skidmore college's
AMERICAN STUDIES
department fall 2007 am 101
am 101 - introduction to american culture: pre-civil war
mwf, 9:05-10:OOam and f, 2:30-3~25pm, tlc 201
Gregory M. Pfitzer
TLC 306, x5026
A study of the development of American life and culture up to the Civil War.
Topics include utopian visions of the new world, religious settlements, the
creation of a national iconography, the social implications of slavery, racial and
ethnic conflict, gender roles, and the rise of the American intellectual traditions.
Resources include fiction, folklore, satire, sermons, maps, journals, captivity
narratives, trial transcripts, autobiography, art, architecture and material
culture.
American Studies 101 Introduction
to American Culture
Pfitzer
Fall '07
This course introduces students to the development of American culture from the Age of
Discovery to the American Civil War. It differs from ordinary survey courses in American
history in two ways: 1) in addition to standard political and institutional sources used in many
history courses, it concentrates on a wide variety of cultural expressions, including fiction,
folklore, satire, art, poetry, music, maps, journals, trial transcripts, material culture, mass
media, etc., and 2) it is episodic rather than comprehensive; that is, it focuses on
representative events that are symbolic of the larger patterns of national development. With
respect to these representative events, special attention will be paid not only to the "what" of
history (the nuts and bolts of what happened in the past) but also to the "how" of history (that
is, how people have used the past to "construct" images of self and nationhood in the
present).
The thematic emphasis of the course will be on the term "culture"--both how a culture is
perceived by others and how a culture perceives itself. The assumption is that American
culture, like any culture, is multi-faceted and many-layered. Therefore the assignments are
designed to make connections among a wide array of historical sources associated with
specific epochs in the American past. On most Mondays throughout the term, students will
receive a set of documents related in someway to the specific time period to be covered the
following week. On the following Monday students will submit a brief description of each
document and a paragraph-long discussion of how they are related (approximately two
pages). For instance, you might find the following in your set of documents for the 1670s: an
excerpt from Mary Rowlandson's Indian captivity narrative, transcripts from the trials of
dissident Quakers, supernatural accounts of catastrophes at sea, a description of Bacon's
Rebellion, an account of witch hangings in Connecticut, and newspaper editorials on King
Philip's War. After identifying each of these documents, you might then speculate that they
have something to do collectively with the growing fear among colonists in the late
seventeenth century that "outside influences" (both visible and invisible) were threatening
the stability of colonial life. These documents will be used as foundations for Professor
Pfitzer's lectures, so students will be able to compare their hypotheses with the themes
developed in class. Students will not be judged on their ability to anticipate Professor
Pfitzer's connections but on the basis of their ability to present plausible theories about the
relatedness of the documents.
Classes will follow a lecture/discussion format, and class participation is an
important component of the overall grade. Fridays will be devoted to the informal
discussion of a specific primary source geared to the lectures for the week, and
students will be asked to lead discussions during those sessions.
Students are expected to attend class, participate in discussion, write two short papers
(5-7 pages each), and take a midterm exam and final exam. The two papers will be worth
15% each, the midterm and final exam will be worth 20% each, the cumulative
document analyses will be worth 20% (you must complete § of 8), and class
participation will be worth 10%. Late documents and papers will be penalized.
Students should purchase the following books from the bookstore:
Christopher Columbus, Four Voyages
Ben Franklin, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin
Mason Weems, The Life of Washington
Alex de T ocqueville, Democracy in America
Davy Crockett, The Autobiography of David Crockett
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War
There is no assigned textbook for the course. For those students who desire a more
comprehensive approach to the period, a survey textbook--Gary Nash, et. aI., The
American People--has been put on reserve in Scribner Library.
Unit I: Novus Mundi: Visions of the New World (1492-1692)
Week 1: The "Old World": A Culture of Crisis
Wednesday
September 5 -- Introduction: What is American Studies? Definitions of Culture
Friday
September 7 -- Ancient and Medieval Images of the New World
Friday
September 7 - The Conquest of Paradise: Expectations and
Realities
Reading: (travelogue) Christopher Columbus Four Voyages, pp. 115-123; 206226;
265-276; 283-304.
Week 2: Cultural Projections and New Beginnings
* * * Document packet #1 due
Monday
September 10 -- Fabled Dreams: Spanish EI Dorado
Wednesday
September 12 - In Search of the Northwest Passage
Friday
September 14 -- The Failed Dream: Jamestown
Friday
September 14 - Pocahontas and Myths of American Origins
Reading: (eyewitness accounts) John Smith, "The General History of Virginia,"
(xeroxes).
Week 3: Puritan New England and the Culture of Dissent
* * * Document packet #2 due
Monday
September 17 -- The Epic Pilgrimage: The Separatist Experiment
Wednesday
September 19 -- The New Jerusalem: The Mass Bay Colony
Friday
September 21 - Making Old England into New England
Friday
September 21 -- Trouble in Paradise: New England Dissent
Reading: (narrative and counter-narrative) selections from William Bradford, Of
Plymouth Plantation and Thomas Morton, New English Canaan (xeroxes).
