Depression:
I. Intro
A. Origins:
(Hawley-Smoot Tariff)
B. Impact of the Depression:
1)morally
2)economically
3)emotionally
II. So What Did it do to people?:
A) Work:
B) Savings:
C) Housing:
D) Eating:
III. How People dealt with it:
A. BY MAKING FEWER PEOPLE:
B. BY HELPING OUT:
C. BY MOVING:
1. . Okies:
2. African-American migration
3. Mexican
D. PSYCHOLOGICALLY:
1. Suicide:
2. nervous breakdowns:
3. by blaming themselves
4. by blaming others:
a) Hoover and other politicians:
b) business interests:
c) women:
d) Mexican-Americans:
e) blacks:
1) poverty leads to discrimination:
2) discrimination leads to poverty:
IV. No Single Great Depression Experience:
1. very wealthy
2. Pre-Depression Poor:
3. Middle-class/young middle class:
V. Why Important?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Prohibition in Bakersfield?
Here's a bar called the Monte Carlo, out on Tafy Hwy. They used to serve ice cream in the front store and beer out back. This photo is from the 1936, so prohibition had ended by then.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Suffrage and Prohibition: Signpost to the Crazy 1920s
Dr. Schmoll/History 232/Winter 2009
Suffrage and Prohibition: Signpost to the Crazy 1920s
I. Suffrage:
Seneca Falls Convention
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
National American Woman Suffrage Association (Florence Kelley)
Building a Coalition=victory
II. Prohibition Law:
A. 18th Amendment (prohibiting manufacture, sale, transport)
B. Volstead Act (making the 18th a “bone dry” amendment)
C. "Five and Ten Law" (1929, 5 year, $10,000 penalty)
III. Prohibition Failure: Why Not More of a Success?
A. Minimal Enforcement:
B. Unrealistic Expectations:
C. Corruption:
D. Policy without Authority:
III. Repeal:
A. 21st Amendment (Dec. 5, 1933)
B. The Constitution and Federal Intervention
IV. Progress and Decline in the 1920s:
A. 1920s as a Decade of Cultural and Economic Flowering:
1. Consumerism:
2. Movies:
3. Harlem Renaissance
4. “Lost Generation” =Great Literature
5. The “New Woman”
B. 1920s as a Decade of Ignorance, Cultural Decay
1. Urban Racial Unrest: Chicago, 1919
2. Nativism:
3. The KKK
4. Scopes Monkey Trial
VII. Significance:
Suffrage and Prohibition: Signpost to the Crazy 1920s
I. Suffrage:
Seneca Falls Convention
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
National American Woman Suffrage Association (Florence Kelley)
Building a Coalition=victory
II. Prohibition Law:
A. 18th Amendment (prohibiting manufacture, sale, transport)
B. Volstead Act (making the 18th a “bone dry” amendment)
C. "Five and Ten Law" (1929, 5 year, $10,000 penalty)
III. Prohibition Failure: Why Not More of a Success?
A. Minimal Enforcement:
B. Unrealistic Expectations:
C. Corruption:
D. Policy without Authority:
III. Repeal:
A. 21st Amendment (Dec. 5, 1933)
B. The Constitution and Federal Intervention
IV. Progress and Decline in the 1920s:
A. 1920s as a Decade of Cultural and Economic Flowering:
1. Consumerism:
2. Movies:
3. Harlem Renaissance
4. “Lost Generation” =Great Literature
5. The “New Woman”
B. 1920s as a Decade of Ignorance, Cultural Decay
1. Urban Racial Unrest: Chicago, 1919
2. Nativism:
3. The KKK
4. Scopes Monkey Trial
VII. Significance:
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Lecture Outline: Progressivism Abroad
Progressivism Abroad
I. Why the Outward Look?
A. Peer Pressure
B. Foreign Policy Community
C. Capitalism
D. "Yellow" Journalism
E. Racism
II. Anti-Imperialists:
III. Hawaii
--Liliuokalani
IV. Spanish-American War:
A. Cuban Revolution
B. The Maine
C. The War with Spain
1. in the Philippines
2. in Cuba and Puerto Rico
D. The Outcome
V. The Great War:
“He Kept us Out of War”
“The War to End All Wars”
I. Why the Outward Look?
A. Peer Pressure
B. Foreign Policy Community
C. Capitalism
D. "Yellow" Journalism
E. Racism
II. Anti-Imperialists:
III. Hawaii
--Liliuokalani
IV. Spanish-American War:
A. Cuban Revolution
B. The Maine
C. The War with Spain
1. in the Philippines
2. in Cuba and Puerto Rico
D. The Outcome
V. The Great War:
“He Kept us Out of War”
“The War to End All Wars”
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (3 excerpts)
Section 1-Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef-boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be criss- crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails, – they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef-luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work, that began at four o'clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years. There were the wool-pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off. There were those who made the tins for the canned meat; and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning. Some worked at the stamping machines, and it was very seldom that one could work long there at the pace that was set, and not give out and forget himself and have a part of his hand chopped off. There were the "hoisters," as they were called, whose task it was to press the lever which lifted the dead cattle off the floor. They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through the damp and the steam; and as old Durham's architects had not built the killing room for the convenience of the hoisters, at every few feet they would have to stoop under a beam, say four feet above the one they ran on; which got them into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walking like chimpanzees. Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer men, and those who served in the cooking rooms. These people could not be shown to the visitor, – for the odor of a fertilizer man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting, – sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard!
