US History II

The University is closed today, Monday 10/31/11 so there will be no class today. I will make the following adjustments to the syllabus: The exam will be FRIDAY of this week (11/4/11), not this Wednesday. Then we will make some alterations to the schedule and timing of the next unit and I will have that printed and the electronic version will be updated when we next meet on Wednesday, Nov 2.

For Wednesday please read a short 6-page essay by Terry Tempest Williams, entitled “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” (PDF), also posted on the course Blackboard under “Documents”.

Handouts so far:
Unit 3 overview + atomic bomb documents (4 pages)
Kennan Telegram + NCS-68 excerpt (2 pages)

Powerpoint slides for Monday, 10/24 lecture on the origins, key documents, politics, and foreign policy strategies of the early Cold War (1945-1952)

Useful links:

Interactive map of Europe in the 20th century (BBC)
George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow in 1946 (full text online)
Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech, delivered March 1946
Economic Recovery Act of 1948, aka “The Marshall Plan”
The Truman Doctrine speech, 1947
NSC-68, 1950 top-secret policy report, declassified in 1975 (see the full page-by-page scan at the Truman Library)
Digital History, Cold War (online textbook)
Cold War Museum

This is a short unit, dealing with America in the early Cold War, the atomic age, and the era of McCarthyism. The online quiz will open on Monday by classtime and close on midnight Friday Oct 28 and will be drawn from Chapter 28 of your textbook.

Fri, Oct 21: Dawn of the Atomic Age, with film clips (see below). Reading to do prior to class: EH 27 750-769.

Mon, Oct 24: The Cold War; please have read EH 27: 757-769 before coming to class.

Wed, Oct 26: Workshop Day, bring laptops to class; no assigned reading but review your previous readings

Fri, Oct 28: Who was McCarthy and how did he become an “ism”? Skill Builder 5 is due. Please read EH 27: 769-777

Mon, Oct 31: Americans and the Bomb, or the Atom in popular culture. Please read an essay by Terry Tempest Williams, “Clan of the One-Breasted Woman” (PDF)

Wed, Nov 2: Exam #3 in class. The exam will use material from our class sessions and Chapters 27 and 28. It will NOT be open book or open note.

Nuclear Bomb Test images (Retronaut)

Video links for class on Friday 10/21:
“Atomic Attack” 1950 film/ NYC attack, family bomb shelter (46:00)
“Duck and Cover” 1951 civil defense film for children (9:15)
“Survival Under Atomic Attack” 1951 civil defense film (8:45)
“A is for Atom” 1953 film cheerleading peaceful uses of atomic energy (14:26)
“Operation Cue” 1955 nuclear test film (15:00) – this film depicts the “Apple-2” test shot from the “Teapot” series on 5 May 1955 in Nevada
“Nuclear Test Film #55” civil defense film (15:00, wonky soundtrack)

American experiences in wartime – some multimedia resources

American Indian veterans
True Whispers, The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers (PBS)

Zoot Suit Riots, Los Angeles 1943
PBS documentary/resources
What is a zoot suit? See “Chucos Suaves” (YouTube)
Related to jitterbugging Lindy dancers of the era: e.g. “Whitey’s Lindyhoppers”

Japanese-American Internment
See the well-designed digital archive, JARDA (Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive)

Small town homefronts
Office of War Information promotional film (1945) “It’s Everybody’s War,” narrated by Henry Fonda (courtesy of Internet Archives)

Last Friday, we brainstormed some questions – things we were curious about & wanted to know about World War II. On Wednesday the 12th I have arranged for some activities to help us get at those questions.

There will be 4 “stations” set up during our class time. We will all start in the classroom together and then break into groups. You’ll have the chance to visit 2 stations on Wednesday in class, and if we want to keep the workshop going we can repeat it or extend it onto Friday so you can visit 1 or 2 more.

The stations will be:
–working with one of our reference librarians to answer your own questions about the war (“open inquiry”) so you’ll need your laptops for that one
–listening to radio programs, radio commercials, and/or popular music of the war on CD
–viewing newsreels and/or wartime-era cartoons
–working with archival documents from the time period

You will choose 2, one for the first half of the class and one for the second half of the class.

Bring your curiosity and your laptop! See you in class.

This unit focuses on American experiences during World War II (1941-1945). Chapter 25 is background, on the Depression and the New Deal and the changes in the economy and the structure of government, society and culture that preceded the entry of the United States into the Second World War. Chapter 26 concerns both the progress of the war on its fronts overseas and at home.

