History of the United States II, 1877-present (512:202:05)
Monday, 2:30-3:50 and Wednesday, 1:00-2:20
Conklin Hall 346
Christopher Adam Mitchell, Instructor
[email protected]
Office: 326 Conklin Hall
Office Hours: Monday, 1:15-2:15
Course Description
This course surveys the major events in the history of the United States from the Compromise of 1877,
which ended the Reconstruction of the South and began the long “Jim Crow” era in the United States,
until the present era, marked by the on-going wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the election of the
nation’s first African-American president, Barack Obama. This long period in the nation’s history covers
the social upheavals and cultural conflicts defined by 1) Jim Crow and the early struggle for AfricanAmerican Civil Rights, the immigration-fueled growth of one of the most powerful industrial countries in
the world, the Gilded Age of concentrated wealth, the Labor Movement and Populist Revolt, and the
resulting Progressive Era and Woman’s Suffrage Movements at the turn-of-the-century (1880-1920); 2)
the Jazz Age and the dominance of mass culture, the Great Depression, and the New Deal (1920-1940); 3)
war-time mobilization and the post-war era of social and cultural conformity (1940-1955); 4) the Civil
Rights and New Left Era, the Peace Movement and the Vietnam War, and Women’s and Gay Liberation
in the era of Participatory Democracy (1955-1980); 5) and the rise of the Conservative Movement, the
Culture Wars, “Third Way” Neo-Liberalism, and the origins of the recent fiscal crisis of the Great
Recession (1980-present). Militarily and internationally, this period coincided with the completion of
“Manifest Destiny” and the end of American Indian sovereignty in the western part of the continental
United States (1860s-1890s); the Pacific and Caribbean expansion of the United States during the Age of
Imperialism (1890s-1920s); the emergence of the country’s “superpower” status in the wake of the First
and Second World Wars (1920s-1940s); the era of the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and
Globalization (1950s-1990s); and the post-Cold War era defined by the dominance of Neo-Liberalism and
the “War on Terror” (1990s-present). Throughout the course, we will discuss the impact of religion, race,
class, gender, and sexuality in American life. In addition to U.S. history, this course is designed to
introduce students to historiography, the disciplinary study of change over time developed by
diplomatic/political, cultural/intellectual, social/economic, gender/sexuality, urban/geographical, and
natural/ecological historians. In this manner, we will consider the ways in which U.S. historians have
traditionally written and thought about history as well as contemporary debates about history that have
convulsed history departments, local and state school boards, and the discourse of contemporary party
politics in the last three decades.
The most important task of this course is to teach students to critically consider the evidence of history.
All history is contested and all historians have their own ideological positions; it is only through reasoned
debate and meaningful engagement with one another and the sources that we can make use of the past
and the lessons it has to teach us.
Required Textbooks
Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 18801917
Allan Bérubè, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II
Donna Jean Murch, Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in
Oakland, California
All other readings will be available through the course’s sakai site (sakai.rutgers.edu).
Classroom Policy
Student conduct during class lectures and discussions. Please be respectful of the university setting.
Refrain from cell phone use (including texting), talking or whispering while someone else is speaking,
sleeping in class, or using laptops to surf social media and other irrelevant websites. Students who wish to
use their laptops during class must take a seat on the first row. Students who disrupt the class meeting,
including students who sleep or speak to either their colleagues or their instructor without due respect,
will be asked to leave.
Attendance and absence policy. Attendance is mandatory. Please attend each class meeting. I will
use lecture time to introduce students to film clips, images, music, and other primary source media to
compliment the readings. Occasional illness (including illness of a child or a parent), injury,
transportation delays, and bereavement are inevitable. However, it is not the instructor’s
responsibility to “catch you up.” If you must miss a class meeting for an illness or other personal
emergency, assume responsibility for work missed. Exchange contact information with a classmate to
help you keep up with the lectures or make arrangements to meet with the instructor during office hours.
College professors must balance time priorities between research, class preparation, and teaching time
and students who wish their instructors to dedicate their spare time to students who cannot or will not
come to class should recalibrate their expectations. The instructor will only excuse absences with proper
documentation or prior instructor approval. Students will lose half a letter grade (5 percentage
points) of their course grade after the fourth unexcused absence. Students who miss more than
eight sessions through any combination of excused or unexcused absences will not earn credit for
the class. Such students should withdraw from the course.
Lectures. Lectures are a critical component of the course, and students cannot pass the course if
they do not pay attention and understand the materials presented in lecture. There is no broad survey
text book assigned in this course, which means that the instructor will use the lectures to point to the
broader narrative points of U.S. history. In many cases, students may find it difficult to fully understand
the readings without the context of lecture.
