US History II

In our last 4 classes, we’ll be talking about recent history and our contemporary era (Chapter 31 in the Henretta text), focusing on what it means to “think historically” and why that is an important skill in our complex world. The “History Now” project allows you to apply the skills you have developed throughout the entire term and showcase your learning in this course. As you focus on one single event in great depth, you will make use of fundamental historical concepts we’ve learned including primary source analysis, chronology, sourcing, and historical context.

Mon 12/2 – “History Now Workshop” It is VERY IMPORTANT that everyone be in class that day. You will receive a packet of sources and the instructions for your last project and will begin to work on the project in class. Bring a laptop, you will find it helpful.

Wed 12/4 – Globalization. Reading: ACH 31: 942-960. Quiz 4 opens up at 8:30 am, on Chapters 29 and 3 and will stay open (3 attempts, as usual), until 8:30 on Wed 12/11 when our last exam begins.

Fri 12/6 – Clinton, Bush and Obama. Reading: ACH 31: 958-972.

Mon 12/9 – The World We Live In. Your History Now Projects are due in class; there is no electronic submission. As we review for the exam, we will be talking about historically significant events and trends in our current moment, and how Americans record and tell the stories of our own time. How will historians of the future study 2013?

The last exam will be Wed 12/11 at 8:30 am in our classroom. It is not designed to be a 3-hour exam; it will be comparable to the other exams we have taken. If you are thrilled with your grade on all previous exams, you do not have to take the last one, since your lowest exam is dropped; however I always recommend that students take it. You’ll receive your History Now project evaluations back when you submit your exam.

We’ll begin this last unit with a close look at the Vietnam conflict (Chapter 28) and its reverberations in public memory, politics, and foreign policy. Then after the Thanksgiving break, we’ll discuss history now (Chapter 31) and conduct a final project examining a recent event in American history.

The online quiz for this unit will be after Thanksgiving from 12/4 – 12/11 and the last exam will take place during the final exam slot on Wed 12/11 at 8:30 am. You will have up to 3 hours in which to take it, but it will not be a comprehensive final; it’s the regular exam for Unit 4, covering chapters 28 and 31. Please note, if you are satisfied with the grades on the first three exams, you do not need to take the final one, since I drop the lowest exam grade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mon 11/11 – No classes, Veteran’s Day

Wed 11/13 Liberalism and the Great Society. Reading: ACH 28: 848-855

Fri 11/15 The Vietnam War. Reading: ACH 28: 855-864. SkillBuilder #5 is due.

Mon 11/18 Uncivil Wars + MDQ. Reading: ACH 28: 866-875

Wed 11/20 Workshop Day: Hawks v. Doves. Reading: Review ACH Ch 28

Fri 11/22 We will not meet for class (Professor Hangen will be out of town) but SkillBuilder #6 is still due! Email it or drop it off in my mailbox on the door of Sullivan 327D.

Mon 11/25 The 1970s and 1980s + MDQ. Reading: Skim Ch 29 and 30.

11/27 – 12/1 Thanksgiving Break

(…and I’ll post info on the last 4 classes closer to the Thanksgiving holiday)

Fri 11/1 The Civil Rights Movement from 1941-1957. Reading: ACH 27: 817-829. Quiz #3 opens up at 8:30 am, on Chapters 25 and 26 – it will be open until Friday November 8 at 8:30 am (as before – for up to 3 tries and highest score counts).

Mon 11/4 The Protest Phase. Reading: ACH 27: 829-838

Links:
Freedom Riders, “The Tactic” (PBS) – 1961
King, speaking at the March on Washington (1963)
Johnson, speaking to Congress after the Selma March (1965)

Wed 11/6 Multiple Civil Rights Movements: Are We There Yet? Reading: ACH 27: 838-846

Fri 11/8 Exam #3 in class (on Chapters 24 and 27). Quiz #3 closes at 8:30 am. You can bring, as before, 1 8.5×11″ sheet of paper with anything written or printed on either/both sides. Also, the slides from this unit are posted under the “Slideshows” tab in case you want to review them.

Mon 11/1 No School, Veteran’s Day

The voting was a little different for this unit – you voted to emphasize the first and last chapters in this unit, so we’ll be talking about World War II (Ch 24) and then taking a flying leap into the 1960s to focus on the (multiple) movements for American civil rights (Ch 27). The online quiz (opening Friday, Nov 1) will cover the material in between (Ch 25-26). Here’s the schedule for the first part of the unit, dealing with the Second World War and including the submission of your Primary Source-based paper.

