Readings and syllabus
Readings
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! Volume 2
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows
Burdick and Lederer, The Ugly American
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
Schedule
Week 1: April 1 and 3
The Crisis of the Late Nineteenth Century
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 16
Looking Backward, entire book
Book question 1: Based on your reading of Looking Backward, what was Edward Bellamy’s critique of the world of Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller? Why do you think that Bellamy’s vision of the future was so popular in the late 19th-century? Would you want to live in Bellamy’s utopia?
Week 1 slides
Week 2: April 8 and 10
The Progressive Empire
Give Me Liberty! chapters 17 and 18
The Souls of Black Folk, entire book
Book question 2: What was W.E.B. DuBois’ strategy for uplifting black America? How did he disagree with Booker T. Washington’s strategy? Do you see any weaknesses in DuBois’ “talented tenth” philosophy? To what extent does DuBois’ concept of “two-ness” apply to everyone in American life?
Week 2 slides
Week 3: April 15 and 17
The Great War and its Consequences
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 19
Sections begin: Book question essays 1 and 2 (Bellamy and DuBois) due in section.
Section discussion question: Do you agree with the arguments in Schenck versus The United States? Why do you think that during the War to Save Democracy we almost lost democracy at home?
Week 3 slides
Thursday, —Short answer quiz in lecture hall (15 minutes at start of class). Quiz will focus on Foner chapters 16 through 19.
Week 4: April 22 and 24
Anything but Normal: The 1920s
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 20
Barton, The Man Nobody Knows, entire book
Book question 3: Historians, citing Prohibition and the Ku Klux Klan, see the 1920s as a revolt against modern urban life. Others, citing the Harlem Renaissance and emergence of radio and other technologies, see it as the dawn of modernism. How does Bruce Barton’s Man Nobody Knows fit into the picture?
Week 4 slides
Week 5: April 29 and May 1
Depression and War
Give Me Liberty!, chapters 21 and 22
Book question essay 3 (Barton) due.
Section discussion question: In what ways did Franklin Roosevelt’s approach to World War II differ from Woodrow Wilson’s approach to World War I? How were they similar?
Week 5 slides
Week 6: May 6 and 8
Cold War America
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 23
The Ugly American, entire book
Book question 4: What makes the “Ugly American” ugly in the minds of the Burdick and Lederer? Do you think that the authors have a point? Do you find their supposedly un-ugly Americans more attractive?
Mid-term Examination, Thursday May 8
Week 7: May 13 and 15
The Semi-Affluent Society
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 24
Section discussion question: Who missed out on the “Affluent Society”? And why?
Book question essay 4 (Burdick and Lederer) due.
Week 6 and 7 slides
Week 8: May 20 and 22
The Sixties Era / Fade In
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 25
Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
Book question: Friedan’s Feminine Mystique critiqued more than the fate of women in the suburbs, it also offered an analysis of how the United States changed during the Second World War and Cold War. What was Friedan trying to say? Do you agree?
Thursday, May 22: Short answer quiz in lecture hall (15 minutes at start of class). Quiz will focus on Foner chapters 22 through 25).
Week 8: Sixties slides
Week 9: May 27 and 29
The Sixties Era / Fade Out
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 25
Section discussion question: How did the movement of the early 1960s evolve through the later 1960s? What problems challenged the unity and idealism of the years before 1965? How did the Vietnam war influence these changes?
Book question essay 5 (Friedan) due
Late 1960s slides
Week 10: June 3 and 5
Right Turn
Give Me Liberty!, chapter 26
Section discussion question: How did Ronald Reagan and his supporters borrow from the rhetoric and values of the 1960s to win public support for their “revolution”?
The last slides
Final examination: Tuesday, June 10, 12:00–3:00 P.M. Please do not ask for individual substitute dates unless the request involves a serious personal or family emergency; no exceptions.