Course readings. Students must complete the readings before each class meeting and prepared to
bring questions and comments to class. There are three assigned books for this class, and each book
discusses a smaller part of a larger process in United States history. It is the instructor’s intention to use
the readings to elucidate larger historical themes, and the books were chosen with students’ interests in
mind. During weeks when the books are discussed, the course will require students to read more intensely
and a higher volume than they might normally be expected to in a survey course. The instructor
strongly recommends that students begin reading the books the week prior to discussions on the
books, since those weeks contain only minimal reading assignments. Students may expect to read as
many as seventy pages for course meetings during these weeks. However, on “off weeks” the instructor
will assign only minor readings of about 5-10 pages. The instructor may assign you additional
“homework” at any time, although such assignments will be used as the basis of class discussion. In this
case, the instructor will inform you in the previous class to bring in a question or concern for discussion.
The instructor expects students to complete all the readings, and students should expect the
instructor to call on them and ask them questions about the readings at any time.
Course Requirements
Participation. The most important element of this course is active participation, and students
have a unique opportunity for an intense course of study based on student discussions. Students should
feel that this classroom is a safe space, and intimidation and other forms of disrespect will not be
tolerated. The instructor will actively take notes on student contributions to discussions and credit
students who ask relevant questions during lectures. Lectures are interactive and students should feel
encouraged to bring in relevant questions and comments.
Writing. Students must write a historiographical review essay of no fewer than 1,500 words
and no longer than 3,000 words on one of the required readings. Students will choose a text to write
one essay. Students must hand in papers according to the following schedule: Southern Discomfort essays
due no later February 22, Coming Out Under Fire essays are due no later than March 21, and Living for
the City essays will be due on April 18. All papers must be typed, double spaced, and handed in at the
beginning of class on the assigned due dates. ELECTRONIC AND LATE WORK WILL NOT BE
ACCEPTED WITHOUT A DOCUMENTED EXCUSE OR PRIOR INSTRUCTOR APPROVAL.
In a historiographical essay, students are asked to consider the arguments and interpretations of
the author, the author’s use of primary and secondary sources, and the disciplinary perspective from
which an author interprets history.
What are the implications of the author’s argument, and how does this deepen or challenge your
understanding of a specific historical event or period? For example, how does Gail
Bederman’sinterpretation—in which differences based on national, gender-, class-, and race-based identity
inform the intersections of the worker’s movement and women’s activism in South Florida—deepen our
understanding of a historical period defined by U.S. military and economic expansion in the Caribbean
and the Pacific, Jim Crow segregation, and the Woman Suffrage movement?
What kinds of sources does the author investigate and how does s/he use these sources to
interpret broader themes in history? For example, what can Allan Bérubè’s examination of gay and
lesbian service members’ personal letters tell us about the history of the Second World War or U.S.
military history?
How does the author’s methodology inform their use and interpretation of sources? For
example, how does Donna Murch combine the approaches of urban history, intellectual history, the
history of gender, and the history of women to explain the rise of Black Nationalism in the Bay Area
during the 1960s and 1970s?
Quizzes and examinations. Students will answer several unannounced identification quizzes related
to the readings. Only students with a documented absence or a prior excuse may make up quizzes.
Medical, family, and other emergencies are, of course, negotiable. In addition, students must take a midterm and a final examination. Both examinations will use a combination of identification questions,
matching terms, and essays in order to test student knowledge of lecture and reading materials. Any and
all materials that appear in lecture might appear on a quiz or examinations. Although the final
examination will be cumulative, it will primarily focus on material from the second half of the course.
Grading Rubric
Classroom participation
Historiographical essay
Identification Quizzes
Mid-term Examination
Final Examination
10%
20%
20%
20%
30%
Statement on academic honesty. Cheating is anathema to the openness, transparency, and integrity of the
academic community. Your work must be your own. Students who hand in other people’s work or who
fail to credit the ideas of others forfeit their right to be evaluated and should withdraw from the course.
Violations will be reported to the appropriate university authorities and the instructor will pursue any
and all disciplinary action against purposeful cheaters and plagiarists. Academic dishonesty includes
unauthorized collaboration on homework assignments and, of course on in-class quizzes and
examinations.
Statement on plagiarism from the University’s “Policy on Academic Integrity for Undergraduate and Graduate
Students”:
“Plagiarism is the representation of the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise.
