

If you have the 4th edition of the Henretta text instead, then read pages 437-456. If your book is still shrink-wrapped, you might want to leave it that way for easier return to the bookstore. I have contacted them to let them know their mistake and to ask how we can resolve it, and I will let you know their answer as soon as I find out what the options are.

If you do not have the textbook yet, I’ve made a PDF of the first reading assignment and put it on Blackboard, so check there.

3) Take this poll to see what topics we’ll look at in greater detail this semester.

4) If you have the Documents book, you can begin on your first SkillBuilder assignment which is due Friday, Jan 25. This assignment is explained in the syllabus on p. 4 or under the “SkillBuilders” tab above.