Unit One: Setting the Stage
Unit Two: The Tribal Twenties: Whose America is it?
Unit Three: The Great Depression and the Emergence of
the Modern Welfare State
Unit Four: World War Two
Unit One: Setting the Stage
Week One:
1. Introduction
2. Progressivism Prologue
Week Two:
1. Wilson and The War to End All Wars
Video clip: "The Great War"
Reading: “President Woodrow Wilson’s War Message, April 2, 1917” at http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1917/wilswarm.html
and
“President Woodrow Wilson Defends the League of Nations, 1919” (Gordon,
211-13).
2. Homefront: Persuasion and Coercion
Reading: Wartime Propaganda: World War One “Committee on Public Information”
and
“Demons, Atrocities and Lies” at http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/contents.htm
3. Discussion Sections I Democracy,
Civil Liberties and War
Reading: “The Espionage Act, June 15, 1917”
“Title I” at http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~rcunning/espact.htm
“The U.S. Sedition Act. May 16, 1918” at http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918/usspy.html
Week Three:
1. Discussion Section II, Democracy, Civil
Liberties and War
Reading: “The Espionage Act, June 15, 1917”
“Title I” at http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~rcunning/espact.htm
“The U.S. Sedition Act. May 16, 1918” at http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918/usspy.html
2. Moral Reform: Prohibition and the
New Woman
Reading: “Alva Belmont Urges Women Not to Vote, 1920” and “Florence Kelley
and Elsie Hill Debate Equal Rights for Women 1922” (Gordon, 31-34);
The Eighteenth Amendment at
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/amendments.html#18
“Richmond P. Hobson argues for Prohibition”; Percy Andreae,
“A Glimpse Behind the Mask of Prohibition” and “American Prohibition in
the 1920s”
documents at http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/history/projects/prohibition/default.htm
Class Discussion: The Government’s Role in Legislating Morality
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Unit Two: The Tribal Twenties: Whose America
is it?
3. Defining Americanism: Cultural/Ideological
Contest
Reading: Lynn Dumneil, “The Modern Temper” (Gordon, 10-18);
“Attorney General Palmer’s Case Against the ‘Reds’ 1920” (Gordon 26-27);
“Tennessee Anti-Evolution Statue” and “Trial Cartoons” at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm
and “The Scopes Monkey Trial, July 10-25, 1925” at http://www.borndigital.com/scopes.htm
Week Four:
1. Americanism Class Discussion/Document
Work
 Due:
Critical Abstract of Blee (2-3 pages)
Reading: “W.E.B. DuBois on the Meaning of the War for African Americans”;
“The
Governor of California on the Oriental Problem”; “Congress Debates Immigration
Restriction”; “A Jewish Leader Laments the Rise of Nativism”; “The Ku
Klux Klan
Defines Americanism, 1926”; “Walter White Documents a Lynching, 1925”;
“Marcus
Garvey Makes a Case for Black Nationalism, 1925”; and Richard Wright
Recalls
‘Living Jim Crow,’ 1937” (Gordon 151-163); David Montejano, “The Mexican
Problem,” (Gordon,172-180). Listening: Marcus Garvey, “Explanation of
the Objects of the
Universal Negro Improvement Association” at http://www.isop.ucla.edu/mgpp/sound.htm
2. Discussion Section I
Reading: Women of the Klan, Part One
3. Discussion Section II
Reading: Women of the Klan, Part One
Week Five:
1. Discussion Section I
Reading: Women of the Klan, Part Two
2. Discussion Section II
Reading: Women of the Klan, Part Two
3. “The Business of America is Business”
Reading: Babbitt (in preparation for discussion sections and essay)
Week Six:
1. Class Discussion/Document Work: Labor
and Welfare Capitalism in the 1920s
Reading: “The Employer’s Case for Welfare Capitalism, 1925”; “Labor’s
Case Against
Welfare Capitalism, 1927”; “The National Association of Manufacturers
Defends the Open
Shop, 1922”; “The AFL Condemns the Open Shop, 1921”; “Employers Consider
the
Regulation of Women’s Work, 1920”; and “The AFL Ignores Women, 1927”
(Gordon, 57-70); Rick Halpern, “Welfare Capitalism in Packinghouses” and
Alice
Kessler-Harris, “The Uneasy Relationship between Labor and Women” (Gordon
72-87).