Section 2-There was meat that was taken out of pickle and would often be found sour, and they would rub it up with soda to take away the smell, and sell it to be eaten on free-lunch counters; also of all the miracles of chemistry which they performed, giving to any sort of meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any color and any flavor and any odor they chose. In the pickling of hams they had an ingenious apparatus, by which they saved time and increased the capacity of the plant – a machine consisting of a hollow needle attached to a pump; by plunging this needle into the meat and working with his foot, a man could fill a ham with pickle in a few seconds. And yet, in spite of this, there would be hams found spoiled, some of them with an odor so bad that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them. To pump into these the packers had a second and much stronger pickle which destroyed the odor – a process known to the workers as "giving them thirty per cent." Also, after the hams had been smoked, there would be found some that had gone to the bad. Formerly these had been sold as "Number Three Grade," but later on some ingenious person had hit upon a new device, and now they would extract the bone, about which the bad part generally lay, and insert in the hole a white-hot iron. After this invention there was no longer Number One, Two, and Three Grade – there was only Number One Grade. The packers were always originating such schemes – they had what they called "boneless hams," which were all the odds and ends of pork stuffed into casings; and "California hams," which were the shoulders, with big knuckle joints, and nearly all the meat cut out; and fancy "skinned hams," which were made of the oldest hogs, whose skins were so heavy and coarse that no one would buy them – that is, until they had been cooked and chopped fine and labeled "head cheese!"
Section 3-Cut up by the two-thousand-revolutions- a-minute flyers, and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odor that ever was in a ham could make any difference. There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white – it would be dosed with borax and glycerin, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one – there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water – and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public's breakfast. Some of it they would make into "smoked" sausage – but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, they would call upon their chemistry department, and preserve it with borax and color it with gelatin to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it "special," and for this they would charge two cents more a pound.
Section 2-There was meat that was taken out of pickle and would often be found sour, and they would rub it up with soda to take away the smell, and sell it to be eaten on free-lunch counters; also of all the miracles of chemistry which they performed, giving to any sort of meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any color and any flavor and any odor they chose. In the pickling of hams they had an ingenious apparatus, by which they saved time and increased the capacity of the plant – a machine consisting of a hollow needle attached to a pump; by plunging this needle into the meat and working with his foot, a man could fill a ham with pickle in a few seconds. And yet, in spite of this, there would be hams found spoiled, some of them with an odor so bad that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them. To pump into these the packers had a second and much stronger pickle which destroyed the odor – a process known to the workers as "giving them thirty per cent." Also, after the hams had been smoked, there would be found some that had gone to the bad. Formerly these had been sold as "Number Three Grade," but later on some ingenious person had hit upon a new device, and now they would extract the bone, about which the bad part generally lay, and insert in the hole a white-hot iron. After this invention there was no longer Number One, Two, and Three Grade – there was only Number One Grade. The packers were always originating such schemes – they had what they called "boneless hams," which were all the odds and ends of pork stuffed into casings; and "California hams," which were the shoulders, with big knuckle joints, and nearly all the meat cut out; and fancy "skinned hams," which were made of the oldest hogs, whose skins were so heavy and coarse that no one would buy them – that is, until they had been cooked and chopped fine and labeled "head cheese!"
Section 3-Cut up by the two-thousand-revolutions- a-minute flyers, and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odor that ever was in a ham could make any difference. There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white – it would be dosed with borax and glycerin, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one – there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water – and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public's breakfast. Some of it they would make into "smoked" sausage – but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, they would call upon their chemistry department, and preserve it with borax and color it with gelatin to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it "special," and for this they would charge two cents more a pound.
BLACK BOY READING GUIDE
Remember, our first book, Black Boy, is due on the 30th of this month.
As you read, think about these questions:
As you read, think about these questions:
- Wright grew up in the Jim Crow South. What aspects of society were segregated? Where do you see this segregation in Black Boy. How does this book attack the violence and oppression of the South?
- What is the role of women in this book? How does Wright rebel against the authority of women around him?
- At what points in the book does Wright experience a mental awakening? What causes each of these?
- Wright tried to join the Army in 1942, but he was not accepted. In fact, according to one biographer, Wright recognized “that not enough serious consideration was being paid to the paradox of western democracies’ fighting against fascism while these same democracies, particularly America, maintained rigid segregation throughout the armed forces…His bitterness and anger were channeled into his work. This book was to be called Black Boy.”
(John Williams, The Most Native of Sons 77)
Is this book bitter and angry? Where? - On 142(in my book), "now at last I could have reading in the home." HOW IMPORTANT IS READING TO RICHARD? Does he have to fight for that? Ummm, any lessons to be learned here?
- How historically relevant and accurate is this book? Is this simply one man's experience, or does it represent accurately the experiences of others in the nation at that time?
THIS IS NOT ALL WE'LL DISCUSS, AND NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO WRITE DOWN ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS AND BRING THEM TO CLASS. YOU SHOULD, HOWEVER, READ WITH THESE IDEAS IN MIND.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
DUE DATE FOR YOUR INTERVIEW
Thanks to some enterprising students who wanted to know when the Interview was due, we now have a due date...yeah :)
The interview will be due on the 20th of February.
The interview will be due on the 20th of February.
INDUSTRIALISM OUTLINE
Industrialism
You are walking to your car after a shopping trip, but the store was so full that you had to park around the back, near a large dumpster. As you unload your groceries, you notice an elderly woman going through the trash. She is obviously destitute and homeless. She does not ask you for help, but as you are loading the Twinkies, Cornflakes, Cheetoes, and apples into your car, a thought crosses your mind: should I do something?
1. What do you do? (be honest)
2. What value made you decide to do what you did? In other words, how do you justify your actions?
I. Why was there such vast growth so rapidly in the U.S.?
1. War: Why would war encourage industrial growth?
Example #1: Morrill Act (1862)
Example #2: Railroads:
1860: 30,000 miles of r.r.
1864: Congress grants 131 million acres
1910: 240,000 miles of railway
2. Resources: land, raw materials, people,
ideas=booooooom!
