US History II

Reminder, if you’re reading this on Friday – you have until just before midnight tonight to take the last online quiz (on Ch 31). Go to Blackboard under “Quizzes.”

Our last exam will cover both Units 5 and 6 (Vietnam and 9/11). It will be Wednesday, May 9th at 8:30 am in our regular classroom. Study EH Ch 30 and 32. To the exam, you may bring one single 8.5×11″ sheet of paper with anything you desire on it (front and back).

Here is a study guide for the exam (download as PDF). And here’s the map we looked at in Friday’s class –

Here’s an overview of this last unit, “History Now,” focusing on what it means to “think historically” and why that is an important skill in our complex world.

Mon 4/23 – What happens between the American pullout of Vietnam in 1975 and the terrorist attack on 9/11? Reading: CH p. 887-893 and 907-909. The last ONLINE QUIZ opens this morning and will remain open until Friday night, 4/27 – it covers Chapter 31. Please make sure you take the quiz. It is found on the course Blackboard under “Quizzes.” If you have technical problems let me know right away. As before, you have up to 3 tries.

Wed 4/25 – Workshop Day, “History Now.” 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.

Fri 4/27 – 9/11 and the War on Terror. Reading: EH Ch 32, pp. 917-927. How does your textbook portray these events? What’s explained well, and what is fuzzy or confusing to you?

Mon 4/30 – your History Now Projects are due in class; there is no electronic submission. 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 2012?

The last exam will be Wed 5/9 at 8:30 am in L-168. 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. But for most of you, taking the last exam is a VERY GOOD IDEA. You’ll receive your History Now project evaluations back when you submit your exam.

For our unit on the 1960s, we’re focusing on the Vietnam War and the political and cultural divisions it provoked in the US and around the world.

Here are the readings for Wed 4/11 and Fri 4/13. All of the supplemental readings for this unit come from William H. Chafe, et al., A History Of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America, 8th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Fri 4/13 – Hawks and Soldiers (PDF) – bring this reading to class, either printed or on your laptop

Mon 4/16 – no class, Patriot’s Day

Wed 4/18 – Workshop Day. There is reading in preparation for class: EH Ch 29, 828-829 and Ch 30, 846-848 and 857 AND Doves (PDF) – bring this reading to class, either printed or on your laptop

Fri 4/20 – Legacies and Memories. Two readings: EH Ch 30, 868-871 and McNamara, “In Retrospect” (PDF) – bring this reading to class, either printed or on your laptop. Your Skill Builder #5 is due in class.

Remember that the online quiz for this unit has been cancelled; everyone will receive the full 20 points for it.

Hello all – I’m very sorry, but I have to miss class tomorrow morning, Wed 4/4, so class that day is cancelled. We will still have our exam on Friday 4/6 and it will be OPEN BOOK on Chapter 28, “The Suburban Era.” The review questions (in yellow) throughout the chapter, as well as the chart on p. 805 will help you as you prepare. You should also be able to write about a TV clip of your choice from the Workshop day – all the links to those are up on the course website still (see below).

See you Friday!

Prof. Hangen

Enjoy your spring break!

When we come back, we will have magically jumped over World War II and landed in the postwar period to talk about media and popular culture of the 1950s. The online quiz will cover EH Ch 27 on World War II, and that will be open from Monday 3/26 to Friday 3/30.

Here’s how the unit will look – it’s a relatively short one, and in class we’ll be working mainly from Chapters 26 and 28.

Mon 3/26 – From WW2 to the Cold War. Reading: EH Ch 26 p. 740-750 and Ch 27 p. 757-763

Wed 3/28 – McCarthyism. Reading: EH Ch 27 p. 769-772 and 776

Fri 3/30 – Workshop Day. We will be screening clips of 1950s TV shows. Reading: “Television in the Family Circle” (PDF). Due in class: SkillBuilder #4

Mon 4/2 – Suburbia and its Critics. Reading: EH Ch 28 p. 781-792

Wed 4/4 – Rebellion and Space Racing. Reading: EH Ch 28 p. 793-805

Fri 4/6 – Exam #4 in class

Lots of clips for today!