Week 4: The American Jeremiad: the Culture of Self-Criticism
* * * First paper due
Monday
September 24 -- A City Upon a Hill? The Puritan Interregnum
Wednesday
September 26 -- The "Red Devils" and King Philip's War
Friday
September 28 -- "Black Devils" and Slavery as Original Sin
Friday
September 28 -- The Devil Within: The Salem Witchcraft Trials
Reading: (trial transcripts) selections from the transcripts of the Salem
Witchcraft Trials--Carrier, Goode, Mather (xeroxes).
Unit II: Colonial Subcultures and the Idea of America (1692-1783)
Week 5: The New Adam and the Garden of the World
* * * Document packet #3 due
Monday
October 1 -- Religious Revivalism and the Great Awakening
Wednesday
October 3 -- The Middling Sort: The Pastoral Ideal and Colonial Empire
Friday
October 5 - The Nation's Crucible: The French and Indian War
Friday
October 5 -- Unity Amidst Diversity: Creating an American Type
Reading: (autobiography) Ben Franklin, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin
(Twyford, at the Bishop of st. Asaph's - "Advertisement,"), pp. 16-127.
Week 6: Regeneration Through Violence: The Independence Movement
* * * Document packet #4 due
Monday
October 8 -- The "Great Drama": The Coming of War
Wednesday
October 10 - Olympic Struggle: The American Revolution
Reading: (propaganda/political manifesto) Thomas Paine, Common
Sense; (propaganda) Joel Barlow, selections from "The Columbiad" (xerox).
Friday
October 12 - American Studies Association (no class)
Week 7: "Exam”ining the Past:
* * * Midterm Examination
Monday
October 15-- Midterm Examination (identifications and quotations)
Wednesday
October 17-- Midterm Examination (essay)
Friday
October 19 - Study Break (no class)
Unit III: The Culture of Legitimacy and Respect (1783-1850)
Week 8: False Starts: The Search for Meaning and Structure
Monday
October 22-- Revolutionary Aspirations: The Obligations of Victory
Wednesday
October 24 - E Pluribus Unum: The Federal Constitution
Friday
October 26- Party Politics and Family Squabbles
Friday
October 26 -- Symbolic Cultures: National Iconography in the 1790s
Reading: (popular culture) Mason Weems, The Life of Washington
chapters I-II, VIII-IX, XI-XVI.
Week 9: Expansion and Empire-Building
* * * Document packet #5 due
Monday
October 29 - Adams and Jefferson: Political Strife in the Early Republic
Wednesday
October 31- Cloaks and Daggers: A Conspiratorial Culture
Friday
November 2- A Culture of Legitimacy: The War of 1812
Friday
November 2 - Singing the Nation's Praises: Music and Nationalism
Reading: (music) selections from "Patriotic Music of the Early Republic"
(xerox and tapes).
Week 10: Growing Pains: America's Cultural Maturation
* * * Document packet #6 due
Monday
November 5 -- The Era of Good Feelings?
Wednesday
November 7 - America at 50: Mid-life Crises and the Post-heroic Age
Friday
November 9-- From Foreign Shores: The European Image of the American Self
Friday
November 9 - Tyranny of the Majority: The Common Denominator Culture
Reading (political essays) Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,
chapters 11,12,15,18,21-25,32,39-40,43-44,46,51.
Week 11: One Nation, Under God, Indivisible: Manifest Destiny
* * * Second paper due
Monday
November 12-- Sermons in Stones: Nature and Providence
Wednesday
November 14 - Go West Young Man (and Woman?)
Friday
November 16 - The Lost Generation and the Mexican War
Friday
November 16 - American Folklore and the Vernacular Tradition
Reading: (folklore) Davy Crockett, Narrative of the Life of David Crockett.
Week 12: Creating Cultural Symbols
Monday
November 19-- The Epic Vision: Images of America in Art and Literature
Reading: (art): slides of the works of selected American painters.
Wednesday
November 21-- Thanksgiving Break
Friday
November 23-- Thanksgiving Break
Unit IV: Liberty and Union? A Culture in Crisis (1850-1865)
Week 13: Culture and Counterculture
Monday
November 26-- Opening Pandora's Box: The Wilmot Proviso
Wednesday
November 28 - Cultural Stereotypes and the Myth of the South
Friday
November 30 - Slavery and the "Constitutional" Issue of Race
Friday
November 30 -- Abolitionists, Fire-eaters and the Impending Crisis
Reading: (slave narrative) Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of
a Slave Girl.
Week 14: Two Nations, Under God, Divisible: Cultural Dissolution
* * * Document packet #7 due
Monday
December 3- Ordeal By Fire: The Coming of the Civil War
Wednesday
December 5 - Lincoln and the House Divided
Friday
December 7 - A Dark and Bloody Ground: The American Civil War
Friday
December 7 - Appomattox and the Culture of Conciliation
Reading: (photography): portfolio of Mathew Brady photographs and clips from Ken
Burns's "Civil War"
Week 15: Closing the Curtain: The End of the Civil War
* 'I< * Document packet #8 due
Monday
December 10- Reconstructing America: History and Culture in the Postwar Era
Wednesday
December 12 - The "Idea" of America Revisited
Reading: (interpretive essay) Robert Penn Warren, "The Legacy of the Civil War"
* * * Final Exam (December 17,1:30-4:30)