1864: 872,000 tons of iron and steel
1919: more than 24 million tons
1860: 20 million tons of coal
1910: 500 million tons of coal
1860: 500,000 barrels of petroleum
1910: 209 million barrels of petroleum
3. Integration:
a. Horizontal Integration:
--monopolize one part of the productive process
Example: meatpacking plants
b. Vertical Integration:
--monopolize all elements of productive process
Example: Andrew Carnegie: mining iron ore, own blast furnaces(factories), own shops, own ships, own railroad and rail lines
4. Mindset:
a. Small Government is Best:
Laissez faire: “let it do”
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
b. Aggressive Business Mentality:
The Robber Barons
Andrew Carnegie
J.P. Morgan
Jay Gould: “Mephistopheles of Wall Street”
Cornelius Van Derbilt:
Gentlemen:
You have undertaken to cheat me. I will not sue you, for law takes too long. I will ruin you.
Sincerely,
CVD
c. Justifying the New World:
How do you justify the world when fabulous wealth and wretched poverty exist so closely together?
You are walking to your car after a shopping trip, but the store was so full that you had to park around the back, near a large dumpster. As you unload your groceries, you notice an elderly woman going through the trash. She is obviously destitute and homeless. She does not ask you for help, but as you are loading the Twinkies, Cornflakes, Cheetoes, and apples into your car, a thought crosses your mind: should I do something?
1. What do you do? (be honest)
2. What value made you decide to do what you did? In other words, how do you justify your actions?
I. Why was there such vast growth so rapidly in the U.S.?
1. War: Why would war encourage industrial growth?
Example #1: Morrill Act (1862)
Example #2: Railroads:
1860: 30,000 miles of r.r.
1864: Congress grants 131 million acres
1910: 240,000 miles of railway
2. Resources: land, raw materials, people,
ideas=booooooom!
1864: 872,000 tons of iron and steel
1919: more than 24 million tons
1860: 20 million tons of coal
1910: 500 million tons of coal
1860: 500,000 barrels of petroleum
1910: 209 million barrels of petroleum
3. Integration:
a. Horizontal Integration:
--monopolize one part of the productive process
Example: meatpacking plants
b. Vertical Integration:
--monopolize all elements of productive process
Example: Andrew Carnegie: mining iron ore, own blast furnaces(factories), own shops, own ships, own railroad and rail lines
4. Mindset:
a. Small Government is Best:
Laissez faire: “let it do”
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
b. Aggressive Business Mentality:
The Robber Barons
Andrew Carnegie
J.P. Morgan
Jay Gould: “Mephistopheles of Wall Street”
Cornelius Van Derbilt:
Gentlemen:
You have undertaken to cheat me. I will not sue you, for law takes too long. I will ruin you.
Sincerely,
CVD
c. Justifying the New World:
How do you justify the world when fabulous wealth and wretched poverty exist so closely together?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Industrialism...
How do you combat poverty? Can government be effective in attacking the social ills associated with deep and lasting hunger? Should institutions other than government be more responsible for interrupting cycles of poverty? Are such questions still relevant today?
Friday, January 9, 2009
DR. DHADA'S VISIT
If you have any thoughts or comments on the fascinating visit from Professor Dadha, by all means, include them here.
Reconstruction Lecture and Discussion
RECONSTRUCTING A BROKEN UNION
I. Reconstruction:
Jourdon Anderson
II. Political Reconstruction:
A. LINCOLN’S PLAN FOR RECONSTRUCTION
B. CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
Both Radicals and Moderates had plans:
1. RADICALS:
Thaddeus Stevens & Charles Sumner
“The foundations of their institutions
must be broken up and re-laid, or all our blood and treasure will have been spent in vain.” (Stevens)
“40 Acres and a Mule”
Was redistribution of land a real option?
Was redistribution of land a good option?
2. MODERATES:
Wade-Davis Bill (“ironclad oath”)
--passed Congress at end of 1864:
--sent to the President and…
C. JOHNSON'S RESTORATION
1. Freedmen's Bureau
2. Black Codes
D. RADICALS STRIKE BACK
1. First Civil Rights Bill (1866)
2. 14th Amendment (1867)
3. First Reconstruction Acts (1867)
4. Tenure of Office Act
5. Fifteenth Amendment
E. The Compromise of 1877
Hayes versus Tilden
III. Why does Reconstruction Matter?
Frederick Douglass (1865):
"Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot."
The Souls of Black Folk (1901) W.E.B. DuBois:
"For this much all men know: despite compromise, war, and struggle, the Negro is not free. In the backwoods...he may not leave the plantation of his birth...in the whole rural South the black farmers are...bound by law and custom to an economic slavery, from which the only escape is death or the penitentiary. In the most cultured sections and cities of the South the Negroes are a segregated and servile caste, with restricted rights and privileges. Before the courts, both in law and custom, they stand on a different and peculiar basis...The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line."
Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “The colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free- papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly- - and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future.We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire. In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good- looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.P.S. — Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson
Source: Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Tribune, August 22, 1865.
I. Reconstruction:
Jourdon Anderson
II. Political Reconstruction:
A. LINCOLN’S PLAN FOR RECONSTRUCTION
B. CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
Both Radicals and Moderates had plans:
1. RADICALS:
Thaddeus Stevens & Charles Sumner
“The foundations of their institutions
must be broken up and re-laid, or all our blood and treasure will have been spent in vain.” (Stevens)
“40 Acres and a Mule”
Was redistribution of land a real option?
Was redistribution of land a good option?
2. MODERATES:
Wade-Davis Bill (“ironclad oath”)
--passed Congress at end of 1864:
--sent to the President and…
C. JOHNSON'S RESTORATION
1. Freedmen's Bureau
2. Black Codes
D. RADICALS STRIKE BACK
1. First Civil Rights Bill (1866)
2. 14th Amendment (1867)
3. First Reconstruction Acts (1867)
4. Tenure of Office Act
5. Fifteenth Amendment
E. The Compromise of 1877
Hayes versus Tilden
III. Why does Reconstruction Matter?
Frederick Douglass (1865):
"Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot."