To avoid plagiarism, every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks or by appropriate
indentation and must be properly cited in the text or in a footnote. Acknowledgment is required when
material from another source stored in print, electronic or other medium is paraphrased or summarized in
whole or in part in one's own words. To acknowledge a paraphrase properly, one might state: "to
paraphrase Plato's comment..." and conclude with a footnote identifying the exact reference. A footnote
acknowledging only a directly quoted statement does not suffice to notify the reader of any preceding or
succeeding paraphrased material. Information which is common knowledge such as names of leaders of
prominent nations, basic scientific laws, etc, need not be footnoted; however, all facts or information
obtained in reading or research that are not common knowledge among students in the course must be
acknowledged.
In addition to materials specifically cited in the text, only materials that contribute to one's general
understanding of the subject may be acknowledged in the bibliography. Plagiarism can, in some cases, be
a subtle issue. Any questions about what constitutes plagiarism should be discussed with the faculty
member.”
Schedule of Lecture Topics and Course Readings
Week 1
January 18
Week 2
January 23
January 25
Week 3
Introduction: Themes and Concepts
Introduction to U.S. History II: Practices and Course Themes
Manifest Indignities: Domestic Imperialism and Agrarian Populism in the
West, 1877-1900
Lecture: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”: Genocide, Assimilation, and the End of
American Indian Sovereignty in the West
Reading: Chief Joseph, “An Indian’s View of Indian’s Affairs” (1879)
**Begin reading Bederman
Easterners and Westerners, Immigrants and Natives, Farmers and Factory Workers,
and Bankers and Bosses: Understanding the Social and Cultural Faultlines in America’s
First Gilded Age
Reading: William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold” (1896)
The Discontent of “Civilization”: Jim Crow and American Manhood
January 30
Lecture and discussion: Race and Gender in the Jim Crow Era: Jack Johnson,
Manhood, and Race
Reading: Bederman, 1-44 (Introduction and Chapter 1)
February 2
Lecture: Labor, Race, and Reform: Reform Activism in the Labor Movement and the
Early African-American Civil Rights
Reading: Bederman, 45-76 (Chapter 2); “141 Men and Girls Die in Waist Factory Fire”
(New York Times 3/26/1911)
Week 4
Race, Class, and Gender: Cultural Genealogies of the Progressive Era
February 6
Lecture and discussion: Progressive?: The Ideology of Racism in America’s
Progressive Era
Reading: Bederman, 77-120 (Chapter 3)
February 8
Lecture and discussion: What is citizenship?: A Case Study of Gender, Race, and
Immigration Status in the Era of Woman’s Suffrage
Reading: Hewitt, 121-169 (Chapter 4)
Week 5
Fighting for Civilization: American Ideologies of Warfare from the
Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars to the First World War
February 13
Lecture: “Bully!”: American Imperialism in the Age of Theodore Roosevelt, 1898-1913
Reading: Bederman, 170-239 (Chapter 5 and Epilogue)
February 15
Lecture: Fighting for Civilization: The First World War and the First Red Scare
Reading: The Masses (1912-1917) (images); W.E.B. DuBois, “Returning Soldiers”
(1919); Claude McKay, “If We Must Die” (1919); Louis Stark, “Are Sacco and Vanzetti
Guilty?” (NYT, March 5, 1922)
Week 6
February 20
The Roaring Twenties, the Depression and the New Deal, 1929-1940
Lecture: The Harlem Renaissance: A Case Study of Race and Popular Culture in the
“Jazz Age”
Reading: Alain Locke, “The New Negro” (1919); Elise Johnson McDougald, “The Task
of Negro Womanhood” (1925); Joel A. Rogers, “Jazz at Home” (1925); Richard Bruce
Nugent, “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” (1925); Langston Hughes, “When the Negro Was in
Vogue” from Big Sea (1940)
Music: Fats Waller, Bessie Smith, Al Jolson
**Begin Reading Bérubè
February 22
Lecture: Dust Bowl Blues and Happy Days: Economic and Ecological Catastrophe and
the Slog to Recovery
Reading: FDR Inaugural Speeches (1933, 1937)
Images: Walker Evans (from James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)
Music: Woody Guthrie
**Bederman Historiographical Paper Due
Week 7
World War II, Part I: Mobilizing for War, 1940-1945
February 27
Lecture: Prelude to War: The Expansion of the Racial State in Europe and Asia and the
Drumbeat to War
Reading: Bérubè, 1-66 (Introduction, Chapters 1 and 2)
February 29
