Contemporary US History
21:512:371 H6
Instructor: Matthew Friedman
Email: [email protected]
Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday 6:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Class Location: Conklin 342
Office: Conklin 337
Office hours: TBA
Following the Second World War, the United States emerged as the world’s preeminent superpower. It
was a period of unprecedented economic growth, affluence and technological innovation. But for all the
material benefits enjoyed by Americans in the four decades after the Second World War, it was also a
time of crisis and conflict, as the nation confronted unresolved issues of race and poverty and faced new
challenges of changing gender roles, redefinitions of values and the America’s position in the world
through the Cold War and beyond.
This course will explore how Americans met those challenges and how their society and culture were
transformed in the process.
We will focus on a number of themes: Race, the family, gender and sexuality; class, economic growth
and consumer capitalism; and, above all the negotiation of the idea of “America” in the spaces around
social, conceptual and cultural frontiers.
READINGS
The required text for the course is: William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War
th
II, 6 edition. Students will also read primary documents, available on Blackboard.
Other principal and supplementary readings will be available on Blackboard.
ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. Students are expected to attend every class, arrive on-time and
stay for the duration of the class. They will not be penalized for one unexcused absence. After that,
students will be penalized two marks per unexcused absence.
Students may be excused for illness, family emergency and similar extreme situations. The student must
provide documentation, like a doctor’s note, to be excused.
Students who miss four or more sessions through any combination of excused and unexcused absences
will not earn credit in this class. Such students should withdraw from the course.
Participation: Everyone is both expected and required to participate in class discussions. The participation
grade will reflect the quality and quantity of your in-class participation.
Response Papers: Students will write 3-4-page response papers summarizing and contextualizing the
principal and supplementary readings for four classes from the second class onward. (Due at the
beginning of the relevant class)
Research Paper: Each student will write a 7-10-page paper research paper using primary and secondary
sources. Subjects must be approved by the professor. (Due 9 August)
Tests: There will be five in-class tests.
Final Exam: There will be a final exam on 14 August.
Deadlines and formatting: All assignments must be submitted in hard copy at the beginning of class on
the due date. Late submissions will not be accepted. Assignments that are not submitted on time due to a
student’s unexcused absence will not be accepted. Assignments must be typed double-spaced in 12point Times on white paper, stapled or bound in a cover and employ an accepted citation format
(University of Chicago/Turabian is preferred). Handwritten submissions will not be accepted.
Attendance .......................................................................................................................... 10%
Class Participation .............................................................................................................. 10%
Response Papers ................................................................................................................ 20%
In-Class Tests ..................................................................................................................... 20%
Paper .................................................................................................................................... 20%
Final exam ............................................................................................................................ 20%
TOTAL .............................................................................................................................. 100%
CLASS SCHEDULE
July 10: Introduction and how the War Changed Everything
 Chafe, Chapter 1-3.
 United States National Security Council, NSC-68, 1950.
 George F. Kennan, The Long Telegram, 1946
July 12: Duck and Cover/Red Scare
 Chafe, Chapter 4
 Benjamin Fine, “Majority of College Presidents are Opposed to Keeping Communists on their
Staffs,” New York Times, Jan 30, 1949
 Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, WV Speech, 9 February 1950
Supplementary Readings
 JoAnne Brown, "A Is for Atom, B Is for Bomb": Civil Defense in American Public Education, 19481963," The Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Jun., 1988)
 K. A. Cuordileone, "Politics in an Age of Anxiety: Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in
American Masculinity, 1949-1960," The Journal of American History, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Sep., 2000)
IN-CLASS TEST
July 17: 1950s Family and Consumption/Youth Culture
 Chafe, Chapter 5
 “Delinquency Curb Held to be Urgent,” New York Times, Jul 22, 1952
 Willard Waller, “The Coming War on Women,” 1945
Supplementary Readings
 Beth Bailey, “Sexual Revolution(s)”
 Margot Canaday, "Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G.I.