The Souls of Black Folk (1901) W.E.B. DuBois:
"For this much all men know: despite compromise, war, and struggle, the Negro is not free. In the backwoods...he may not leave the plantation of his birth...in the whole rural South the black farmers are...bound by law and custom to an economic slavery, from which the only escape is death or the penitentiary. In the most cultured sections and cities of the South the Negroes are a segregated and servile caste, with restricted rights and privileges. Before the courts, both in law and custom, they stand on a different and peculiar basis...The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line."
Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “The colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free- papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly- - and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future.We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire. In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good- looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.P.S. — Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson
Source: Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Tribune, August 22, 1865.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
READING ONE: JOURDON ANDERSON RESPONDS TO HIS FORMER MASTER ASKING HIM TO RETURN TO THE FARM
Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring,
Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “The colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free- papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly- - and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future.
We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good- looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.
You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
P.S. — Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson
Source: Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Tribune, August 22, 1865.
Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “The colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free- papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly- - and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future.
We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good- looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.
You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
P.S. — Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson
Source: Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Tribune, August 22, 1865.
TURNITIN.COM INFO
For the essay in this course, we will use turnitin.com. You need to sign in to this site and have your essay in some electronic format.
Go to turnitin.com and follow the instructions to sign in.
The enrollment code for this class 2555845.
The password is history.
The enrollment code for this class 2555845.
The password is history.
Do you feel we have been "corporatized" by employing turnitin?
As with everything in here, if you have any questions at all, by all means contact me, and we'll solve them together!
Monday, January 5, 2009
OLD WORLD? NEW WORLD?
What about this photo (from Cantalapiedra, Spain) shows signs of being from an older, lost world? What historical changes have resulted in this sort of thing not happening anymore?(and yes, that is me in the back on the right)
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Course Syllabus
History 232—MWF 7:55-9:15 Winter 2009
Section 1 (Music 112) Office: Faculty Towers 201A
Instructor: Dr. Schmoll Office Hours: MWF 9:30-1030
Email: bschmoll@csub.edu Office Phone: 654-6549
Course Description: We will examine the political, social, and cultural foundations of American history from 1870 to the Present. We will cover Reconstruction, the problems of an increasingly urban and industrialized society, and the United States in World Affairs.
Course Reading: YOU NEED THE COURSE READER IMMEDIATELY.
1. Course Reader available Print Shop 2. Richard Wright, Black Boy
3. Studs Terkel, The Good War 4. Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War
Grading Scale: 5% Historical Interview
5% Debate on Dropping of the Bomb
10% Participation
20% Book Assignment
30% Midterm Exam
30% Final Examination
The Blog: If you have questions or comments about this class, or if you want to see the course reader or the syllabus online, just go to http://schmollamericanhistory.blogspot.com/.
Dear Class,
I am so pleased to welcome you to this course. This quarter, we will enjoy numerous experiences together, traveling on countless mental journeys. To start things off, I have constructed a syllabus that will guide the class, hopefully answer many of your questions, and become the official constitution and law of this course.
Why is this syllabus so long, you may ask? As a student, you realize what you must do to succeed in college, right? Some students, rather than doing what is necessary and accepting the consequences of their decisions, would rather abuse the system by searching for loopholes in each professor’s syllabus. One of the best professors to ever teach at this institution never even gave students a syllabus; how would he fare in our overly legalistic climate today? I’ll let you ponder that, but for now, it’s important to say that this ridiculously long syllabus represents my desire to state all rules and regulations and to clarify what this course is all about.
Attendance:
Just to be clear, to succeed on tests and papers you really should be in class. That’s just common sense, right? To pass this class, you may not miss more than two classes. If you miss that third class meeting, you are missing 10% of the quarter. You cannot do that and pass. So, here’s what we do. Do your best to not miss any class unnecessarily. Let’s say your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife calls and wants to take you to Tahiti this weekend, but you won’t be back until late Tuesday night. Here’s what you say: “Honey, I love you, but Dr. Schmoll seems to value my education more than you do, so we are breaking up.” Ok, that may be harsh, so don’t do that, but just make sure that you do not miss any class until the 8th week. What I’ve found is that it seems inevitable that those who miss two classes early for pathetic reasons like doctor’s appointments that should have been more carefully scheduled get to the 8th week and then have to miss for a legitimate reason (like a surprise meeting at work, a sick child to take care of, or a flat tire). If you get to that 8th week and then have to miss your third class, it’ll be bad. By that point, I’ll be kind, compassionate, a real shoulder to cry on, if you want, when telling you that you’ve now failed the course. Now, if you make it to the 8th or 9th week and you have not missed those two classes, then you have some wiggle room, so that if, heaven forbid, your cat Poopsie gets pneumonia and you have to sit up all night bottle-feeding her liquid antibiotics, you and I don’t have to have that ugly conversation where I tell you that Poopsie gets blamed for you failing the course. Let’s put this another way; do you like movies? No way, me too! When you go to the movies do you usually get up and walk around the theatre for 15% of the movie? Let’s say you do decide to do that, out of a love of popcorn and movie posters, perhaps. If you did that, would you expect to understand the whole story? Okay, maybe if you are watching Harold and Kumar, but for anything else, you’ll be lost. So, please, get to class.
Being Prompt:
Get to class on time. Why does that matter? First, it sends the wrong message to your principal grader(that’s me). As much as we in the humanities would like you to believe that these courses are objective (at what time of day did the Battle of the Marne begin?), that is not entirely the case. If you send your principal grader the message that you don’t mind missing the first few minutes and disturbing others in the class, don’t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt when the tests and papers roll around. Does that sound mean? It’s not meant to, but just remember, your actions send signals. Being late also means that someone who already has everything out and is ready and is involved in the discussion has to stop, move everything over, get out of the chair to let you by, pick up the pencil you drop, let you borrow paper, run to the bathroom because you spilled the coffee, and so on. It’s rude. There’s an old saying: better two hours early than two minutes late. Old sayings are good.