For Mon 10/21, the “Road to War” read ACH 24: 724-732 (MDQ likely)

Great link for today: World War II in photographs, the Battle of Britain (The Atlantic online)

Wed 10/23, we’ll take a break from history content to focus on the history writing process. Bring the rough draft of your Primary Source paper to class with you as a printed paper – we will be having a peer writing workshop in class.

Update: we made this handout on proper footnote form using the Fernlund book. Email me or drop by office hours if you have questions. All footnotes from Fernlund’s book should have 2 parts: the original source, and its location within Fernlund’s volume. Click on the image to download a PDF of the handout.

Fri 10/25 – WW2 Mobilization and Life on the Homefront. Reading: ACH 24: 732-745

Mon 10/28 – WW2 Fighting and Postwar Plans. Reading: ACH 24: 754-755

Wed 10/30 – Primary Source paper due in class. Workshop Day on the 1940s and 1950s in film (no reading).

Links:
It’s Everybody’s War (1945)
Duck and Cover (1951)
THEM! (1954)
See the USA in Your Chevrolet (1953)
Two Ford Freedom (1956)

Reminder – Monday, Oct 14: No class, Columbus Day holiday

*Please note* – this unit’s classroom Powerpoint slides are available under the “Slideshows” tab above; they make great study aids!

Online quiz #2 is now open on Blackboard under “Quizzes.” You can take it up to three times before it closes on Friday, Oct 18th at 8:30 am, so please make sure you do that this week!

Wednesday, Oct 16: Workshop Day – New Deal Legacy. Reading: ACH 23: 711-722. Bring the ACH book to class with you for the workshop. Laptops will be helpful too, although everyone doesn’t have to bring their own.

Link for today: Google doc for group work

Friday, Oct 18: Exam #2 in class. As with last time, you may bring ONE 8.5×11″ sheet of paper, decorated on either/both sides with anything you choose.

Links for Class Discussion

“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (NPR)
“I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams” (Bing Crosby)
“Pennies from Heaven” (Billie Holliday)
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Wizard of Oz, 1939)

“Remember My Forgotten Man” from the film Gold Diggers of 1933

Links for Group Work

1) New Deal Network
2) Hoovervilles in Washington State
3) Hoovervilles: Primary Sources & Other Resources from Gilder Lehrman Institute
4) New Deal: Library of Congress Primary Source Set
5) Bonus Army: “Occupying” Washington, 1932
6) WPA Posters: Colorful Messages in Dark Economic Times (Library of Congress)
7) Voices from the Dust Bowl: Migrant Worker Collection (Library of Congress)
8) Remembering the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937 (HistoricalVoices.org)
9) Dear Mrs. Roosevelt
10) My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt
11) Documents regarding migrant labor and “Okies”
12) Voices from the Thirties: Life Histories from the Federal Writers’ Project

This unit considers the first four decades of the twentieth century, with a special focus on the 1920s and 1930s. Why was it “the American century”? Why and how were Americans “wrestling” with modernity?

Monday, Sept 30: US as a World Power, Imperialism (+ MDQ). Reading: Chapter 21 – read the chapter as a whole but focus on how/why the US became involved in the three main foreign conflicts covered in the chapter, and on the intro and conclusion for an overview of how this textbook FRAMES these conflicts (as continuous with the rest of American history, and if so, how? Or as new/startling developments that the US had to respond to? Or as acts of aggression towards other countries motivated by economics, racism, or some other reason?)

Wednesday, Oct 2: 1920s Politics and Culture. Reading: ACH 22: 665-678

Friday, Oct 4: Boom to Bust. SkillBuilder #3 is due. Reading: ACH 22: 678-687

Monday, Oct 7: Down and Out (+ MDQ). Reading: ACH 23: 690-699. FDR Inaugural Address.

Wednesday, Oct 9: Workshop Day – Culture of the 1930s. Reading: Catch yourself up in ACH 22 and 23, as needed individually.

Friday, Oct 11: New Deal 1.0 and 2.0. SkillBuilder #4 is due. Reading: ACH 23: 700-711. Quiz 2 opens online, on Chapters 20 and 21, it will be open until Friday 10/18.