First, some pictures
A kid and his TV https://secure.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/2513320483/
Vintage TV sets on exhibit at San Francisco Airport http://www.flysfo.com/web/page/sfo_museum/exhibitions/terminal3_exhibitions/north_connect/tv/12.html

Commercials
Two Ford Freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gkxC5rnbi8
See the USA with Dinah Shore https://www.myspace.com/video/cybotron/dinah-shore-quot-see-the-usa-in-your-chevrolet-quot/5888049
Brylcreem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6F4GtyRfto
Lucky Strike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUYsAgcPtqU
Twinkies on Howdy Doody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyfCxrKW3XY
Spic & Span https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrOeRAPJazY

Programs
Lone Ranger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5xpQ84B30Q
Queen for a Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggV8Uwhnmq8
Bishop Sheen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVBXzf4eUJg
Elvis on Milton Berle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x0uKy5GfMw
I Led Three Lives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTaPCSG1-_I
Donna Reed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-uh3XbUMfY
Abbot and Costello do “Who’s on First” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nti08LWtxJI
CBS “See It Now” (this one from 23 Dec 1951) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8rSxsDwjoQ

We’ve talked about the economics and culture of the Depression era (1929-1932). Here’s how the rest of this unit on the 1930s will look.

Wed 3/7 – The New Deal. Reading EH Ch 25 697-706

Fri 3/9 – a peer review day for drafts of your primary source paper. Bring a printed draft of your paper to class, whatever you have, at whatever stage it’s in. For the full guidelines on this project, see the PS Paper tab above.

Mon 3/12 – Popular Culture in the 1930s. Reading EH Ch 25 706-714

Helpful Links:
1939 at the Smithsonian Museum of American History
The New Deal (Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute)
America in the 1930s (University of Virginia)
Popular Music of the 1930s (Songbook blog)
A 1936 episode of Li’l Orphan Annie (and memories of this from A Christmas Story)
WPA Posters from the Library of Congress
FSA-OWI Photograph collection, Library of Congress
Frances Perkins Center, honoring Worcester’s own, the first woman named to a Presidential cabinet (she was FDR’s Secretary of Labor for 12 years)
War of the Worlds on radio (30 October 1938)
Two versions of the 1936 popular song “Pennies from Heaven” – Bing Crosby and Billie Holliday

Wed 3/14 – Exam #3, in class. This one will be closed book/closed notebook. Use the unit’s pretest as a study guide.

Fri 3/16 – Primary Source Project is due in class. We will be screening scenes from an iconic film of the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath.

Unit 3 will be all about the Depression and the New Deal – EH Chapter 25.

There will be an online quiz open from Monday, 2/27 to Friday 3/2 on Chapter 26. Don’t forget to take it! I had a couple of people who’ve let these slip a little. Please make sure to take the quiz online in Blackboard.

Mon 2/27 our class will combine the culture and economics of the Depression. Reading is EH Ch 25, pp. 687-697. The syllabus had “reading TBA” for Wednesday but we’ll drop that reading because…

There will be no class on Wednesday, Feb 29th. I am taking another class to visit a US Citizenship Naturalization ceremony in Worcester and we have to leave early to get there, so I won’t be in class.

Friday, March 2 will also be a special day: instead of our usual class, we will attend a lecture by a guest professor of Political Science, Alexandra Filindra, at 10:30 am in the Student Center Blue Lounge. She will be speaking about the eugenics movement, a timely topic since we just finished the unit on that. Attendance will be taken, same as if it were a regular class day, and I will collect the SkillBuilder #3 papers due that day at the event.

Because of the lecture, we will push our “Primary Source Workshop” day to Monday the 5th; we’ll meet in our classroom as usual. If you want to get started on that paper before the workshop day, please do so; the guidelines are posted under the “PS Paper” tab above, and the books are all on 2-hour course reserve at the circulation desk in the library.

Monday 2/20: No class, Presidents Day

Wednesday 2/22: Constitutions and Women’s Suffrage. Reading: Amar, “How Women Won The Vote” (PDF)

Friday 2/24: Workshop Day for the 1930s. Reading: EH 680-684 and bring your curiosity!

This week we’re finishing up our unit on the 1920s with class sessions on cultural conflicts and politics of the decade.

Monday 2/13: Read EH Ch 24, 670-676 and 683

Wednesday 2/15: Read EH Ch 24, 677-680

Friday 2/17 = Exam #2 in class, on Ch 22 and 24. Download the study guide here (PDF)

Film clip for Wed: “Two Americas,” from PBS Ken Burns, Prohibition

Watch Hyperpartisan Politics Two Americas on PBS. See more from Ken Burns.