History 202, America 1877- Present

History 202, Spring 2016

Colorado State University – Pueblo

Sec 1, MWF 12:20-1:15PM in PSY 221

 

Jonathan Rees
Office: Psychology 118
Office Phone: 549-2541
Office Hours: MWF 11:10AM-12:10PM, TTh 12:35-1:35PM or by appointment.
E-Mail: drjonathanrees@gmail.com

This syllabus will evolve over the course of the semester as circumstances arise. Whatever is here at any given moment constitutes the operative schedule and requirements of this course.

Objectives

This course will introduce students to American history from 1877 to the present. It will explore aspects of political, social, economic and cultural history. By the end of the semester you should:

1. Acquire a basic knowledge of American history during this period so as to gain a deeper understanding of this country’s past and present.
2. Develop the ability to think critically and construct your own historical arguments.
3. Be prepared for the possibility of taking further history courses.

Logistics

Turn off and put away your cell phones before class begins. If I see you typing into a cell phone on your lap or even if it is sitting on the table in front of you, I will stop the lecture and ask you to put it away. After that, I will ask you to leave. Those absences will count against you with respect to the attendance policy outlined below.

Also in the interests of courtesy, keep your headphones out of your ear during class time. I will follow the same procedures as outlined above with respect to cell phones. The taping of class lectures/discussions or the taking of notes on a laptop computer is not permitted unless you have my explicit permission.

Along the same lines, here are some sentiments from Professor Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College which I endorse:

“Please remember that your professors are human and it’s hard work to stand in front of a hundred pairs of eyes and talk for an hour. In the last decade, students seem more and more to regard us as if we’re behind a screen, and seem to think they can talk, read, sleep, or just stare at us glassy-eyed without it having any effect on our performance. This is a shared enterprise. It’s hard to lecture to an apparently disinterested sea of eyes. If you don’t think a lecture hall is intimidating, take a minute after class some day to stand behind the podium and look at all those seats. Then imagine holding the attention of everyone in those seats for an hour, two days a week. Wouldn’t it be easier if the people there seemed interested? You don’t have to act like you’re watching U2, but do try to make it clear your heart hasn’t actually stopped beating.”

In order to facilitate communication between you and I, having an e-mail is a requirement of this course.  All correspondence with me should go through the e-mail listed above. All assignments should be sent to reesassignments@gmail.com.

This University abides by the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which stipulates that no student shall be denied the benefits of an education “solely by reason of a handicap.” If you have a documented disability that may impact your work in this class and for which you may require accommodations, please see the Disability Resource Coordinator as soon as possible to arrange accommodations. In order to receive accommodations, you must be registered with and provide documentation of your disability to: the Disability Resource Office, which is located in the Library and Academic Resources Center, Suite 169.

Required Reading

I do not expect you to remember every fact that you read, but I do expect you to read for content and to think critically about what you’re reading. Developing these skills may be the most important thing you learn in college.

Bates, Toby Glenn. The Reagan Rhetoric: History and Memory in 1980s America.

Milestone Documents subscription card (available at the bookstore).

Rauchway, Eric. The Great Depression and the New Deal.

Rees, Jonathan. Industrialization and the Transformation of America: A Brief Introduction.*

Remnick, David.  King of the World.

* If you present me a receipt for a new copy of my book with your name on it, I will give you $2.70 for the paperback edition or or $1.40 for an e-book version. That represents my eventual royalties on your purchase of the book.

Most of the readings listed below come from Milestone Documents (MD).  Getting a Milestone Documents subscription is a class requirement. Instructions for signing up for Milestone Documents accompany the card.  Please remember that you have to type my name in when you’re signing up in order to access class-specific materials.

Please understand that I have access to a list of all subscribers in this class, so I will know if you don’t have one. You will need to click on the words “Document Text” to read the document itself. Please inform me immediately if you have any trouble accessing the Milestone Documents site.

Assignments and Grades

Your grade will be based on four out of five ID term quizzes (20%), two out three sets of reading questions (10%), one New Deal take-home essay test (10%), one Milestone Documents-related paper assignment (15%), one midterm (20%), and a final exam (25%). Completing all of the assignments for the class is a requirement for passing the class. Failure to complete any of the above assignments will result in your failing the entire course.

