US History II

This past weekend, I read an interesting editorial essay in the Boston Globe Magazine from a college senior who’d done a semester abroad in Britain, which has an entirely different model of higher education from ours. I was struck by something he said: since they have only a weekly “tutorial” with their instructors, students must be self-directed and treat schoolwork as if it’s their job. Which… it is. Consequently, they spend hours studying, or as they put it, “revising.”

The results of Exam 1 suggest that some of you may need to take the coursework more seriously, but also, that many of you may benefit from strengthening the skills of independent studying – since, as I explained the syllabus, we cannot cover everything in class. You need to be aware of how you learn best, and make sure that you are taking responsibility for your own learning. Knowledge is not something “the professor gives you,” it is something you make for yourself.

Especially if your Daily Work grade and your exam grade are both below where you want them, then answer these questions honestly:

1) Do you do the assigned textbook reading, before class?

2) Do you take notes in class?

3) Are you spending 2-3 hours of studying on your own, for each hour of classtime (i.e. 6-10 hours a week)?

4) During that study time, do you take notes on the textbook? Highlighting is not the same as note-taking.

5) Do you copy over, revise, or index your class notes? See below for recommended reading on some handy methods and suggestions about how to do that.

6) Are you using any of the tools on Norton Study Space? Those include flashcards, quizzes, map exercises, and a printable outline of each chapter.

If you answer “No” to any of those questions, then those should be your first fixes to improve your performance in this class.

If you answered “Yes” to all of them, and you still did poorly on the exam or you are struggling with the Daily Work and the Document Responses, then please schedule a meeting with me during my office hours. Perhaps we can identify where your trouble lies, and brainstorm a strategy to go forward, possibly with the assistance of the (free!) tutoring service of the Academic Success Center here on campus.

Recommended Reading:

Advice for Students: Taking Notes That Work (Stepcase LifeHack)
Geek to Live: Take Study-Worthy Lecture Notes (LifeHacker)
The Cornell Note Method (HackCollege)
More Free Cornell Method Forms Here

For Wednesday, 9/29 – Chapter 25. It’s only in retrospect, of course, that we refer to the war in 1914-1918 as “World War I.” At the time, and until 1941, it was simply “The Great War.” What made it “great”? What was horrifically new about the way this war was conducted? What began with the Great War; what did it end?

If there was one popular song of the war, it was patriotic songster George M. Cohan’s catchy tune, “Over There.” You can listen to the audio here, or see some newsreel/army film clips and hear a poorer-quality rendition on this Youtube video. Even the title (Over There) suggests the emotional distance many Americans had from the conflict, and the lack of national unity with which we entered the war. You can see that as well in Wilson’s effort to convince the Congress that American participation would make the world “safe for democracy.” Did it?

On Friday 10/1, we’ll look at nativism and efforts to Americanize people living within the borders of the US during this era in Chapter 26, “The Modern Temper.” Were those efforts an outgrowth of Progressivism, or do they have their genesis somewhere else in American culture? Who was affected? How successful were Americanization campaigns?

This week, we’re looking at three big themes in America at the turn of the last century: imperialism, progressivism, and conflicts over suffrage. Read and study Chapters 23 and 24 in the “blue book,” and the documents between pp. 104 and 152 in the “red book.” We will have our first exam on Monday the 27th, covering chapters 19-24. As you study for your exam, focus especially on the review questions, terms, and concepts that are highlighted at the end of each chapter; and don’t forget you have free access to all of the study resources on the textbook’s Norton Study Space also (that link is in the left sidebar).

On Monday 9/20, we will discuss the expansion of American territory and military power in the last years of the 19th century, including the Spanish-American War and other “police actions” overseas (ANH, Ch 23 and FTR 104-121). As we will see, not everyone agreed that this was a good idea – but often for quite different reasons. Think about how public opinion lines up now for & against overseas military intervention. How was it the same or different in the 1890s?

