American History to 1877

Michael Clapper, Fall 2007

This course is designed to offer an introduction to the shape of American History from the initial Columbian exchange to the end of the Civil War. We will spend most of our time considering what day to day life felt like over the first few centuries of American history. One famous historian describes a goal of his survey course as "to feel the past in ways that may be genuinely disturbing.” While we ought to celebrate the diversity of our society and the opportunities for democracy that exist, we should not forget that apple pie and Chevrolets come with a price. Even so, as our semester together progresses, consider the moments of genuine possibility across the first few hundred years of American history.

Required Readings:

1. Textbook: “Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture and Society, Volume 1” American Social History Project, 2000.

2. Each week will have 2-4 short, academic readings that will be available on this website.

3. There will also be 3-5 primary documents available on-line that will be the focus of class that week. You should familiarize yourself with these documents before class.

Assessments:

1. Short Paper #1: Due after first quarter of class. You will choose from two essay questions and write a 4-5 page paper using ONLY lecture and class readings.

2. Take home midterm- you will receive 3 short essay questions one week in advance. You will write on two.

3. Short Paper #2: Due after third quarter of class. You will choose from two essay questions and write a 4-5 page paper using ONLY lecture and class readings.

4. Final Exam

This final exam will consist of two essay questions and twenty short identifications. These twenty short “ids” will be drawn from a list published on the course website; these are terms which will come from both lecture and your readings.

5. Final Project: You will choose from the following options

a. Website Review: Utilizing the texts from this class, you will offer a brief assessment of a website. Over 3-4 pages, you should concisely describe the information presented and then critique the content (NOT the appearance.)

b. Museum Exhibit Proposal: Consider either “Before Freedom Came” or “From Jackson to Lincoln” as a guide and then put together a proposal for one of the other weeks from our course.

c. Theatrical Consultant: You’ve been asked by a major studio to construct a 3-4 page guide of props, language, and daily life for a film set in one of the eras in our course. (You cannot do slavery or Jacksonian politics)

These projects are due on the last day of class.

Week One: Introductions

The themes of the course:

1. Work/ Labor Markets: the driving force behind where people could live was where they could find work and how they responded to the conditions of work. During this period, many Americans saw shifts in the sites of production, from the home to an outside place to a factory. Other Americans found their work increasingly constrained along with their status as slaves. Daily lives were deeply influenced by the shift from a local, agricultural world to a market driven commercial and industrial world. How did folks accept or resist these transitions? How was a horrific system of labor exploitation maintained for so long? How did region impact upon working lives?

2. Race and Migration: The shaping of American identities is a crucial theme for our course. W.E.B. DuBois once wrote that the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; Thomas Holt has recently suggested that race will continue to be a determining issue in the 21st Century. This course will stress the way that race has continually been a factor in American social, cultural and diplomatic history. How did the Native Americans respond to the European arrivals? How did Africans respond within a system of slavery? How did Europeans become white Americans? What forces have shaped the meaning of race?

3. Citizenship: In many ways, the transition from English subjects into rebels represents the origins of American political life. From the framing of the Constitution through a devastating civil war, notions of what it meant to be an American citizen have been crucial to daily social and political life. The consequence of celebrating freedom and democracy amidst the destruction of Native American nations and continued enslavement of Africans, produced powerful contradictions. How did a diverse group of European colonists overthrow the most powerful empire and form a new system of government? What has it meant to be a citizen, to participate in the American government? How did these ideas of citizenship slowly lead towards a most deadly conflict? Who has attained citizenship and to whom has it been denied?

4. Expansion: The first half of American history cannot be discussed without an understanding of the vast physical growth of the nation. The other three themes are intertwined with the land and its value. The meaning of the frontier, along with the financial and social impact of expansion must be considered. How did the Native Americans shape Westward expansion? How did new uses of the land shape relationships between slaves and masters? How did new lands influence political decisions?

Week Two:

"New Worlds for All: West Africa, Native America and European Traders":

Primary Documents:

The True Pictures and Fashions of the People in that parte of America now called Virginia John White (1585)

From a Description of New England John Smith (1616)

A Discourse Concerning Western Planting Richard Hakluyt (1584)

Academic Readings:

WBA, 1-39.

Thornton, John, Ch. 3, Slavery and African Social Structure from Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World

Cronon, William, “Seasons of Want and Plenty” from Changes in the Land

Lecture 1: Facing East from Indian Country

A. East Coast Societies; Kahokia

B. Spain, Cortez and the End of an Empire

C. A Holocaust of Germs

D. Visions of Prosperity: Jamestown and Plymouth

Lecture 2: African Realities

A. Portugese Traders and African contact

B. Slavery on the ground in West Africa

C. Spanish Empire

D. 1619- “A Cargo of 20 Negars”

Reading Questions:

1. What are the difficulties facing historians who are trying to re-create African and Native American worlds?

2. How do the readings and the lecture compare to the narrative of colonization you have encountered in the past?

3. How does the vision of slavery offered by John Thornton differ from your idea of the slavery that develops in North America?

