Spring 2017
Course Information
HI 254: Modern US History Survey
“People and Perspectives”
Sec. 02
MWF
8:30 AM – 9:20 AM
Withers Hall, 150
Sec. 03
MWF
9:35 AM – 10:25 AM
Withers Hall, 150
Course Description
Mrs. Megan Cullen Tewell,
Instructor
This class will survey over 150 years of modern American history, from the postCivil War Era through the twentieth century. Keeping a collective open mind,
students will examine which - and why - certain “facts,” narratives, events, and
people are used to represent and understand our past. In the process, students
will engage with and embrace historical complexity.
This course draws on various primary and secondary sources that often provide
conflicting interpretations of the American story. In this way, the topics and
materials of this course reflect the multitude of contradictory opinions,
experiences and identities within the United States- both today and throughout
our history. Utilizing these diverse historical perspectives, students will work
collaboratively in order to expand their understanding of American history and to
engage in the type of thinking required to understand and “do” history.
Contact Information
Office Hours
By appointment
Office Location
Withers Hall, 472
Email
[email protected]
Course Objectives
By the conclusion of the course, students will be able to…

Construct a basic, meaningful, and intellectually informed narrative of American history from the late 19th century
to the present

Engage in historical thinking and argumentation, including the ability to communicate ideas verbally and through
writing

Effectively utilize primary and secondary sources

Navigate, empathize with, and make sense of a diversity of perspectives and interpretations
The course will also act as an exercise in the ‘real-world’ application of
history.
Students will consider:

How does one "think historically" in everyday conversations?

What can a historical perspective on our lives, our cultures,
and our nation teach us about our present situations, our
future, and ourselves?

How do new, often contradictory, voices, approaches, and
facts change the fundamental stories of U.S. history?
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Assignments & Assessment
Assignment descriptions
and requirements
available via Moodle
Pop Quizzes (10%)
Workshop Reflections (20%)
In order to ensure that students are
Students will complete two workshop
keeping up with the assigned material,
reflection papers.
there will be several random quizzes

3 to 5 full pages
throughout the semester. Quizzes will

Due at the beginning of the following
consist of a few short questions pertaining
to the reading(s) and will be completed at
class

the beginning of class.
Participation (20%)
workshops throughout the semester

workshop (photographs, artifacts,
Therefore, participation is mandatory.
oral histories, audio, etc.) relate to
Students are expected to make
the secondary readings
meaningful contributions to each class
complete the assigned reading(s) and
Final (30%)
Students will complete a take-home final.

7 to 10 full pages

Paper will analyze a historical film
or documentary in comparison with
a book

Students must choose from the list
provided or they may select a
different pairing with the
permission of the instructor

If a student opts for a pairing not on
the list, permission from the
instructor must be granted one (1)
month from the final due date
source and relate it to the week’s class

Proper citations required
readings, discussion, materials, and

Students may submit their final
papers at any point during the
semester

All final papers are due in class on
Friday, April 28th
come to class prepared.
Journal (20%)
Students will complete intermittent journal
entries that reflect on select course topics.
Grading Table
A+
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
100-97
96-93
92-90
89-87
86-83
82-80
79-77
76-73
72-70
69-67
66-63
62-60
Below 60
Journal entries must be structured around
either Prompt #1 or Prompt #2 - students
may choose. Two (2) full pages required.
Prompt #1

Students will analyze at least 1 primary
workshop (if applicable)
Prompt #2

Students will reflect on how the
primary sources used in the
This is a discussion based class.
discussion. Students are also required to
Students may select any two
Students will select 1 contemporary
news story and relate it to the week’s
class readings, discussion, materials, and
workshop (if applicable)
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Coursework
WEEK 1: RECONSTRUCTION
WEEK 2: CONQUERING THE WEST
A. Monday, January 9th
Introductions
A. Monday, January 16th
No Class (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
B. Wednesday, January 11th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 15 (Reconstruction)
B. Wednesday, January 18th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 17 (Conquering the West)
C. Friday, January 13th
Workshop: Confederate Legacies +
C. Friday, January 20th
Workshop: The “Indian Problem”
Assigned Reading:
 “Civil War Monuments,” Thomas Brown
http://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/features/essays/brown/
Assigned Listening:
 “Ghosts of Football Past,” RadioLab
http://www.radiolab.org/story/who-are-we-carlisle-carlisle-carlisle/