For Wednesday 9/22, we see the legacy of the Populist movement and cultural responses to urban growth and political stalemate in the rise of Progressivism (ANH, Ch 24 122-132 and 136-152). What does the term “Progressive” mean today? Is it a positive or negative word? What did it mean in the 1880s-1920s? Who were Progressives, and would they even have agreed that they were all part of one movement?
Links for today’s discussion: Bell CA, Progressivism Concept Map

On Friday 9/24, there’s no particular reading assigned from the ANH chapter, but it will help if you go back and review the sections in our previous chapters that have dealt with voting rights – for African-Americans and for women. The reading is just FTR, pp. 133-135. In class we will look at campaigns for/against the expansion of suffrage in the late 19th century and up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. What’s happening with the right to vote in this time period; is it expanding, or contracting? How can we explain high voter turnout even though not all Americans were permitted to vote? Who do you think should be allowed to vote? Do we have too many or too few today? And have you registered to vote yet, and are you planning to participate in the midterm elections in a few weeks? If you are eligible to vote but you are not planning to, does that mean that the people who fought for your right to vote did so in vain?

I’ve added the PowerPoint slides to the “DR” page, and I’m also embedding them here, to help you as you write your Document Responses each week. Starting this week, papers without correctly cited footnotes cannot earn more than a score of 1.

There is a lot of reading this week: the second half of Chapter 19, and all of Chapters 20-22. This week is probably the fastest-paced of the entire semester. Remember to use the study resources on Norton Study Space to get more out of the textbook, and to keep up with the reading even though we cannot cover everything in class.

The week begins with a look at the region of the American West and at the profound social, political, economic, and physical transformations from 1865-1900. Then we’ll discuss the rise of big business and organized labor (labor unions), and the emergence of American cities and urban reform. On Friday, we’ll discuss national politics of the late 19th century and the rise of protest and populist movements.

This era is often called the “Gilded Age.” Consider why it got the nickname, and be looking for signs of not only incredible growth and prosperity, but also incredible destitution and suffering. How did the “American dream” fare during this period, and who was able to achieve it? You won’t catch every detail of all the reading and the primary documents, but see if you can glean big patterns, see commonalities among the primary sources, or see what kinds of issues they argue over. What were the fault lines in this turbulent era? And how can we use our sources to explore it?

We’re starting our semester where we’ll finish – at the end. For Wednesday 9/8, please read Josh Levin’s article for Slate.com magazine, titled “How is America Going to End?” It was published about a year ago, and reflects on several different scenarios for the “end of America,” whatever that might mean. It’s several essays bundled together – so look at at least a few of them. Levin postulates the nation will be radically altered by climate change, or fracture into several smaller nations, or fall under totalitarian rule. Are these likely, in your view? Where do you think the nation is headed? What strikes you as the greatest threat to our nation’s stability or security?

And (here’s the kicker) – how do you think studying the American past can help you make sense of your present and your future? In other words, FOR YOU, what parts of the American past do you most want to know about, or think are the most valuable for understanding where we are and where we’re headed?

You don’t need to print the articles, but you should have read them and be able to access them (or your notes on them) so you can speak intelligently about them in our class discussion.

In this course, we explore the history of the United States since end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Students will learn about broad themes in American history, including immigration, race and ethnicity, social and political reform, mobility and population growth, contested meanings of freedom, industrialization, cycles of prosperity and recession, popular culture, modernity, and rights movements. Students will also develop ways of thinking historically through critical analysis of primary and secondary sources; setting events, documents and people in their historical contexts; and crafting interpretations and historical narratives from the “raw material” of the past. In this course, students should expect to do much more than memorize facts or dates – you will be busy actively doing history, not passively learning about history.

In Fall 2010, I am teaching HI 112 on Mon/Wed/Fri at 9:30 am (HI 112-03) – Room S-314. Think of this site as the Grand Central Station (or, for the local analogy, Union Station) for the course.

Our required readings will be:

George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi, America: A Narrative History 8th edition (WW Norton), ISBN: 978-0393934076 – read this one at home (“blue book”)

David Emory Shi and Holly Mayer, For the Record: A Documentary History of America: From Reconstruction through Contemporary Times 4th edition (WW Norton), ISBN: 978-0393934045 – bring this one to class (“red book”)