Wednesday, Oct 5 we will begin by asking questions and mining documents about the beginning of the war: the attack on Pearl Harbor, mobilization, and the internment of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Reading: EH 725-737

Friday, Oct 7 is an overview of the war. It is, of course, a very complex 5-year event around the globe, so this will be fairly basic to give you a sense of the chronology of this era. Reading: EH 737-742, and also use this online interactive resource (made by History.com, the History Channel): http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/interactives

Monday, Oct 10 – no class, Columbus Day

Wednesday, Oct 12 is a second in-class “workshop” day – we will use a variety of primary sources from the World War II era, including documents, posters, photographs, music, and newsreels and/or cartoons.

On Friday, Oct 14 we will look at portrayals of the Second World War in film, and your 4th Skill Builder is due.

Monday, Oct 17: a discussion of the end of the war; Reading is EH 742-749.

The Unit 2 exam is Wednesday, Oct 19.

Here’s the clip we watched in class today, and here’s a link to more clips of the film, including its original trailer and some of the other big Broadway-type numbers embedded into the story – which concerns efforts to stage a successful play in hard times. The actress is Joan Blondell, and the wonderful African-American blues singer is Etta Moten. If you’re interested in more on the culture (literature, art, film and radio) of the 1930s, I highly recommend Morris Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (Norton, 2009).

Two clips I will be using in class as we talk about Constitutional amendments 13-19:

Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream” (1963)

Ken Burns, “Prohibition: The Time is Now”

Note: New tab above, “Exam Advice” – to help you improve your exam skills, based on what I’m seeing from in-class writing exercises

Resources for today’s class:

(Click for larger image)

Web resources:
Custer Battlefield Museum http://www.custermuseum.org/ (note this is a private for-profit museum; the battlefield’s name has changed)
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Website http://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm
The Battle of Little Bighorn on PBS – The West http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm (resource page from a 2001 PBS series)
Battle of the Little Bighorn on Eyewitness to History http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm (a commercial site, note the ads)
Website for groups involved in Little Bighorn Annual Re-enactments http://www.littlebighornreenactment.com/
Little Bighorn Photo Gallery http://www.mohicanpress.com/battles/ba04002.html (an amateur/commerical site, note, site has automatic music)
Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/ (fundraising organization for the monument)
Little Bighorn Associates http://www.thelbha.org/ (scholarly society dedicated to history of the battle)
“How the Battle of Little Bighorn was Won” http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/How-the-Battle-of-Little-Bighorn-Was-Won.html (online article from Smithsonian Magazine)
Gallery of images at History.com http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-the-little-bighorn/photos (a commercial site)

Online Historical Newspaper/Periodical Archives
Making of America (Cornell University)

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection (1859-1923) – same kind of search engine as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Library of Congress “Chronicling America” historic newspapers (1880-1922)

California Digital Newspaper Collection

Quincy, Illinois Historical Newspaper Archive (1835-1919)

The Harvard Crimson (starts in 1873)

Sioux County, Nebraska, Newspaper Archives (1872 to the present)

Wyoming Newspaper Project

Based on the class’s voting last Friday, the syllabus for the rest of the course is now set and will be handed out in class. It has also been added to the electronic versions of the syllabus posted on Blackboard and in the left-hand sidebar of this site. You may also download the new syllabus table as a 2-page PDF document.

This week will be one of the semester’s busiest. Your reading includes parts of 2 chapters for our in-class discussions and work, and 2 others for the online quiz. In addition, your second Skill Builder is due on Friday the 16th. See the new “Skill Builders” tab (above) for more information on that assignment.

The online quiz #1 is now open, until midnight on Friday the 16th. You can take it multiple times. Each time you take it, you will have 20 questions to answer, but each re-take may have different questions since there are more than 20 all together. Total points possible are 22 points. You have 15 minutes for each attempt. At the close of the quiz availability period, Blackboard will automatically record your highest-scoring attempt. The questions are drawn from Chapters 20 and 21 of your textbook. You may use your textbook as a resource for the quiz, but you will still need to study it well before taking the quiz.

The week at a glance:

Mon 9/12 – discussion of the textbook & its resources; introduction to our unit on the American West.

Wed 9/14 – Read Chapter 19 before class. Come prepared to discuss what the US was like in the 1870s: technologically, economically, politically, and culturally.

Fri 9/16 – Skill Builder 2 is due. Recommended topics: either the Dueling Documents on p. 452, or the Historian’s Toolbox on p. 465. Before class, please read Chapter 18, pp. 471-472 (which is a slight correction from the syllabus) and pp. 480-490. Be able to define the term “frontier” and explain what it means in context of the American West in the late 19th century.