“American Indian Boarding School Haunts Many,” NPR (2008)
Assigned Reading:
 “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” Zitkala-Sa
 “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man”
 “Building the Carlisle Indian Industrial School” (NPS)
 “What Are Commemorative Landscapes?,” W. Fitzhugh Brundage
http://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/features/essays/brundage_one/
WEEK 3: LIFE IN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA
A. Monday, January 23rd
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 18 (Life in Industrial America)
A.
B. Wednesday, January 25th
Workshop: Immigrant Life
Assigned Reading:
 “Introduction,” How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis
 “The Triumph of America,” Andrew Carnegie
Assigned Viewing:
 Jacob Riis Photographs,
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/davis/photography/images/riisphotos/slideshow1.html
C. Friday, January 27th
* Journal Day
WEEK 5: THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
WEEK 4: AMERICAN EMPIRE
A. Monday, February 6th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 20 (The Progressive Era)
A. Monday, January 30th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 19 (American Empire)
B. Wednesday, February
1st
A.
B. Wednesday, February 8th
Workshop: Child Labor Reform
Workshop: American Attitudes- “Yellow Journalism”
Assigned Reading:
 William McKinley on American Expansionism (1903)
 Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899)
 William James on the “Philippine Question” (1903)
 “U.S. Diplomacy and Yellow Journalism, 1895-1898”
C. Friday, February 3rd
Workshop: American Attitudes- The Soldiers
Assigned Reading:
 “Painting the Philippines With An American Brush,” Sean McEnroe
Assigned Browsing:
 “Children in Progressive-Era America,” DPLA,
https://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/children-progressive-era/reform
 “The American Era of Child Labor,” VCU Libraries,
http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/child-welfarechild-labor/child-labor/
Assigned Reading:
 “Child Labor in the Carolinas,” A.J. McKelway
 “Child Labor in the Canning Industry of Maryland," Hines
Assigned Listening:
 Ila Hartsell Dodson, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7811
 James Pharis, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7812
 Alice P. Evitt, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7813
C. Friday, February 10th
* Journal Day
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Coursework
WEEK 6: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH
A. Monday, February 13th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 21 (World War I & Its Aftermath)
A.
B. Wednesday, February 15th
Workshop: Women’s Suffrage
Assigned Reading:
 “Women’s Suffrage,” Library of Congress
Assigned Viewing:
 “Women’s Suffrage: Crash Course US History #31,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGEMscZE5dY
C. Friday, February 17th
Assigned Viewing:
 Iron Jawed Angels (2004)
WEEK 7: THE NEW ERA
WEEK 8: THE GREAT DEPRESSION
A. Monday, February 20th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 22 (The New Era)
A. Monday, February 27th
A.

Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 23 (The Great Depression)
A.
B. Wednesday, February 22nd
Workshop: Remembering (and Forgetting) Violence
B. Wednesday, March 1st
Workshop: Prohibition
Assigned Viewing:
 “North Star- Duluth Lynchings: Presence of the Past,” Twin Cities PBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_O7jvgP1YU
Assigned Browsing:
 “Temperance & Prohibition,” Ohio State University, https://prohibition.osu.edu/
Assigned Browsing:
 Duluth Lynchings, Minnesota Historical Society http://www.mnhs.org/duluthlynchings/
o
Background
o
The Lynchings
o
Legal Proceedings
o
Incarcerations
o
Afterwards
o
Oral Histories
C. Friday, February 24th
* Journal Day
Assigned Listening:
 “Prohibition, Speakeasies, Loopholes, and Politics,” NPR (2011)
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/137077599/prohibition-speakeasies-loopholes-andpolitics
C. Friday, March 3rd
Workshop: The New Deal and the CCC
Assigned Browsing:
 “The Civilian Conservation Corps,” PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/ccc-introduction/
Assigned Reading:
 “Texans and the Civilian Conservation Corps: Personal Memories,” Mary L. Wilson
WEEK 9: SPRING BREAK
A. Monday, March 6th
No Class (Spring Break)
B. Wednesday, March 8th
No Class (Spring Break)
C. Friday, March 10th
No Class (Spring Break)
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Coursework
WEEK 10: WORLD WAR II
WEEK 11: THE COLD WAR
A. Monday, March 13th
A. Monday, March 20th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 24 (World War II
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 25 (The Cold War)
B. Wednesday, March 15th
B. Wednesday, March 22nd
Workshop: Dropping the Atomic Bomb
Workshop: Un-Americanism (“McCarthyism”)
Assigned Reading:
 Primary Documents (via Moodle folder, Week 10)
Assigned Reading:
 The Truman Doctrine (1947)
 Joseph McCarthy on Communism (1950)
C. Friday, March 17th
Workshop: Japanese Internment
Assigned Browsing:
 “ Prisoners at Home: Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps,”
https://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/japanese-internment
Assigned Listening:
 “McCarthy Defends His War on Communism,” (1954)
http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/joseph-mccarthy/speeches/mccarthy-defendshis-war-on-communism
C. Friday, March 24th
Assigned Reading:
 Sarah Breed Collection Letters (4), Smithsonian Education,
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/japanese_internment/le
tter_a.html
Assigned Viewing:
 “Looking Like the Enemy,” DENSHO, http://www.densho.org/looking-like-the-enemy/
 “American Concentration Camps,” DENSHO, http://www.densho.org/americanconcentration-camps/
Workshop: Un-Americanism (“The Lavender Scare”)
Assigned Reading:
 “The Lavender Scare,” Andrea Wiley and Josh Burke,
http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/salinas/students/student_sites/Fall2008/6/
Assigned Listening:
 “Lavender is the New Red,” Backstory with the American History Guys, PRX,
https://beta.prx.org/stories/110395
WEEK 12: THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY
A. Monday, March 27th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 26 (The Affluent Society)
B. Wednesday, March 29th
Workshop: The Suburban Dream
Assigned Reading:
 “Looking for History in “Boring” Places: Suburban Communities and American Life,”
Michael P. Marino (pgs. 491- 503)
Assigned Viewing:
 “In The Suburbs,” American Yawp (1957)
C. Friday, March 31st
Workshop: The Braceros
Assigned Reading:
 “Braceros: History, Compensation,” Philip Martin,
https://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=1112
Assigned Listening:
 “Examining the Legacy of the Braceros Program,” NPR,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4556696
WEEK 13: THE SIXTIES
WEEK 14: THE UNRAVELING
A. Monday, April 3rd
A. Monday, April 10th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 27 (The Sixties)
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 28 (The Unraveling)
B. Wednesday, April 5th +
Workshop: Civil Rights Memory
Assigned Reading:
 “Introduction” and “Chapter 1,” Civil Rights Memorials and the Geography of Memory,
Owen J. Dwyer & Derek H. Alderman
C. Friday, April 7th
* Journal Day
B. Wednesday, April 12th
Assigned Listening:
 “All Hopped Up: Drugs in America,” Backstory with the American History Guys (PBS)
http://backstoryradio.org/shows/all-hopped-up-drugs-in-america-2/
Assigned Segments:

“Just Say No” [5 min.]

“Mother’s Little Helper” [11 min.]