4. What does it mean to “de-center” US history? Can we look at colonization without beginning at Jamestown or Plymouth Plantation?

Must Read Novel: Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

Week Three: Starving Times, Rebellions, and Wars

Primary Sources:

Metacom’s War: A Puritan Explanation (1675)

Nathaniel Bacon, “Manifesto Concerning the Troubles in Virginia” (1676)

Maryland, Court Testimony of Overzee (1658)

“An Indentured Servant Describes Life in Virginia in a Letter to His Parents (1623)

Academic Readings:

WBA, pp. 40-58, pp.65-112

Nash, Gary, Red, White and Black, Chapter 5: The Coastal Societies: Resistance, Accommodation and Defeat

Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone, Ch. 5: The Tobacco Revolution in the Chesapeake

Merrell, James, "The Indians' New World”

Winthrop Jordan, “An Unthinking Decision: Enslavement of Africans in America to 1700” from The White Man’s Burden, pp. 26-54.

Lecture 1: Not so easy is it?

A. Flagrant Incompetence

B. Starving Times

C. Indian Wars

D. Tobacco

Lecture 2: The Making of Slavery

A. The need for labor

B. Legal constructions

C. Nathaniel Bacon and the Troubles of 1676

D. Hardening of labor forms

This is a fluid time, a time when notions of class did not exist, where notions of race were very much in question, where women's roles played a key part in determining both.

Reading Questions:

1. How did the reality of life in North America differ from the advertisements that we read last week?

2. How were the systems of slavery made? How were ideas of white and black different?

3. What was Bacon so angry about?
Week Four: Religious Life and Continued Migration: English Colonies to 1763

Primary Sources:

Conversion Experience of Jonathan Edwards from his Memoirs

“Sinners in the Hands of God” Jonathan Edwards (1741)

Peter Kalm, A Description of Philadelphia, 1748

Robert Parke, Letter From Pennsylvania (1725)

George Oglethorpe on the Stono Rebellion (1739)

Academic Readings:

WBA, 142-174

Alan Taylor, American Colonies, pp.302-337 “The Atlantic” and 338-362 “Awakenings”

Lecture 1: Migration/Expansion

A. Push Factors from Europe (long)

B. Who’s Arriving and Where: England, Germany, Scotland

C. Revolution isn’t Inevitable: Prosperity

Lecture 2: Religious Life

A. Pressures Building Up: Salem as land conflict

B. Great Awakening: North

C. Great Awakening: South

D. Domestic Lives

1. How do you think the various factors “pushing” folks out of Europe influenced settlement patterns and civic life in the United States?

2. How did religious ideas help folks to make sense of the evolving society around them?

3. How were family relations changing during this time?

Must Read Novel:

Week Five: The American Revolution "Bottom vs. Top: It's all Radical"

Primary Documents: Declaration of Independence

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Academic Readings: WBA, 181-231

Jesse Lemisch, “Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seaman in the Politics of Revolutionary America”

Gary Nash, Race and Revolution, Ch.3

Lecture 1: A Radical Break?

A. End of Heirarchy and the Seeds of Republicansim

B. Interests Served: Elites

C. Interests Served: Slaves and Farmers

D. Shape of the War

Lecture 2: A Sunny Day in Philly?

A. Interests Served: TOP!

B. The Question of Representation and the Western shadow

C. The Question of Slavery

D. Energy Release and New Social Relationships

Reading Questions:

1. Who made the American Revolution? Was it really such a radical event?

2. How were the interests of various groups served by the Revolution? Were their interests met by the Constitution? Are there differences?

3. How different were the beliefs of ordinary Americans of 1780 than those of 1700?

Must Read Novel:
Week Six: The Early Republic

Lecture: "The Other Revolutions, Purchases and Republicanism"

Primary Documents: Portions of Lewis and Clark Journals

Jefferson Calls for A Crusade Against Ignorance (1786)

Washington’s Farewell Address

Midwife’s Tale web site:( http://www.dohistory.org)

Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves (1807)

Alexander Hamilton On Manufactures (1791)

Academic Readings: WBA, pp.237-283

John Thornton essay on troops in the Haitian Revolution

Joseph Ellis, Chapter from Founding Brothers: “The Dinner”

Lecture 1: Haiti, Lousiana Purchase, Shay's and Whiskey Rebellion;

A. A Little Revolution?

B. A French Revolution and Its Local Impact: Haiti

C. 3 European Armies Down, One Louisiana Purchase Made

D. Continued Expansion…

Lecture 2: Virtue and the Elusive Yeoman Farmer

A. How shall we live, Master Jefferson?

B. Communities slowly connecting

C. Rural worlds of the Northwest

Reading Questions:

1. What was the impact of a slave rebellion on a small island on the course of American history? Can you hypothesize about its meaning in the South? In the North?

