US History II

I will be on campus for my regular office hours today but class is cancelled.

Please review Chapter 26 in preparation for our workshop on Wednesday 4/10. The Exam 3 study guide is here.

Also remember that the online Quiz (Chapter 27) is open now on Blackboard, and closes on Friday morning 4/12. Since that’s our exam day, you want to make sure you take care of it early in the week so it doesn’t interfere with your exam studying.

Thanks, and see you Wednesday!
Prof. Hangen

Mon 4/1 – Cold War America. Reading: ACH Ch 25 (skim/take notes on entire chapter) 

Wed 4/3 – Workshop Day: McCarthyism. Review ACH Ch 24-25 – BRING LAPTOPS, please

Fri 4/5 – The Middle Class Triumphant. Reading ACH Ch 26 p. 787-806. Quiz opens up, on Chapter 27. SkillBuilder #6 due. Exam study guide will be handed out.

Mon 4/8 – Gender, Sex and the Family in the ’50s. Reading: ACH Ch 26 p. 807-815

Wed 4/10 – Workshop Day: the Suburbs. Review ACH Ch 26

Fri 4/12 – Exam #3 in class. Online Quiz closes at 9:00 am.

Photo: consider the “nuclear” family (in both senses of the word) at the lively blog Envisioning the American Dream – perfect for this unit!

1954 trailer for THEM!

“I have in my hand…”

Anticommunism dominated American politics and culture in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The name of the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, has since become synonymous with the entire Second Red Scare era, although his own political career peak was only from 1950 to 1954. McCarthyism seemed to many a kind of cultural hysteria, a madness, infecting Congress and Washington, Hollywood, workplaces, and public life. To others, it was a deadly earnest effort to keep America free from subversion and potential nuclear annihilation.

Inspired by the NCAA tournament (March Madness), today’s workshop is a Sweet Sixteen bracket of primary sources relating to Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism. Who will dominate?

Working in groups, you have ten minutes to decide the winner between various sets of primary sources by trying to convince the other team your document is more important/interesting/useful to historians. By 15 past the hour, we will have our champion #1 source of the McCarthy era.

Remember to use your primary source analysis skills as you build your case: Who wrote or made this? When? Why? What does it say? What does it NOT say? What point of view or political ideology does it express? How could historians use it now; what message does it provide about McCarthy or his cultural context?

Some of the documents are in paper form, others you’ll need to access online:

Herblock Cartoons (pick ONE winner in the first round from your assigned group of 3)

Newsman Edward R. Murrow’s closing oratory for his TV show “See it Now” March 9, 1954

1952 Wisconsin Republican Primary Campaign Brochure, “What Has McCarthy Done for Wisconsin?”

Senate Censure of Joseph McCarthy (1954)

In this unit we study World War II (both abroad and at home) and the transition to the Cold War (both abroad and at home) and end with middle-class culture of the 1950s. We’re drawing mainly from Chapters 24 -26. During this unit you’ll have two workshops, two SkillBuilders, an online quiz (on Chapter 27) and an exam. Some of you were given the option to revise your Primary Source papers – if so, the revision packets are due back to me on Mon, April 1st.

Mon 3/25 – Road to War, Organizing for Victory. Reading ACH Ch 24 p. 724-739. Handout: Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech, January 1941

Today’s link: Simon Schama, “The Power of Art: Picasso’s Guernica” (on Youtube, in 4 parts – we watched a bit of Parts 1 and 4 in class, but the whole show is terrific)

Wed 3/27 – Life on the WW2 Homefront. Reading ACH Ch 24 p. 739-745. Handout on Gordon Hirabayashi

Links for today:

“It’s Everybody’s War” (1945) – 15 minute OWI promo showing homefront civilian commitment to the war effort, narrated by Henry Fonda

NPR Fresh Air interview with Lynne Olsen, author of a new book on the America First committee and the debate over whether the US should enter WW2 1939-1941 (3/26/13)

Fri 3/29 – Fighting and Winning the War. Reading ACH Ch 24 p. 745-756. SkillBuilder #5 due. Handout: Adam Kirsch, “Is World War II Still ‘The Good War’?” (NYT, 5/27/11)

Mon 4/1 – Cold War America. Reading: ACH Ch 25 (skim/take notes on entire chapter) 

Wed 4/3 – Workshop Day: McCarthyism. Review ACH Ch 24-25 – BRING LAPTOPS, please

Fri 4/5 – The Middle Class Triumphant. Reading ACH Ch 26 p. 787-806. Quiz opens up, on Chapter 27. SkillBuilder #6 due.

Mon 4/8 – Gender, Sex and the Family in the ’50s. Reading: ACH Ch 26 p. 807-815

Wed 4/10 – Workshop Day: the Suburbs. Review ACH Ch 26

Fri 4/12 – Exam #3 in class. Online Quiz closes at 9:00 am.

(Photo credit: from here)

Links for listening and discussion:

“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (NPR)
“I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams” (Bing Crosby)
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Wizard of Oz, 1939)
WPA Posters (Library of Congress)

Google Doc “1930s Workshop” edited during class on Wednesday – USE this to study for Friday’s exam!

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.

School is cancelled today because of the snowstorm. If you are done with your paper you may email it to me. If you’d like to keep working on it, I will also accept your printed paper on Monday 3/11 in class. Reminder that the reading for Monday is ACH Ch 23 p. 711-723 “The New Deal’s Impact on Society.”

Note: the online quiz is STILL OPENING today at 9:00 am. It will be open, for up to 3 attempts (20 minutes per attempt) from now until 9:00 am Friday March 15th.

Here are the slides I would have used in class today; you can study from these along with pages 696-711 in your textbook. Click on the fullscreen icon to enlarge the slides. I realize there’s an error on slide 7 – the Bonus Army was in 1932, NOT 1929.

Take care, see you Monday!

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!

Today for our workshop, you’ll work to find a brief (but historically accurate) group answer to your assigned question, and then present your findings to the rest of the class. Within your group you should have enough people to fill at least these roles, although the whole group should work together on the research:

A scribe (completes the worksheet)
A spokesperson (reports to the rest of the class – 1-2 minutes MAX)
A fact-checker (assesses the quality/reliability of the sources your group uses)
Researchers (locating and synthesizing information)

You can use additional resources if you want, but steer clear of Wikipedia, Infoplease, Ask.com, YahooAnswers and similar sites.

Your group should be ready to report at 5 after the hour!

Online Resources

Early Jazz or 1920s Jazz (PBS Culture Shock)
American Jazz Culture in the Early 1920s (University of Minnesota Duluth)
Harlem History – Columbia University
Harlem: A History in Pictures – New York Metro
Harlem Renaissance and the Flowering of Creativity (Library of Congress)
The Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Harlem Renaissance (John Carroll University, best view in Internet Explorer)
Digital Harlem (University of Sydney)
The Cotton Club of Harlem (Encyclopedia Britannica)
The Cotton Club (PBS)
Marcus Garvey, UNIA Papers (UCLA)
Marcus Garvey (National Humanities Center)
“After 200 Years, 125th is Still Harlem’s Main Street” (Columbia Spectator)
Harlem 1900-1940 (Schomburg Center)

And from the “Harlem’s Still the Symbolic Heart of American Black Culture” department –

“Long Before the Harlem Shake…” (NPR)
and
“Fader Explains: The Harlem Shake” (Fader)
“The Harlem Shake is Dead, Long Live the Harlem Shake” (Time)

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.