Discussion: The Hidden History of Sexuality
Reading: Bérubè, 67-127 (Chapters 3 and 4)
Week 8
World War II, Part II: Demobilizations and the End of War, 1940-1947
March 5 Lecture: Mobilizations: Experiences of Race and Gender in the Second World
War
Reading: Bérubè, 128-200 (Chapters 5, 6, and 7)
March 7
Lecture and discussion: Coming to Terms with Identity and Coming Out in the
Second World War
Reading: Bérubè, 201-279
SPRING RECESS: No class on March 12 and March 14
Week 9
The Bomb and the Cold War, 1947-1955
March 19
MID-TERM EXAMINATION
**Begin Reading Murch
March 21
Film: “American Experience: Race for the Superbomb”
**Bérubè Historiographical Paper Due
Week 10
Civil Rights, Part I: National Activism, the Courts, and the Legislatures,
1940-1960
March 26
Lecture: Achieving the “Double V”: From Wartime Mobilization to Civil Rights
Mobilization in the Cold War Era
Reading: Murch, 3-70 (Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2)
March 28
Lecture: Civil Rights or Civil War: White Violence and Black Non-Violence in the
South in the Late Fifties and Early Sixties
Reading: Murch, 71-118 (Chapters 3 and 4)
Week 11
Civil Rights, Part II: Police Violence, Black Radicalism, and Urban
Revolt in the Sixties and Seventies, 1960-1982
April 2
Lecture and Discussion: New Frontiers: The Hope and Potential of Sixties America
Reading: Murch, 119-190 (Chapters 5 and 6)
April 5
Lecture: Crises in Richard Nixon’s America
Reading: Murch, 191-236 (Chapter 7 and Conclusion); Richard Nixon,
“Vietnamization” (1969), Resignation Speech (1974); Barbara Jordan, Statement on the
Articles of Impeachment (1974)
Week 12
Liberation for All: Chicana/os, Puerto Rican and Latina/o City Dwellers,
the American Indian Movement, and Asian American Immigrants
April 9
Lecture: Homegrown Postcolonialism: Chicana/o Farmworkers and the American
Indian Movement in the “Old West”
Reading: Luis Valdez, “Las Dos Caras del Patroncito” (1965); Vine Deloria, Jr., “The
Red and the Black” from Custer Died for Your Sins (1969)
April 11
Lecture and discussion: Urban Postcolonialism: Puerto Rican and Latina/o Activism
and Asian Immigration in the Era of the Urban Crisis
Reading: The Young Lord’s “Statement on Women” (1971); Iris Morales and Denise
Oliver-Velez, “Why Read the Young Lords Today?” and Darrel Enck-Wanzer,
“Toward Understanding the Young Lords” from The Young Lords: A Reader (ed. EnckWanzer); Michael Liu, Kim Geron, and Tracy Lai, from The Snake Dance of Asian
American Activism
Week 13
Liberation and Its Discontent: Women’s and Gay Liberation and the
Beginnings of the Culture Wars, 1966-1987
April 16
Lecture: Making Waves: Feminism and the Fate of the Equal Rights Amendment
Reading: Shirley Chisholm, “For the Equal Rights Amendment” (1970); Huey Newton,
“The Women’s and Gay Liberation Movements” (1970); The Combahee River
Collective Statement (1977); Beth Bailey, “She ‘Can Bring Home the Bacon’:
Negotiating Gender in Seventies America” from America in the 70s
April 18
Lecture: Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender Rights in the Sixties and Seventies
Reading: Martha Shelley, “Gay Is Good” (1969); Carl Wittman, “Refugees from
Amerika: A Gay Manifesto;” Huey Newton, “The Women’s and Gay Liberation
Movements” (1970); Harvey Milk, “The Hope Speech” (1978) Martin Duberman, “The
Anita Bryant Brigade” (1977) and “Stonewall” (1993); Jessi Gan, “‘Still at the Back of the
Bus’: Sylvia Rivera’s Struggle”
**Murch Historiographical Paper Due
Week 14
The Reagan Revolution: Conservative Hegemony and the Coming of the
Second Gilded Age, 1980-1997
April 23
Morning in America, Mourning in America: The Mixed Legacy of the Reagan
Revolution
Reading: Eric Foner, “The Rising Tide of Conservatism” from Give Me Liberty! Vol. 2;
Dinesh D’Souza, “President Ronald Reagan: Winning the Cold War” (American History
Magazine, October 2003)
April 25
Neo-Liberalism after the “End of History”: The Fraught “Third Way” in the BushClinton Years
Reading: Patrick Buchanan, Keynote to the Republican National Convention (1992);
Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” (1995); Bill Clinton,
Address at the Oklahoma City Bombing Prayer Service (1995); Tony Blair, “Doctrine of
the International Community” (1998); Articles of Impeachment, U.S. Congress (1998)
Week 15
Hardly the End of History: Post-Cold War Wars from the Balkans to the
Bora Bora, 1997-present
April 30
Reading: Eric Foner, “September 11 and the Next American Century” from Give Me
Liberty!, Vol. 2; Barack Obama, Inaugural Address (2009)
May 7
3:00-6:00 p.m. Final Examination