2. What do you make of Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a nation of farmers in light of the other forces at work that we’ve already described?

3. In thinking about this week’s readings, how are the ideas of the American Revolution continuing to evolve? How is the paradox of American freedom being addressed?

Must Read Novel: Madison Smart Bell, All Souls Rising

Week Seven: Antebellum Slavery

Lecture: "Resistance and Realities"

Primary Documents:

Slave Narrative of Henry Bibb (From G.Osofsky, Puttin’ on Ole Massa)

Drew Faust, Ideology of Slavery, Introduction and William Harper, Memoir on Slavery

(There are a number of objects, etchings and photos from Before Freedom Came)

Academic Readings:

WBA, pp. 303-351

Chapter 1 of Robin Kelley, Race Rebels

Before Freedom Came: African American Life in the Antebellum South, Chapters 1-4

Lecture 1: Early Slavery

A. Fluidity Hardens; End of Slavery in the North

B. Cotton Gin

C. Soil Wearing; Westward Push

Lecture 2: Slave Life

A. Plantations vs. Small Farms

B. Everyday Resistance

C.1831 Turning Point

Reading Questions:

1. Looking at White’s account, and reading the two primary sources, what do you see as the difference between male and female experiences of slavery?

2. Consider Kelley’s description of ‘resistance’- what can you bring from this text to our study of slavery?

3. How did the continued existence of slavery shift notions of citizenship in the South? In the North?

Must Read Novel: Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead

Websites: Slavery Petitions Collection of documents gathered at University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Voices from the Days of Slavery Library of Congress Collection from the American Folklife Center.

Nice Collection of Links on Slavery Professor Sue Peabody's compilation of links.

Week Eight: 19th Century Urban Worlds

Primary Documents:

Map of Eastern State Penitentary

Horace Mann, 12^th Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education

Letters from Melenda Edwards and Mary Paul: Factory Girls

Catherine Beecher Stowe on Women teachers

Academic Readings:

WBA, pp. 357-412

Bruce Laurie, Chapter One of “Artisans into Workers” (from household to factory)

“Emigrants from Erin”, from A Different Mirror

Herb Gutman, Work, Culture and Society, pp.1-32

Elizabeth Blackmar, Ch. 4, “The Social Meaning of Housing, 1800-1840”

Lecture 1: "Immigrants, Machines, Incipient Industrialization"

A. Transportation Revolution/Market Revolution

B. Urbanization

C. Immigration

D. The City Spaces

Lecture 2: "Schools, Social Class and Institutions"

A. Impact of new Social Relations

B. New Institutions Developing

C. The Tale of a Beverly High School

D. Stirrings of Labor

Reading Questions

1. What is happening to work at this time? What is the significance of this transition for citizenship?

2. How do you see the impact of the “transportation revolution” on ideas of race, particularly around African Americans and Native Americans?

3. Who shapes the development of institutions? Are they imposed or are they created from the bottom up?

Week Nine: Jackson and the New Politics

Primary Documents:

From Jackson to Lincoln: Democracy and Dissent: the Pierpont Morgan Library Collection (look at the pictures, but also consider the text, as succinct a summary of this era as you are likely to find. Also the other academic writing for this week is purposely light)

*Excerpt from Democracy in America, “Unlimited Power…”

Academic Readings:

William Goetzmann The Mountain Man as Jacksonian Man, (1963)

Theda Purdue and Michael D. Green, The Cherokee Removal, pp.1-24

Lecture 1: The People?

A. Democracy Swells- John Quincy Adams and the election of 1824

B. Jacksonian Mobilization and Party Politics

C. Migration and Support for Jackson

D. Who’s Voting now…

Lecture 2: Make way for Democracy?