Handout: Arlie Hochschild, The Time Bind (Ch. 4)
2. Peer Review Writing Workshop
Due:
Babbitt Essay (5-7 pages)
Week Seven:
1. Columbus Day No Class
2. Discussion Section I
Reading: Lewis, Babbitt
3.. Discussion Section II
Reading: Lewis, Babbitt
Week Eight:
1. Discussion Section I
Reading: Lewis, Babbitt
2. Discussion Section II
Reading: Lewis, Babbitt
3. Culture of Consumption
Assignment: Students bring copies of advertisements from 1920s to class.
Bring an extra
copy for your professor. Also, please note on the ad’s date
and publication information.
Reading: “A Critic Sees Advertising as a Narcotic, 1934”; “An Enthusiast
Applauds
Advertising, 1928”; “Two Magazine Advertisements”; “The Automobile Comes
to
Middletown, 1929”; “The AFL on the Living Wage, 1919”; and “Bruce Barton
Sees
Jesus as an Advertising Man, 1925” (Gordon, 90-98); Roland Marchand, “The
Culture of Advertising” (Gordon, 99-107).
Week Nine:
1. Harlem Renaissance Discussion
Reading: Langston Hughes, “One-Way Ticket” and “Refugee in America” (Gordon,
118-119); Lewis, “When Harlem Was in Vogue” (Gordon 128-135)
Video: "From These Roots” (in-class viewing)
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Unit Three: The Great Depression and the Emergence
of the Modern Welfare State
2. The Causes and Consequences of the
Great Depression
Reading: McElvaine, Down and Out, “Reactions to Hoover and Economic Breakdown”
(31-48); “Herbert Hoover on American Individualism, 1922” (Gordon
27);
“Herbert Hoover Reassures the Nation, 1931”; “A Business Leader
Responds (Hopefully) to the Crash, 1929”; “Henry Ford on Unemployment
and Self-Help,1932”; “A Participant Recalls the Ford Hunger March
of 1932”; “A Participant Recalls the Bonus Army March of 1932”; “Leading
Retailers Propose a Solution, 1934” (Gordon, 183-192).
3. Overview: FDR, the New Deal and
the Growth of Government
Reading: McElvaine, Down and Out, “Introduction” (3-32);
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933”
at http://www.feri.org/fdr/speech13.htm
“The Forgotten Man, April 7, 1932” at http://www.feri.org/fdr/speech06.htm
Week Ten:
1. WPA, FSA & Documentary Expression:
Images of Thirties America
Viewing: “The Grapes of Wrath” (clip) and FSA Photographs
Reading: “The Agricultural Adjustment Act, 1933”(Gordon, 249-250);
Robin D.G. Kelley, “The Sharecroppers’ Union,” and Theodore Saloutos,
“Evaluating New Deal Agricultural Policy” (Gordon 253-263).
2. Discussion Section I: Rural Depression
Reading: McElvaine, Down and Out, “The Grass Roots: Rural Depression”
and “A Worse Depression: Black Americans in the 1930s” ( 67-94);
“Conditions in Rural America, 1931”;
“Tenant Farmers Recall the Conditions of Sharecropping in the 1930s”;
“From a Dust Bowl
Diary, 1934”; “ A Farmer Recalls a ‘Penny Sale’ of the 1930s”; Milo
Reno Suggests ‘What the Farmer Wants,’ 1934”; “Depression and New Deal
Both Hit Black Farmers, 1937”; “John Steinbeck on Migrant Labor
in California, 1938” (Gordon, 243-249; 250-253).