Bill,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 90, No. 3 (Dec., 2003)
June 19: Race, Freedom and Nationalism
 Chafe, Chapter 6
 John Herbers, “Mississippi: A Profile of the Nation’s Most Segregated State,” New York Times,
Jun 28, 1964
 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Supplementary Readings
 Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past”
 John Rachal, “The Long, Hot Summer: The Mississippi Response to Freedom Summer, 1964”
IN-CLASS TEST
June 24 New Frontiers and Aging Cities
 Chafe, Chapter 7
 Maurice Caroll, “Newark’s Mayor Calls in Guard as Riots Spread,” New York Times, Jul 14, 1967
 John F. Kennedy, Speech of 12 September 1962, Rice University, Houston.
Supplementary Readings
 Thomas J. Sugrue , "Crabgrass-Roots Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction against Liberalism
in the Urban North, 1940-1964," Journal of American History, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Sep., 1995), pp.
551-578
 Joseph Heathcott and Máire Agnes Murphy, "Corridors of Flight, Zones of Renewal: Industry,
Planning, and Policy in the Making of Metropolitan St. Louis, 1940-1980," Journal of Urban
History 2005; 31; 151
 Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, Chapter 15.
June 26: Growth Liberalism and the Great Society
 Chafe, Chapter 8
 Charles Mohr, “Goldwater says not all the poor merit public aid,” New York Times, Jan 16, 1964
 Lyndon B. Johnson, Speech of 22 May 1964, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Supplementary Readings
 Robert M. Collins, “Growth Liberalism in the Sixties: Great Societies at Home and Grand Designs
Abroad”
 William A. Schambra, “Progressive Liberalism and American Community,” Public Interest, 80
IN-CLASS TEST
June 31: Vietnam
 Chafe, Chapters 9-10
 Tom Wicker, "Illusions and Deceptions," New York Times, Feb 11, 1968
 Jeff Rogers, Letters from Vietnam, 10 November 1968 – 28 August 1969.
Supplementary Readings
 Chester Pach, “And that’s the Way it Was: The Vietnam War on the Nightly Network News”
 Mary Sheila McMahon, “The American State and the Vietnam War: A Genealogy of Power”
 Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, Chapter 17.
August 2: Rebellion and Counterculture
 Chafe, Chapters 11, 12 and 13
 Richard Reeves, "Mike Lang (groovy kid from Brooklyn) plus John Roberts (unlimited capital)
eq..." New York Times, Sep 7, 1969
 Mike Klonsky, “Toward a Revolutionary Youth Movement,” 1968.
Supplementary Readings
 Keith M. Woodhouse, “The Politics of Ecology: Environmentalism and Liberalism in the 1960s”
 George Lipsitz, “Who’ll Stop the Rain? Youth Culture, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Social Crises”
IN-CLASS TEST
June August 7: The Sexual Revolution/Here Come the 70s
 Chafe, Chapter 14
 Charlotte Curtis, "Miss America Pageant Is Picketed by 100 Women," New York Times, Sep 8,
1968
 Martha Shelley, “Gay is Good”
Supplementary Readings
 Brett Beemyn, "The Silence is Broken: A History of the First Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College
Student Groups," Journal of the History of Sexuality 2003 12(2)
 Gillian Frank, "Discophobia: Antigay Prejudice and the 1979 Backlash against Disco," Journal of
the History of Sexuality 2007
 Donald T. Critchlow, and Cynthia L Stachecki, "The Equal Rights Amendment Reconsidered:
Politics, Policy and Mobilization in a democracy," Journal of Policy History 2008 20(1)
August 9: Neo-Conservatism and the Politics of Consumption
 Chafe, Chapter 15-16
 William H. Honans, "Congressional Anger Threatens Arts Endowment's Budget," New York
Times, Jun 20, 1989
 The Republican Party, The Contract With America, 1994.
Supplementary Readings
 Lizbeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America,
Chapter 7.
 Nikhil Pal Singh, "Culture/Wars: Recoding Empire in an Age of Democracy," American Quarterly,
Vol. 50, No. 3 (Sep., 1998)
IN-CLASS TEST
August 14: Final Exam