A. The End of the Bank

B. The South and Nullification

C. Policies Towards the West

1. How does this new form of democracy compare to the period immediately following the revolution? What has changed since then? (Hint: the other way I could have written this question was to ask you to think about this week in terms of last week)

2. What are the defenses offered by South Carolina in their attempt to nullify?

3. Why do you think Jackson had such appeal?

Week Ten: Wide Open Country- The West

Primary Documents:

The Destiny of the Race (1846) Representative Thomas Hart Benton

Academic Readings:

WBA, pp. 539-552

Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

Richard White, “When Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill Cody both Played Chicago in 1893”

Donald Worster, New West, True West: Interpreting the Region’s History

Theda Purdue and Michael D. Green, The Cherokee Removal, assorted documents

Brian Dippie, “The Winning of the West Reconsidered” (Wilson collection)

Lecture 1: Frontiers, Indian Removal I and II

A. The 19^th Century Frontier

B. Precedents: The resonance of the Cherokee Removal

C. Wagons and the Overland Trip

D. Land Speculators and the Railroads

Lecture 2 Manifest Destiny, the Mexican American War and Gold

A. The heat from slavery

B. The Fruits of the West

C. Rationales vs. Material Rewards

Reading Questions:

1. If you think about the past two weeks, what were the forces leading towards Western expansion?

2. What did the land mean to folks on the East? How did the ability to expand influence notions of citizenship for free men, slaves and Native Americans?

3. Why did an ideology of “Manifest Destiny” develop?

Must Read Novel: A.B. Guthrie, The Big Sky or Herman Melville, The Confidence Man

Week Eleven: The Road to War

The goal for this lecture is to link the ways in which the past four weeks relate to each other and in many ways, set up an all but inevitable conflict. It is the growing industrialization of the North contrasted with the continued reliance on slave labor in the South that forced the conflict.

Primary Documents:

Atlantic Monthly (1857): Slave Power Conspiracy

John Calhoun (1850): Warning to the North

Lincoln- Douglass Debates

John Brown Testimony

Dred Scott Decision (Taney) (1857)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (portions) (1854)

Republican Party Platform (1860)

Democratic Party Platform (1860)

Academic Readings:

WBA 477-512 and 552-589

Stephanie McCurry, from Divided Houses, Politics of Yeoman Households in South Carolina

Eric Foner, Chapter 5, “A New Birth of Freedom” from the Story of American Freedom

Lecture 1: Growing Rifts

A. The Pressure of the West-

B. 1820 revisited; 1850 cannot hold

C. Abolitionist Seeds

D. Philosophy of Slavery

Lecture 2: Free Men and Free Labor? Ideology vs. Conditions on the Ground

A. Planters and Farmers in the South

B. Wage Labor in the North

C. Slavery and Conflicting Ways of Life?

D. The Election of Lincoln

Reading Questions

1. How did the conditions of working folks influence the developing ideologies in the North and the South? How did slavery influence political notions?

2. How would you connect our readings and understanding of the West (remember- last week?) with the pressures building towards the civil war?

3. Why do you think the election of Lincoln was so traumatic? By 1860, was the Civil War inevitable? Or, by 1788, was the Civil War inevitable?

Must Read Novel: Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter
Week Twelve: Civil War

Lecture: "Rioters, Deserters and Mothers of Invention"

Primary Documents:

Emancipation Proclamation

War Diary of Mary Chestnutt (excerpt)

Academic Readings:

Drew Faust, Altars of Sacrifice, from Silber, Divided Houses

James MacPherson, Why Soldiers Went to War, from Oates Collection

David Blight, “Regeneration and Reconstruction,” Chapter 2 of Race and Reunion

Iver Bernstein, The NYC Draft Riots, Introduction, Ch1. and Ch.2, Epilogue

Lecture 1: Homefronts

A. Slaves across the South

B. Womenfolk respond

C. Popularity of McClellan

D. Draft Riots

Lecture 2: Transformations

A. Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation

B. Gettysburg and the Words Spoken There

C. Industrial Age Dawning

D. Jubilee

1. What ended the civil war? Was it really about military victories? How did events of the home front influence the course of the war?

2. How did slavery really end? Who ended slavery and how?

3. How did the civil war change the landscape of America?

Must Read Novel: Kevin Baker, Paradise Alley or Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

Week Thirteen: Conclusions

Work, Citizenship, Race and Expansion

Lecture: A Time of Hope and Possibility

Primary Documents:

Gettysburg Address

The14th Amendment of the United States Constitution

Harpers, “The Plight of the Red Man,” XX, 630-1, (8/5/1876)

Academic Readings:

Leon Litwack, Chapters 5, “Slaves No More” from Been in the Storm So Long

Questions for Final Week

1. Can you describe the changes in the working lives of Americans over the first two hundred years of US history? How have things differed by region?

2. Can you describe the changing notions of race over this same era? How has race influenced the key events from this time period?

3. What did it mean to be a citizen of the United States by 1865? Who was eligible for citizenship?

4. Can you describe the continued impact of expansion on life in the United States?

Must Read Novel: Beloved by Toni Morrison