Extra Credit Opportunity: We will also be field-testing two chapters from a textbook called Learning U.S. History.  If you score above 50% on the tests given at the end of either or both of those chapters, I will add 3% to your final grade.  Do that twice and it’s slightly over a half letter grade for the entire course.  If you score less than 50% on either or both of those chapters and I’ll add 1% to your final grade for each one.

Most of the grading will be done on an A-F scale with pluses and minuses (with the exception of the final course grade of C- which has been banned across the University). The answers to the reading questions will be graded on a scale of inadequate, sufficient and superior.  These will roughly translate to F, C and A.  I will do my best to explain the criteria by which each assignment is graded before you undertake them.

The quizzes will be based on terms listed on the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation each lecture. These words will be the entire universe of possible ID terms. For the quizzes, you will identify five out of eight terms listed. Four out of five quizzes will count towards the quiz section of your final grade.  These are not intended to be and will not be surprise quizzes. Therefore, it is your responsibility to adjust your schedule so that you can be sure to take at least four of them.

We will have three sets of reading questions based on three of the four outside reading books (by Rees, Remnick and Bates) we will cover over the course of the semester. The questions on those books will not be available until the beginning of the class period when those books are discussed. At that time, they will be available on the class blog. During that class period, I will put those questions up on the computer screen at the front of the classroom. Then we will break up into small groups in order to discuss the answers to those questions, followed by some general discussion about the book towards the end of the period. Your answers to those questions are due to me via e-mail at reesassignments@gmail.com by the start of the next class period. I will acknowledge all e-mails with a brief e-mail response. Grading on this assignment will be A/F.

I.  For the midterm, you will answer the following question:

1877-1929 – Were the costs of industrialization and its many effects worth the benefits that Americans gained from this process?  Does your answer to this question depend upon which Americans we consider?  Explain with reference to the period 1877-1929 only.

These will be the only questions on the exam. The class period before that exam will be devoted entirely to answering that question.

II.  The New Deal/Depression take-home essay question is “Was the New Deal Good for America?  Why or why not?  Explain with reference to specific New Deal programs.  Your answer should be from three to four double-spaced pages and be based upon materials you’ve learned from the Rauchway book, the relevant Milestone Documents and the in-class lecture.  Since this is a take-home essay test and not a paper, footnoting the material you include is not required.

III.  The final exam will require you to answer ten out of eighteen ID terms drawn from any point in the course (50%). You will also answer this question about the last section of the course (50%):

1941-Present – What happened to American freedom from 1941 to the end of the twentieth century.  Did it expand, contract or stay the same for most Americans?  Explain, making specific reference to whose freedom you are considering and what kinds of freedom you deem to be most important.

I expect to see historical examples from the outside readings (Rees, Rauchway, Walker and Bates) and the Milestone Documents in your answers to all your exam questions.

For information on the paper assignment, click here.

Any form of academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade for the entire course. This includes plagiarism, the taking of words and/or ideas of another and passing them off as your own. If another person’s work is quoted directly in a formal paper, this must be indicated with quotation marks and a citation. If you do not understand this definition of plagiarism, it is your responsibility to discuss this topic with me further.

Attendance, Absence and Make-Up Policy

It is assumed that students will make every effort to attend each class period, arrive on time and stay for the entire class. Because the lectures will include additional analysis and ID material not in the textbook, reading will not serve as a sufficient substitute for attending class. You are responsible for all material included in class, including changes in the schedule and ID terms. ID terms will always be available on this web site, but you may have to find the definitions yourself.

An attendance sheet will be passed around near the beginning of each class (if I forget to do it, remind me). If you arrive late to class, make sure your name is on the attendance sheet before you leave. Otherwise, you will be counted as absent. If I suspect people are leaving during breaks in the long class period, I will pass the attendance sheet around again. If you can’t countersign your original signature, you will not get credit for having attended that day. You will be permitted FOUR unexcused absences over the course of the semester (to account for random mishaps, mistakes and burdens of every day life). If you miss five or more classes, I reserve the right to drop you from the course regardless of your performance on other assignments.

Your midterms may not be scheduled early. You must arrange work schedules and travel plans in order to take tests on the scheduled dates. Make-up exams will only be given to students who have compelling reasons, such as severe illness or university-sponsored activities. No excuses will be accepted more than 24 hours after the scheduled test time. There will be no make-up quizzes for ANY reason. [That’s part of the rationale for you being able to drop one grade on either.]

