Fall 2009
Amherst College
History 10
Chapin 201
Professor F. G. Couvares
Office hrs: M 10-noon; Tu 2:30-4
Chapin 17 (email: fgcouvares)
TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
BOOK LIST
Required Books (at Amherst Books and on Library Reserve):
David E. Shi and Holly A. Mayer, For the Record: A Documentary History of America, 3d ed.,
Vol. 2 (Norton 2007) [marked FR in syllabus]
George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Society in
Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (Oxford 1993)
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves: RCAs 70-year Quest for Cheap Labor (New Press 2001)
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (Dell 1968)
Philip Caputo, Rumor of War (Holt 1977; new ed. 1996))
Peter Mathiesson. Sal Si Pueda (Escape if You Can): Caesar Chavez and the New American
Revolution (California, 1969; new ed. 2000)
Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s
(North Carolina 1991; new ed. 2004)
Recommended (on Library Reserve):
William H. Chafe, The Rise & Fall of the American Century (Oxford, 2009)
Francis G. Couvares & Martha Saxton, Interpretations of American History (8th ed.), v. 2
Course pack available in a few weeks in History office, Chapin 11 [readings marked (c)]
GRADING
Class Participation
20%
One of either essay #1a., due 10/7, or #1b., due 10/14 (4-5pp)
20%
One of either essay #2a., due 11/18, or #2b., due 12/4 (4-5pp)
20%
Final paper (family history*) (8-10 pp), due 12/21
*(or alternative discussed with me)
40%
Amherst College
Fall 2009
History 10
Page 2
TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
SYLLABUS
T 9/8
Introduction: The American Century – Capitalism, Pluralism, Empire and
Democracy
1900-1930: The Progressive Era
W 9/9
Corporations, Class Conflict, and Social Democracy
Read: FR, 58-72, 103-115.
F 9/11
Imperial Democracy: White Supremacy at Home and Abroad
Read: FR, 45-55, 93-101, 118-129, 141-146.
Video: The Immigrant (Chaplin 1917)
See via video streaming by Mon. 9/14.
M 9/14
Immigrants, Cities, and “Progressive” Democracy
Read: FR, 75-76, 79-84, 92-93, 157-165;
Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 17-83.
Video: Coney Island
See via video streaming by Wed. 9/16.
W 9/16
Discussion: Cultural Difference and Cultural Democracy
Read: FR, 29-40, 45-47, 87-88, 93-101, 141-146; Sanchez, 85-107.
F 9/18
Reaction: War and Reaction
Read: FR, 170-187, 190-201; Sanchez, 127-70.
M 9/21
The 1920s: Consumerism and Inequality
Read: FR, 201-207, 211-238; Cowie, Capital Moves, 12-17; Sanchez, 171-206
Tu 9/22
Video: The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros. 1927)
4 & 7:30 p.m., 117 Fayerweather.
W 9/23
Meanings of Pluralism in the Early 20th Century
Amherst College
Fall 2009
History 10
Page 3
Discussion of Jazz Singer and Couvares & Saxton, Interpretations, vol.2, Chap. 5.
Video: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Warner Bros. 1932)
See via video streaming by Fri. 9/25.
1930-1945: Depression, War and FDR
F 9/25
The Crash, the First New Deal, and the Rise of Radicalism
Read: FR, 221-235; Cowie, 17-33.
Discuss Fugitive
M 9/28
The Voice: FDR, Frank Sinatra, and the Intimate Stranger
Read: FR, 236-246, Sanchez, 208-226
W 9/30
The Second New Deal: Triumph & Stalemate
Read: FR, 247-258, Sanchez, 227-252.
Video: The Grapes of Wrath (20th Century-Fox 1940)
See via video streaming by Fri. 9/30.
F 10/2
The Legacy of the FDR Years
Discuss Grapes of Wrath and Couvares & Saxton, Interpretations, vol.2, Chap. 7.
M 10/5
A World at War
Read: FR, 263-282.
Video: Rosie the Riveter
See via video streaming Wed. 10/7.
W 10/7
Homefront
Read: FR, 282-289; Cowie, 33-47; Sanchez, 253-74.
ESSAY #1a. due in class
F 10/9
NO CLASS
M 10/12
OCT. BREAK
1945-60: Cold War, Prosperity, and Their Discontents
W 10/14
Cold War Abroad: Containment
Read: FR, 289-306, 311-315.