So, what are the consequences of persistent tardiness? What do you think they should be? Remember that 10% participation? You are eligible for that grade if you are on time. Get here on time. And no, I’m not the jackass who watches for you to be late that one time and stands at the door and points in your face. One time tardiness is not a problem precisely because it is not persistent. It’s an accident; maybe Poopsie turned off your alarm.
The Unforgivable Curse:
Speaking of one time issues, there is something that is so severe, so awful, that if it happens one time, just one time, no warning, no “oh hey I noticed this and if you could stop it that’d be super,” you will automatically lose all 10 percent of the Participation grade. Any guesses? C’mon, you must have some idea. No, it’s not your telephone ringing. If that happens, it’ll just be slightly funny and we’ll move on. It’s a mistake and not intentional, and the increased heart rate and extra sweat on your brow from you diving headfirst into an overstuffed book bag to find a buried phone that is now playing that new Cristina Aguilera ringtone is punishment enough for you. So, what is it, this unforgivable crime? Texting. If you take out your phone one time to send or receive messages you will automatically lose 10% of your course grade. That means, if you receive a final grade of 85%, it will drop to 75%. If you receive a final grade of 75%, it will become a 65%. Why is that? The phone ringing is an accident. Texting is on purpose and is rude. It, in fact, is beyond rude. It wreaks of the worst of our current society. It bespeaks the absolutely vile desire we all have to never separate from our technological tether for even a moment. It sends your fellow classmates and your teacher the signal that you have better things to do. Checking your phone during class is like listening to a friend’s story and right in the middle turning away and talking to someone else. Plus, the way our brains work, you need to fully immerse yourself, to tune your brain into an optimal, flowing machine (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s incredible book Flow) that can grasp and can let itself go. Students now tend to see school as a stopover on their way to a career. Brothers and sisters, that’s deadly! I wish that I could pay for you all to quit your jobs and just focus on the mind. I can’t yet do that, but if I could I would, because it’d be worth every penny. Devoting time to the mind and to thinking deeply about your world will change who you are and how you approach your future, your family, your job, and your everything. Is that overstated? I believe it to be true. So, until my stock choices really take off so that I can pay all of your bills, promise me one thing. When you are in class or preparing for class, you have to be fully here. Oh crap, now it’s going to sound like a hippy professor from the 1960s: “I mean, like, be here man, just be here.” Maybe the hippies were on to something. Devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.
Class Climate:
No, I don’t mean whether it’s going to rain in here or not. Sometimes I’ll lecture at you, but even then, your participation is vital. How can you participate when someone is lecturing? Any ideas? Turn to a neighbor and tell them the story of your first day at school in kindergarten. Now, if you are the one listening to the story, right in the middle look away, look at your watch, sneer at them, roll your eyes, yawn, wave to someone across the room, nudge a person next to you and tell them a joke, all while the other person is telling about his or her first day of kindergarten. If this happens in social setting we call it rude, and we call the people who listen in that way jackasses. They are not our friends precisely because we deeply value listening and do not put up with those who do not listen well. Right? So, there will be lecturing, and if you abhor what we are doing, then fake it. I used to do that sometimes too: “oh no, professor, I love hearing you talk about President Reagan’s policies of supply side economics.” If we listen to psychologists, by faking interest you’ll be learning much more than if you show your disinterest. The next time you are sad force yourself to smile and you’ll see what I mean. So, sometimes there will be lecture. At other times there will be discussion of short readings that we do in class. During these times, it’s crucial that you do the silly little exercises: turn to a neighbor; find someone you don’t know and discuss this or that; explain to your friend what we just went over in lecture; pick something from the reading to disagree with; find two people on the other side of the room; throw cash at your professor…ok, maybe not that last one. This class is a bit unique in that it violates the normally accepted activity systems of college history classrooms. What we do in discussion will help solidify the concepts of each section of this course in your brain. If you are active in class, you will have to study less, and you’ll find yourself remembering much more.
Reading:
How many of you love reading? I did not read a book until I was 18, so if you have not yet started your journey on this ever widening path, it’s never too late. In any course, there’s no substitute for reading. Theorist Jim Moffett says that “all real writing happens from plentitude,” meaning that you can only really write well about someone once you know about it. Reading is one way to know—not the only, by any means! I want you to have experiences with great texts. I can show you voluminous research proving why you nee to read more, but then if I assign a stupid, long, expensive textbook you probably will end up not reading, or only reading to have the reading done, something we have all done, right? The economy now requires much high literacy rates (see The World is Flat), and even though reading levels have not gone down in the last 40 years, it is crucial that you start to push your own reading so that your own literacy level goes up. For these ten weeks, diving wholeheartedly into the course reading is vital. Remember to read in a particular way. As reading expert and UCSB professor Sheridan Blau has argued, “reading is as much a process of text production as writing is.” Reading involves revision? Does that sound silly? As you read, think about the different ways that you understand what you read. Most importantly, when you read, think about the words of E.D. Hirsch, who says that we look at what a text says (reading), what it means (interpretation), and why it matters (criticism). Hey, but if you are in a history course, aren’t you supposed to be reading for exactly the number of miles of trenches that were dug in World War One, how many railroad workers died from 1890 to 1917, or what the causes of the Great Depression were? Anyway, the answer is yes and no. There are two types of reading that you’ll do in college. As the literary goddess theorist Louise Rosenblatt explains, there is aesthetic reading, where you are reading to have an experience with the text, and there is efferent reading, where you are reading to take away information from the text. You do both types all the time. Think about a phone book. You have probably never heard someone say of a phone book, “don’t tell me about it, I want to read it for myself.” Reading a phone book is purely efferent. In this course you will practice both types of reading. I have chosen texts that you can enjoy (aesthetic) and that you can learn from(efferent). I want to see and appreciate the detail in our reading, but in this course I’ll give you that detail in class lectures. In the reading, it’s much more important that you read texts that will live with you forever and to inspire you to think more thoroughly about your world. As you read, you should be working hard to create meaning for yourself. As Rosenblatt asserts, “taking someone else’s interpretation as your own is like having someone else eat your dinner for you.” Please, don’t let the numbskulls as wikipedia or sparknotes eat your dinner for you.