Weekly Topics, Readings and Assignment Due Dates

***Schedule is subject to change at the discretion of the professor***

Some of the Milestone Documents readings coincide directly with information that will be discussed in class. Some of the readings coincide with terms on your ID list that does not coincide with information that will be discussed in class. You are responsible for all the assigned reading, whether we discuss it in class or not.

Links to Milestone Documents pages usually go just to the commentary on those documents. It is your responsibility to click on the document text link on those pages so that you can read the actual document.

The Milestone Documents page for this class is here. It contains another set of links to the documents for this class.

Session #	Date	Subject/Notes	Readings Assignments	Assessments
1.	1/18	Introduction/Historical Arguments
2.	1/20	Industrialization	Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890.* Thomas Edison’s Patent Application for the Incandescent Lightbulb, 1879. Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth,” 1889. Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption, 1899.*
3.	1/22	Skills for History Students		Please bring your laptops to class (if you have one).
4.	1/25	The Labor Question	T. Thomas Fortune, “The Present Relations of Labor and Capital,” 1886. Samuel Gompers, “Address to Workers in Louisville, KY,” 1890. Eugene V. Debs, “Liberty,” 1895.
5.	1/27	The Closing of the Frontier	Homestead Act, 1863. Frederick Jackson Turner, “Significance of the Frontier in American History,” 1893.*
6.	1/29	Immigration: Atlantic and Pacific.	Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882. Immigration Act of 1891, 1891. Dillingham Commission Report, 1911.
7.	2/1	Class Cancelled	[Snow Day]
8.	2/3	Urbanization, How to Read Primary Sources and an Introduction to the Pearson Chapters	Jacob Riis, from How the Other Half Lives, 1890. Jane Addams, “The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements,” 1892. Eric Cunningham, “How to Read Primary Sources.”	Please bring your computers to class (if you have one).
9.	2/5	Outsiders: American Women from Seneca Falls to Suffrage and African Americans After Reconstruction	Muller vs. Oregon, 1908. Margaret Sanger, “Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” 1919.* Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896. Booker T. Washington, “Atlanta Exposition Address,” 1895.	ID Term Quiz #1
10.	2/8	Rees Discussion		Have Rees book read.
11.	2/10	Political Reform: Populists and Progressives	Populist Party, “Omaha Platform,” 1892. William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold Speech,” 1892. Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906.*	Rees answers are due via the reesassignments e-mail address
12.	2/12	World War I	Zimmerman Telegram, 1917. Woodrow Wilson, “Joint Address to Congress…,” 1917. Eugene V. Debs, Antiwar Speech, 1918.
13.	2/15	The 1920s: Looking Forward, Looking Backward	Billy Sunday, “Get on the Water Wagon,” 1915.* Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act), 1924. William Jennings Bryan, “Speech at the Scopes Trial,” 1925. Marcus Garvey, “Principles of the United Negro Improvement Association,” 1922.*
14.	2/17	Paper Discussion, Part 1		Consult Milestone Documents for Possible Topics Please bring your computers to class (if you have one).
15.	2/19	“The Business of America Is Business”	Bruce Barton, from The Man Nobody Knows, 1925.* Sinclair Lewis, from Babbitt, 1922. Herbert Hoover, “Rugged Individualism,” 1928.	ID Term Quiz #2
16.	2/22	Midterm Study Session		Bring an argument and five possible facts for the test
17.	2/24	Midterm Exam
18.	2/26	What’s So Great About the Great Depression?	John C. Gambs, “United We Eat,” 1934. Parrish, “Letter to Harry Hopkins,” 1934. Paul Taylor, “Again the Covered Wagon,” 1935.