Amherst College
Fall 2009
History 10
Page 4
ESSAY #1b. due in class
Th 10/15
Video: McCarthy: Death of a Witch Hunter
4 &7:30 p.m., 117 Fayerweather.
F 10/16
Cold War at Home: McCarthyism
Read: FR, 306-311, 339-343; Jacob Weisberg, “Cold War Without End,”
New York Times Magazine, Nov. 28, 1999.
M 10/19
Assessing the Cold War Era
Discuss McCarthy and Couvares & Saxton, Interpretations, vol. 2, Chap. 8.
W 10/21
Highway to Heaven: Eisenhower and Conservative Keynesianism
Read: FR, 318-323, 326-336; Cowie, 58-79.
Video: Rebel Without a Cause
See via video streaming by Fri. 10/23
F 10/23
Feminine Mystique and Youth Culture
In-class video: Father Knows Best segment
Read: FR, 324-326; begin Ann Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
Su 10/25
Video: Rock and Roll: The Early Days
4 &7:30 p.m., 117 Fayerweather.
M 10/26
Out of Somewhere: Rock and Roll and Race
Read: FR, 343-349, 3590366, 370-377; continue Moody (finish by Wed.)
W 10/ 28
Civil Rights Movement
Discuss Moody
FAMILY HISTORY Proposal (1 page) due in class
1960-80: “You Say You Want a Revolution?”
F 10/30
Kennedy, Johnson, and the Great Society
Read: FR, 355-359, 367-370, 414-418; Cowie, 79-99
M 11/2
Vietnam: Roots of War
Read: FR, 350-351, 385-392; begin Caputo, Rumor of War
Video: Born on the 4th of July (Universal 1989)
See via video streaming by Wed. 11/4.
Amherst College
Fall 2009
W 11/4
Vietnam: Quagmire and Defeat
Read: FR, 387-397; continue Caputo (finish by Fri.)
F 11/6
The Vietnam Trauma
Discussion of Born on the 4th of July and Caputo (through Postscript).
Sun. 11/8
Video: Chicano! Part 2: The Struggle in the Fields
4 &7:30 p.m., 117 Fayerweather.
M 11/9
The Chicano Movement
Read: Matthiessen, Sal Si Pueda, through p. 200 (finish by Wed.)
W 11/11
Assessing Chavez and the Movement
Discussion of Chicano! and Matthiessen, through Postscript
History 10
Page 5
Video: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
See via video streaming by Fri. 11/13.
F 11/13
Environmentalism
Read: FR, 427-430; Tina Rosenberg, “What the World Needs Now is DDT,”
NYT Magazine, April 11, 2004 (c)
M 11/16
The Women’s Movement
Read: FR, 380-382, 419-421; Formisano, Boston Against Busing,
ix-xiv, 1-43.
RHEA: video Monterey Pop (don’t know if can stream, if so by Wed 11/18; if not, show on
Tues)
W 11/18
1968: The Center Will Not Hold
Read: FR, 377-379, 422-426
Discuss Monterey Pop
Essay #2a. due in class
F 11/20
Nixon and Watergate
Read: Formisano, 44-137
THANKSGIVING VACATION: November 23-27
M 11/30
Reagan and the New Right
Amherst College
Fall 2009
History 10
Page 6
Read: FR, 433-448; Formisano, 138-221 (finish by Wed.)
W 12/2
Assessing the New Right
Discussion of Formisano and Couvares & Saxton, Interpretations, vol.2, Chap. 11
1980-2000: Our Global Times
F 12/4
Middleman: Clinton and the New Center
Read: FR, 453-460; Cowie, 127-79.
Essay # 2b. due in class
Video: This is What Democracy Looks Like
See via video streaming by Wed. 12/7.
M 12/7
Meanings of Globalization: Migration and Trade
Read: Cowie, finish; Joseph Stiglitz, “What I Learned at the World
Economic Crisis,” New Republic, April 17, 2000 (c)
W 12/9
Meanings of Globalization: Intervention and Terror
Read: FR, 466-474; Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and
the Middle East Since 1945, pp. 307-318 (c); Andrew Bacevich, “The Real World
War IV,” Wilson Quarterly (Winter 2005): 36-61 (c).
F 12/11
Final Thoughts: American Liberal Democracy in the 21st Century
Read: FR, 461-465; Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of
American Civic Life, pp. 294-314 (c)
M 12/14
Concluding Discussion
FAMILY HISTORY DUE Monday, 12/21
by 4 pm in History office, Chapin Hall