Historical Interview: You get to conduct an interview with someone who remembers some aspect of American history from the following list of events: World War Two, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cesar Chavez, fear of the nuclear bomb during the Cold War, protests in the 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the election or presidency of Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, or Nixon.
You will turn in A TYPED VERSION WITH YOUR EXACT QUESTIONS, AND THE EXACT ANSWERS OF THE PERSON YOU INTERVIEW. (no tapes, no cds, etc.) The interview text will be approximately 1-2 pages in length, typed, single-spaced.
If you have problems finding someone to interview, be sure to speak with me soon!!!!!
Essay Assignment: Due Friday, 3/6
1. Compare and contrast The Good War with A Rumor of War. As you read these great books,
recognize sections that might be worthy of further analysis. Remember, your essay must focus on one particular area of these two books.
2. Is the story of U.S. history one of progress? Is our country getting “better” as a nation or worse?
3. President Obama once said, “If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.” Judging from the shape of the nation today, and using historical examples to help you make your case, analyze this quote.
Participation: You do not need to be the person who speaks out the most, asks the most questions, or comes up with the most brilliant historical arguments to receive full credit in participation. If you are in class, discuss the issues that we raise, avoid the temptation to nod off, to leave early, or to text people during class (the three easiest ways to lose credit), and in general act like you care, then you will receive a good participation grade!
Recommended Reading: As you can see, there is no textbook for this course. Perhaps the reasoning behind this is obvious; textbooks kill history! We will provide the overarching narrative framework in course lectures; however, if you would like to borrow a textbook from me for the duration of the quarter, come by my office to choose one.
Waiting List Policy:
On a waiting list, you are eligible for a place in the class if you come to every class and if you turn in the work while you are there. Being on a waiting list does not mean you are guaranteed a place in the class. It simply means you are welcome to wait for an opening in the class if you so desire. If no one drops out of the section you’re attending, no students can add.
Academic Honesty
You are responsible for knowing all college policies about academic honesty. Any student who plagiarizes any part of his or her papers may receive an “F” in the course and a letter to the Dean.
Course Schedule:
Wed 1/7 Intro/Reconstruction
Fri 1/9 Reconstruction
Mon 1/12 Industrialism
Wed 1/14 New Imperialism/1890s
Fri 1/16 Progressivism
Mon 1/19 Progressivism/Triangle Fire
Wed 1/21 Consumer Protection
Fri 1/23 Research in the Library Day/Do your Black Boy reading Day/Do your interview Day…no class
Mon 1/26 Suffrage
Wed 1/28 Prohibition/ Harlem Renaissance/Women in the 1920s
Fri 1/30 Black Boy Reading Due
Mon 2/2 Origins of the Great Depression
Wed 2/4 The Great Depression
Fri 2/6 The New Deal
Mon 2/9 MIDTERM
Wed 2/11 From Quarantine to War/WWII
Fri 2/13 WWII/The Good War Reading Due
Mon 2/16 WWII and the Bomb (prep the debate)
Wed 2/18 Debate on Dropping the Bomb
Fri 2/20 The Cold War
Mon 2/23 Civil Rights Movement
Wed 2/25 War in Vietnam
Fri 2/27 Bloods Reading Due: Guest Lecture (Dr. Charles Litzinger)
Mon 3/2 More Radicalism in the 1960s
Wed 3/4 Ending the 1960s
Fri 3/6 Essay Due/Essay Due to turnitin.com by midnight tonight
Mon 3/9 Watergate and the Turbulent 70s
Wed 3/11 The 1980s
Fri 3/13 Review for Final Exam
Mon 3/16 Last Day of Class FINAL EXAM: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 8-10:30
Section 1 (Music 112) Office: Faculty Towers 201A
Instructor: Dr. Schmoll Office Hours: MWF 9:30-1030
Email: bschmoll@csub.edu Office Phone: 654-6549
Course Description: We will examine the political, social, and cultural foundations of American history from 1870 to the Present. We will cover Reconstruction, the problems of an increasingly urban and industrialized society, and the United States in World Affairs.
Course Reading: YOU NEED THE COURSE READER IMMEDIATELY.
1. Course Reader available Print Shop 2. Richard Wright, Black Boy
3. Studs Terkel, The Good War 4. Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War
Grading Scale: 5% Historical Interview
5% Debate on Dropping of the Bomb
10% Participation
20% Book Assignment
30% Midterm Exam
30% Final Examination
The Blog: If you have questions or comments about this class, or if you want to see the course reader or the syllabus online, just go to http://schmollamericanhistory.blogspot.com/.
Dear Class,
I am so pleased to welcome you to this course. This quarter, we will enjoy numerous experiences together, traveling on countless mental journeys. To start things off, I have constructed a syllabus that will guide the class, hopefully answer many of your questions, and become the official constitution and law of this course.
Why is this syllabus so long, you may ask? As a student, you realize what you must do to succeed in college, right? Some students, rather than doing what is necessary and accepting the consequences of their decisions, would rather abuse the system by searching for loopholes in each professor’s syllabus. One of the best professors to ever teach at this institution never even gave students a syllabus; how would he fare in our overly legalistic climate today? I’ll let you ponder that, but for now, it’s important to say that this ridiculously long syllabus represents my desire to state all rules and regulations and to clarify what this course is all about.