3. Discussion Section II: Rural Depression
Reading: McElvaine, Down and Out, “The Grass Roots: Rural Depression”
and “A Worse Depression: Black Americans in the 1930s” ( 67-94);
“Conditions in Rural America, 1931”;
“Tenant Farmers Recall the Conditions of Sharecropping in the 1930s”;
“From a Dust Bowl
Diary, 1934”; “ A Farmer Recalls a ‘Penny Sale’ of the 1930s”; Milo
Reno Suggests ‘What the Farmer Wants,’ 1934”; “Depression and New Deal
Both Hit Black Farmers, 1937”; “John Steinbeck on Migrant Labor
in California, 1938” (Gordon, 243-249; 250-253).
Week Eleven:
1. Evaluating the Legacy of the New
Deal (lecture)
Industrial Labor and the New Deal (discussion)
Reading: “The National Labor Relations Act, 1935”; “A Recollection
of the Flint Sit-down
Strike of 1936”; Stella Nowicki Recalls Organizing the Packinghouses in
the 1930s”; “A Congressional Committee Documents Violence Against Labor,
1937”; The Chicago
Defender See the CIO as a Civil Rights Organization, 1939”; and
“A Southerner Recalls
the Limits of Labor’s Rights, ca. 1938” (Gordon 338-349).
2. The American Communist Party
Due: McElvaine/The Great Depression Essay (5-7 pages)
Video: “Seeing Red”
3. Class Discussion: American Communist
Party and Critics of the New Deal
Reading: “Communists Lament the Futility of the New Deal, 1934”; “The
Communist
Party Argues for a ‘Popular Front’ 1938”; “Upton Sinclair’s Twelve Principles
to ‘End
Poverty in California’ 1936”; Huey Long and the Share Our Wealth Society,
1935”;
“Father Coughlin Lectures on Social Justice, 1935”; “W.P. Kiplinger Argues
‘Why
Businessmen Fear Washington, 1934”; Herbert Hoover Comments on the New
Deal,
1936”; and “Southern Democrats Erode the New Deal Coalition, 1938” (Gordon,
372-381);
McElvaine, Down and Out, “The Conservative”; “The Desperate”; “The Cynical”;
“The Rebellious”; and “The Unconvinced” (143-214).
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Unit Four: World War Two
Week Twelve:
1. The “Good” War Abroad
Video clip: "Private Ryan"
Reading: “President Roosevelt Identifies the Four Freedoms at Stake
in the War, 1941” and “A Woman Worker Reflects on the ‘Good War’
at Home During the 1940s” (Gordon, 399-402).
2. The “Good” War at Home
Reading: Adams, The Best War Ever(in preparation for abstracts and class
discussion)
3. Internment
Due: In-class writing
- reaction essay
Reading: “Executive Order 9066” at http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/history/documents.html
and browse some San Francisco News articles at
http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/evactxt.html
Videos: Estelle Ishigo “Days of Waiting”
Week Thirteen:
1. Class Discussion: Internment and
Reparations
Due:
Critical Abstract of Adams (2-3 pages)
Reading: “Civil Liberties Act of 1988” and “Presidential Letter of Apology”
at
http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/history/documents.html
Gobble…Gobble…Gobble…Thanksgiving Break
Week Fourteen:
1. Discussion Section I
Reading: Adams, The Best War Ever
2. Discussion Section II
Reading: Adams, The Best War Ever
3. Class Debate: The Dropping of the
Atom Bomb
Reading: Paul Fussel, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” (Reserve); and
Robert Messer,
“New Evidence on Truman’s Decision” and Guy Alperovitz, “More on Atomic
Diplomacy”
in Chafe, ed., A History of Our Time (Reserve).
Week Fifteen:
1. Wrap-Up: The Legacies
Reading: Alan Brinkley, “World War II and American Liberalism” (Gordon,
443-451).
Terms to know when Studying for the Final Examination
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