19.	2/29	The New Deal, Part I	Franklin Roosevelt, First Inaugural, 1933. Tennessee Valley Authority Act, 1933.* National Industrial Recovery Act, 1933. Huey Long, “Share Our Wealth.”
20.	3/2	The New Deal, Part II	National Labor Relations Act, 1935. Social Security Act, 1935. Franklin Roosevelt, “Address at Madison Square Garden,” 1936. Fair Labor Standards Act, 1935.*
21.	3/4	World War II Abroad	Franklin Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Speech, 1941. George Marshall, Speech to Graduating Class at West Point, 1942.
22.	3/7	World War II at Home	Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Executive Order 8802,” 1941. Walter Reuther, “500 Planes per Day” Speech,” 1940. Order for the Internment of Japanese Americans in San Francisco, 1942.GI Bill, 1944.*	ID Quiz #3 Optional: Draft of New Deal Take-home Exam due via e-mail.
23.	3/9	The Manhattan Project and the Origins of the Cold War	Harry S. Truman, “Statement Announcing Dropping of Atomic Bomb,” 1945. Robert Oppenheimer, “Memorandum on the Radiological Dangers of a Nuclear Detonation,” 1945.* Truman Doctrine, 1947. Marshall Plan, 1947.
24.	3/11	Anti-Communism	J. Edgar Hoover, Testimony Before HUAC, 1947. Joseph McCarthy,“Enemies from Within” Speech, 1950. Censure of Joseph McCarthy, 1954.	New Deal Take home due via e-mail.
25.	3/14	Baby Boom/Postwar Prosperity	Walter Reuther, Radio Address on Inflation, 1946. Taft-Hartley Act, 1947.* Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948.
26.	3/16	Eisenhower and Kennedy	Interstate Highway Act, 1956. Richard M. Nixon, “Kitchen Debate,” 1959. John F. Kennedy, Vow to Put a Man on the Moon, 1961.
27.	3/18	Remnick Discussion		Have Remnick book read.
28.	3/28	The Social History of the 1950s	Betty Friedan, from The Feminine Mystique, 1963.* William Whyte, from The Organization Man, 1957. Newton Minnow, “Vast Wasteland” Speech, 1961.	Remnick Answers Due via the ressassignments e-mail
29.	3/30	The Civil Rights Movement	Brown v. Board of Education, 1954. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” 1963.* Civil Rights Act, 1964. Voting Rights Act, 1965.
30.	4/1	Class Cancelled
31.	4/4	Quagmire: America in Vietnam	Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 1964.* Lyndon Johnson, Remarks on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 1964.* Martin Luther King,“Beyond Vietnam,” 1967.
32.	4/6	The Counterculture	Abbie Hoffman, from Steal This Book, 1971. Richard M. Nixon, “Silent Majority,” 1969.* Valerie Solanas, “The SCUM Manifesto,” 1968.
33.	4/8	Breaking Apart?: Black Power, the Feminist Movement and the Gay Rights Movement	Stokely Carmichael,“Black Power,” 1965.* Gloria Steinem, “Living the Revolution,” 1970. Lucian Truscott IV, “Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square,” 1969.	ID Term Quiz #4
34.	4/11	Class Cancelled (Paper Meetings)	Voluntary Paper Meetings
35.	4/13	Bates Discussion
36.	4/15	Watergate and the 1970s	Richard M. Nixon, “Smoking Gun Tape,” 1972. Warren Burger, Opinion in U.S. v. Nixon, 1974.* Roe v. Wade, 1973.	Bates Answers due via the reesassignments e-mail
37.	4/18	Paper Discussion, Part II		List of Milestone Documents and Thesis for paper due via E-Mail
38.	4/20	Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War	Jack Kemp, “Remarks to Congress on the Kemp Roth Bill,” 1978. Ronald Reagan, “First Inaugural,” 1981. Ronald Reagan, “Speech at Gate,” 1987.
39.	4/22	The Bonfire of the Vanities and the Computer Revolution	TIME, “The Computer Moves In,” 1983. Gordon Gekko, “Greed Is Good” speech from the movie “Wall Street,” 1987. George H.W. Bush, “Read My Lips” Speech, 1988.
40.	4/25	Bill Clinton and the Age of Indulgence	Bill Clinton, Radio Address on the Welfare Reform Act, 1996. Articles of Impeachment Against Bill Clinton, 1998. Bush v. Gore, 2001.
41.	4/27	The Road to 9/11 – ID Term Quiz #5	Osama Bin Laden, “Declaration of Jihad Against United States,” 1996. Patriot Act, 2001. Authorization for the Use of Military Force, 2001.	ID Term Quiz #5
42.	4/29	Review for Final Exam		Paper Due