Attendance:
Just to be clear, to succeed on tests and papers you really should be in class. That’s just common sense, right? To pass this class, you may not miss more than two classes. If you miss that third class meeting, you are missing 10% of the quarter. You cannot do that and pass. So, here’s what we do. Do your best to not miss any class unnecessarily. Let’s say your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife calls and wants to take you to Tahiti this weekend, but you won’t be back until late Tuesday night. Here’s what you say: “Honey, I love you, but Dr. Schmoll seems to value my education more than you do, so we are breaking up.” Ok, that may be harsh, so don’t do that, but just make sure that you do not miss any class until the 8th week. What I’ve found is that it seems inevitable that those who miss two classes early for pathetic reasons like doctor’s appointments that should have been more carefully scheduled get to the 8th week and then have to miss for a legitimate reason (like a surprise meeting at work, a sick child to take care of, or a flat tire). If you get to that 8th week and then have to miss your third class, it’ll be bad. By that point, I’ll be kind, compassionate, a real shoulder to cry on, if you want, when telling you that you’ve now failed the course. Now, if you make it to the 8th or 9th week and you have not missed those two classes, then you have some wiggle room, so that if, heaven forbid, your cat Poopsie gets pneumonia and you have to sit up all night bottle-feeding her liquid antibiotics, you and I don’t have to have that ugly conversation where I tell you that Poopsie gets blamed for you failing the course. Let’s put this another way; do you like movies? No way, me too! When you go to the movies do you usually get up and walk around the theatre for 15% of the movie? Let’s say you do decide to do that, out of a love of popcorn and movie posters, perhaps. If you did that, would you expect to understand the whole story? Okay, maybe if you are watching Harold and Kumar, but for anything else, you’ll be lost. So, please, get to class.
Being Prompt:
Get to class on time. Why does that matter? First, it sends the wrong message to your principal grader(that’s me). As much as we in the humanities would like you to believe that these courses are objective (at what time of day did the Battle of the Marne begin?), that is not entirely the case. If you send your principal grader the message that you don’t mind missing the first few minutes and disturbing others in the class, don’t expect to be given the benefit of the doubt when the tests and papers roll around. Does that sound mean? It’s not meant to, but just remember, your actions send signals. Being late also means that someone who already has everything out and is ready and is involved in the discussion has to stop, move everything over, get out of the chair to let you by, pick up the pencil you drop, let you borrow paper, run to the bathroom because you spilled the coffee, and so on. It’s rude. There’s an old saying: better two hours early than two minutes late. Old sayings are good.
So, what are the consequences of persistent tardiness? What do you think they should be? Remember that 10% participation? You are eligible for that grade if you are on time. Get here on time. And no, I’m not the jackass who watches for you to be late that one time and stands at the door and points in your face. One time tardiness is not a problem precisely because it is not persistent. It’s an accident; maybe Poopsie turned off your alarm.
The Unforgivable Curse:
Speaking of one time issues, there is something that is so severe, so awful, that if it happens one time, just one time, no warning, no “oh hey I noticed this and if you could stop it that’d be super,” you will automatically lose all 10 percent of the Participation grade. Any guesses? C’mon, you must have some idea. No, it’s not your telephone ringing. If that happens, it’ll just be slightly funny and we’ll move on. It’s a mistake and not intentional, and the increased heart rate and extra sweat on your brow from you diving headfirst into an overstuffed book bag to find a buried phone that is now playing that new Cristina Aguilera ringtone is punishment enough for you. So, what is it, this unforgivable crime? Texting. If you take out your phone one time to send or receive messages you will automatically lose 10% of your course grade. That means, if you receive a final grade of 85%, it will drop to 75%. If you receive a final grade of 75%, it will become a 65%. Why is that? The phone ringing is an accident. Texting is on purpose and is rude. It, in fact, is beyond rude. It wreaks of the worst of our current society. It bespeaks the absolutely vile desire we all have to never separate from our technological tether for even a moment. It sends your fellow classmates and your teacher the signal that you have better things to do. Checking your phone during class is like listening to a friend’s story and right in the middle turning away and talking to someone else. Plus, the way our brains work, you need to fully immerse yourself, to tune your brain into an optimal, flowing machine (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s incredible book Flow) that can grasp and can let itself go. Students now tend to see school as a stopover on their way to a career. Brothers and sisters, that’s deadly! I wish that I could pay for you all to quit your jobs and just focus on the mind. I can’t yet do that, but if I could I would, because it’d be worth every penny. Devoting time to the mind and to thinking deeply about your world will change who you are and how you approach your future, your family, your job, and your everything. Is that overstated? I believe it to be true. So, until my stock choices really take off so that I can pay all of your bills, promise me one thing. When you are in class or preparing for class, you have to be fully here. Oh crap, now it’s going to sound like a hippy professor from the 1960s: “I mean, like, be here man, just be here.” Maybe the hippies were on to something. Devote yourself fully to your classes by unplugging from the outside world for awhile.
Class Climate:
No, I don’t mean whether it’s going to rain in here or not. Sometimes I’ll lecture at you, but even then, your participation is vital. How can you participate when someone is lecturing? Any ideas? Turn to a neighbor and tell them the story of your first day at school in kindergarten. Now, if you are the one listening to the story, right in the middle look away, look at your watch, sneer at them, roll your eyes, yawn, wave to someone across the room, nudge a person next to you and tell them a joke, all while the other person is telling about his or her first day of kindergarten. If this happens in social setting we call it rude, and we call the people who listen in that way jackasses. They are not our friends precisely because we deeply value listening and do not put up with those who do not listen well. Right? So, there will be lecturing, and if you abhor what we are doing, then fake it. I used to do that sometimes too: “oh no, professor, I love hearing you talk about President Reagan’s policies of supply side economics.” If we listen to psychologists, by faking interest you’ll be learning much more than if you show your disinterest. The next time you are sad force yourself to smile and you’ll see what I mean. So, sometimes there will be lecture. At other times there will be discussion of short readings that we do in class. During these times, it’s crucial that you do the silly little exercises: turn to a neighbor; find someone you don’t know and discuss this or that; explain to your friend what we just went over in lecture; pick something from the reading to disagree with; find two people on the other side of the room; throw cash at your professor…ok, maybe not that last one. This class is a bit unique in that it violates the normally accepted activity systems of college history classrooms. What we do in discussion will help solidify the concepts of each section of this course in your brain. If you are active in class, you will have to study less, and you’ll find yourself remembering much more.