Monday, Oct 14: No class, Columbus Day holiday

Wednesday, Oct 16: Workshop Day – New Deal Legacy. Bring laptops to class. Reading: ACH 23: 711-722.

Friday, Oct 18: Exam #2 in class. Quiz 2 closes.

Friday, Sept 27 will be our Exam #1, drawing from the readings in Chapters 18-19 and our workshop class sessions during this first unit of the course. Remember – your lowest exam gets dropped, so if you miss this one just let it go, as there are no make-ups on exams.

What to bring to the exam: you may bring ONE 8.5×11″ sheet of paper and it can have anything printed or written on it (both sides OK). Also bring two pens or pencils (good to have an extra, in case). The exam will be closed-book, closed-note except for the one piece of paper.

Also – please make sure you take the online quiz (Blackboard –> Quizzes) before Friday’s class. Once it closes, it’s gone, and none of the quizzes gets dropped: they are all required.

One of the concerns of many literate, reform-minded Victorians was to document–and then improve–their industrialized urban surroundings. This was true for Americans of all races; today’s digital workshop provides some examples. These people included so-called “muckrakers,” investigative journalists, literary realist authors, artists, musicians and public intellectuals, and their work shows us not only the strenuous efforts of urban reformers, but also their assumptions and values about American social classes, race, gender, immigration, and poverty. Historians can learn a lot about reformers AND the targets of their reforms by using sources like these to better understand life in American cities at the turn of the twentieth century.

Instructions: Use our classtime to explore one or more of these sources (or collection of sources), using your best primary source analysis skills. Take good notes. This workshop is a good way to study the concepts and people in Chapters 18 and 19 in greater depth, and you should be prepared to discuss today’s evidence in detail on Friday’s exam! Don’t worry about getting to all of them – quality is better than quantity.

Read a 1913 broadside (i.e. a paper flyer) by Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s landmark Hull House settlement house, titled “Women and Public Housekeeping”

Examine Jacob Riis’s photographs of working-class neighborhoods in New York

Or Lewis Hine’s haunting images documenting the extent of child labor in the 1900s and 1910s

Study oil paintings by John French Sloan (1871-1951)

Or oil paintings by Robert Henri (1865-1929)

Explore the “Exhibit of American Negroes” assembled by W. E. B. DuBois for the Paris Exposition, 1900

Read an excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle

If you want to try your hand at finding your own muckraking photographs, try one of these image-search tutorials from author Ann Bausum, to find pictures or stereoscopes of meatpacking, stockyards and other grisly industrial jobs

Read about “charity meals” in turn of the century New York, and then locate some restaurant menus from the period 1890-1910 to get a feel for food and prices of the time period

Got headphones? Try listening to some ragtime records from this period; are these “ashcan artists” too?

Delve into the history — and primary sources — of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

In our first unit, as you voted, we’ll explore aspects of American culture from 1880 to the end of World War I. We particularly focus on gender (i.e. social constructions of mens’ and womens’ roles), the idea and experience of “the modern,” and the rise and reform of industrial cities. Here are the readings and workshops for this unit:

Friday, Sept 13: Men and Women in the Victorian Age. Reading = ACH 18: 538-549. SkillBuilder #2 due in or before class.

Monday, Sept 16: Public Spheres, Sacred Spaces. Reading = ACH 18: 549-566. Remember there is an MDQ (Monday Daily Question) on Mondays as class begins. Great links for today: “America on the Move” (Smithsonian Institution) on the Pullman Cars (and lots more!), and this site on the 1913 Armory Show

Wednesday, Sept 18: Workshop Day – Who Were the Victorians? Reading: Review ACH Chapter 18. Please bring the Fernlund documents book to class.

Friday, Sept 20: The New Metropolis. Reading = ACH 19: 569-583. Online Quiz #1 opens this morning on Blackboard under “Quizzes”; it will draw from ACH Chapters 15-17 and will be open until Friday, Sept 27. You can take it up to 3 times.

Monday, Sept 23: City Government and City Reform (+ MDQ). Reading = ACH 19: 583-596

Wednesday, Sept 25: Workshop Day – Muckrakers and Ashcan Artists. Reading = Review ACH Chapter 19. You may want to bring your laptop to class today.

Friday, Sept 27: Exam #1, drawing from the readings in Chapters 18-19 and our workshop class sessions. Remember – your lowest exam gets dropped, so if you miss this one just let it go, as there are no make-ups on exams.