“The Drugs They Carried” [10 min.]
C. Friday, April 14th
No Class (Spring Holiday)
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Coursework
WEEK 15: TRIUMPH OF THE RIGHT
A. Monday, April 17th
Assigned Reading: American Yawp, Chapter 29 (The Triumph of the Right)
B. Wednesday, April 19th
No Class (Instructor Conference- NCPH)
Assigned Reading:
 “The Confusing and At-Times Counterproductive 1980s Response to the AIDS Epidemic,”
Geiling
 “Hollywood’s Struggle to Deal With AIDS in the ‘80s,” Bonner
Assigned Viewing:
 “26 Powerful Photos Of The US AIDS Crisis in the ‘80s,” Sanchez
C. Friday, April 21st
No Class (Instructor Conference- NCPH)
Assigned Viewing
 “Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation,” (VH1, 2011)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zswrGZP7jUY
WEEK 16: RECENT HISTORY
A. Monday, April 24th
Topic: The Politics of Memory vs. History
Assigned Reading:
 “The Enola Gay Controversy: History, Memory, and the Politics of Presentation,” Michael
J. Hogan
B. Wednesday, April 26th
Topic: Ethics of Exhibition
Assigned Reading:
 “Bones of Contention: The Repatriation of Native American Human Remains,” Andrew
Gulliford
Assigned Viewing:
 “Kennewick Man,” 60 Minutes- CBS, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg28ww5IaXY
C. Friday, April 28th
Topic: Ethics of Exhibition (Dark Tourism)
Assigned Reading:
 “Is ‘Dark Tourism’ OK?,” Robert Reid,
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/is-dark-tourism-ok-chernobylpripyat-disaster-sites/
 “Touring Katrina: Authentic Identities and Disaster Tourism in New Orleans,” Devon
Robbie
Assigned Viewing:
 “Hurricane Katrina- Day By Day,” National Geographic,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbJaMWw4-2Q
Disclaimer:
The aforementioned schedule constitutes a proposed course of action and not a contract. Dates, topics, and assignments are subject to change.
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Attendance Policy
It is desirable for students to attend all classes. Plan to arrive to
class on time and to stay for the entire class period (or until
dismissed). Students are allowed 3 absences per semester. More
than 3 absences will result in the deduction of a full letter grade
from the student’s final grade. Students are responsible for what
transpired if they miss a class. It is the student’s responsibility to
contact a classmate to determine what was missed.
For additional information and/or clarification on the University’s
absence policy, see: http://policies.ncsu.edu/regulation/reg-02-2003
You may submit all written assignments in hardcopy or via email, as long as the assignments are submitted by the deadline.
They should be in 12- point font, double-spaced with one-inch margins, and stapled. All assignments must also be
footnoted properly in Chicago style. You can find the Chicago Manual of Style on- line through the library’s website.
Late assignments will not be accepted.
Your writing in this course will be evaluated on both its FORM and CONTENT.


Content refers to your ability to integrate and analyze—not merely summarize—general themes and ideas of the
works you will review in papers.
Form refers to the coherence, logical and chronological, of your writing as well as your grammatical and citation
proficiency.
Academic integrity is mandatory. You are expected to produce original work on all course assignments. Plagiarism will result
in a failing grade for the course and possible academic probation.
If you need information on what plagiarism is and how to identify it, see the History Department’s website:
http://history.ncsu.edu/ug_resources/plagiarism_honor_code
See also sections 7-13 in the Code of Student Conduct:
http://policies.ncsu.edu/policy/pol- 11-35-01
All students are responsible for reviewing the NC State University Policies, Regulations, and Rules located at
http://oucc.ncsu.edu/course-rights-and-responsibilities which pertains to your course rights and responsibilities.
Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with verifiable disabilities.
Students with verifiable disabilities should register with the Disability Services for Students in order to establish the necessary
accommodations. The office is located at 1900 Student Health Center, Campus Box 7509. The phone number is 515.7653. For
further information, see: http://policies.ncsu.edu/regulation/reg-02-20-01
A Note on Preparedness: This course is intended to development critical thinking skills; therefore, it is essential that you keep
up with the readings. We will cover these topics by addressing key historical questions- as a class it will be up to you to
provide the answers. These answers should be supported by evidence and constructed through the use of explicit logic- this
means we will be going beyond the voicing of opinions in order to produce historical arguments.
Technology Usage:
Instructor Availability:
No laptops, except on days specified by the instructor
or indicated in the syllabus.
I am available to meet with students outside of class by
appointment. I am also accessible via email. Please feel
free to approach me regarding any concerns or
questions you may have, or if you require additional
information.
No cellphones are allowed during class. If a student is
caught using their cellphone, they will be excused from
class. Students excused from class will not receive
participation credit for the day. If an extenuating
circumstance requires a student to have/use their
phone, please contact me before class.
Food and beverages are allowed in class.
Classroom Etiquette:
It is important that students act respectfully towards
instructors and fellow classmates. Student behavior
should not interfere with or disrupt class activities.
Students are expected to be polite, prepared, and
participatory.
Required Course Texts
 Online Textbook: The American Yawp (2016) http://www.americanyawp.com/
* Textbook chapters and other readings available on Moodle
+ Indicates class periods where students are required to bring their laptops for in-class activity.
9