Reading:
How many of you love reading? I did not read a book until I was 18, so if you have not yet started your journey on this ever widening path, it’s never too late. In any course, there’s no substitute for reading. Theorist Jim Moffett says that “all real writing happens from plentitude,” meaning that you can only really write well about someone once you know about it. Reading is one way to know—not the only, by any means! I want you to have experiences with great texts. I can show you voluminous research proving why you nee to read more, but then if I assign a stupid, long, expensive textbook you probably will end up not reading, or only reading to have the reading done, something we have all done, right? The economy now requires much high literacy rates (see The World is Flat), and even though reading levels have not gone down in the last 40 years, it is crucial that you start to push your own reading so that your own literacy level goes up. For these ten weeks, diving wholeheartedly into the course reading is vital. Remember to read in a particular way. As reading expert and UCSB professor Sheridan Blau has argued, “reading is as much a process of text production as writing is.” Reading involves revision? Does that sound silly? As you read, think about the different ways that you understand what you read. Most importantly, when you read, think about the words of E.D. Hirsch, who says that we look at what a text says (reading), what it means (interpretation), and why it matters (criticism). Hey, but if you are in a history course, aren’t you supposed to be reading for exactly the number of miles of trenches that were dug in World War One, how many railroad workers died from 1890 to 1917, or what the causes of the Great Depression were? Anyway, the answer is yes and no. There are two types of reading that you’ll do in college. As the literary goddess theorist Louise Rosenblatt explains, there is aesthetic reading, where you are reading to have an experience with the text, and there is efferent reading, where you are reading to take away information from the text. You do both types all the time. Think about a phone book. You have probably never heard someone say of a phone book, “don’t tell me about it, I want to read it for myself.” Reading a phone book is purely efferent. In this course you will practice both types of reading. I have chosen texts that you can enjoy (aesthetic) and that you can learn from(efferent). I want to see and appreciate the detail in our reading, but in this course I’ll give you that detail in class lectures. In the reading, it’s much more important that you read texts that will live with you forever and to inspire you to think more thoroughly about your world. As you read, you should be working hard to create meaning for yourself. As Rosenblatt asserts, “taking someone else’s interpretation as your own is like having someone else eat your dinner for you.” Please, don’t let the numbskulls as wikipedia or sparknotes eat your dinner for you.
Historical Interview: You get to conduct an interview with someone who remembers some aspect of American history from the following list of events: World War Two, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cesar Chavez, fear of the nuclear bomb during the Cold War, protests in the 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the election or presidency of Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, or Nixon.
You will turn in A TYPED VERSION WITH YOUR EXACT QUESTIONS, AND THE EXACT ANSWERS OF THE PERSON YOU INTERVIEW. (no tapes, no cds, etc.) The interview text will be approximately 1-2 pages in length, typed, single-spaced.
If you have problems finding someone to interview, be sure to speak with me soon!!!!!
Essay Assignment: Due Friday, 3/6
1. Compare and contrast The Good War with A Rumor of War. As you read these great books,
recognize sections that might be worthy of further analysis. Remember, your essay must focus on one particular area of these two books.
2. Is the story of U.S. history one of progress? Is our country getting “better” as a nation or worse?
3. President Obama once said, “If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.” Judging from the shape of the nation today, and using historical examples to help you make your case, analyze this quote.
Participation: You do not need to be the person who speaks out the most, asks the most questions, or comes up with the most brilliant historical arguments to receive full credit in participation. If you are in class, discuss the issues that we raise, avoid the temptation to nod off, to leave early, or to text people during class (the three easiest ways to lose credit), and in general act like you care, then you will receive a good participation grade!
Recommended Reading: As you can see, there is no textbook for this course. Perhaps the reasoning behind this is obvious; textbooks kill history! We will provide the overarching narrative framework in course lectures; however, if you would like to borrow a textbook from me for the duration of the quarter, come by my office to choose one.
Waiting List Policy:
On a waiting list, you are eligible for a place in the class if you come to every class and if you turn in the work while you are there. Being on a waiting list does not mean you are guaranteed a place in the class. It simply means you are welcome to wait for an opening in the class if you so desire. If no one drops out of the section you’re attending, no students can add.
Academic Honesty
You are responsible for knowing all college policies about academic honesty. Any student who plagiarizes any part of his or her papers may receive an “F” in the course and a letter to the Dean.
Course Schedule:
Wed 1/7 Intro/Reconstruction
Fri 1/9 Reconstruction
Mon 1/12 Industrialism
Wed 1/14 New Imperialism/1890s
Fri 1/16 Progressivism
Mon 1/19 Progressivism/Triangle Fire
Wed 1/21 Consumer Protection
Fri 1/23 Research in the Library Day/Do your Black Boy reading Day/Do your interview Day…no class
Mon 1/26 Suffrage
Wed 1/28 Prohibition/ Harlem Renaissance/Women in the 1920s
Fri 1/30 Black Boy Reading Due
Mon 2/2 Origins of the Great Depression
Wed 2/4 The Great Depression
Fri 2/6 The New Deal
Mon 2/9 MIDTERM
Wed 2/11 From Quarantine to War/WWII
Fri 2/13 WWII/The Good War Reading Due
Mon 2/16 WWII and the Bomb (prep the debate)
Wed 2/18 Debate on Dropping the Bomb
Fri 2/20 The Cold War
Mon 2/23 Civil Rights Movement
Wed 2/25 War in Vietnam
Fri 2/27 Bloods Reading Due: Guest Lecture (Dr. Charles Litzinger)
Mon 3/2 More Radicalism in the 1960s
Wed 3/4 Ending the 1960s
Fri 3/6 Essay Due/Essay Due to turnitin.com by midnight tonight
Mon 3/9 Watergate and the Turbulent 70s
Wed 3/11 The 1980s
Fri 3/13 Review for Final Exam
Mon 3/16 Last Day of Class FINAL EXAM: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 8-10:30
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