Course Description

This course examines the chief cultural, political, economic, and diplomatic developments in the United States from 1877 to 1945. Students will explore several key eras in American history, including the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the First World War, the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the Second World War.

Thematically, this course covers four topics: 1) the evolution of American cultural and social patterns; 2) the role of government in society; 3) the rights of individuals within a multicultural society; and 4) the role of America in the world.

Course Objectives

1) Students will gain factual knowledge.
Students will gain a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the periods covered in this course, including the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the First World War, the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the Second World War.

2) Students will examine fundamental principles, generalizations, and theories.
Students will examine the fundamental principles of historical scholarship as they encounter traditional and more recent interpretations of the American past.

3) Students will analyze and critically evaluate ideas, arguments, and points of view.
Students will evaluate primary and secondary sources as they consider conflicting historical interpretations.

Required Books (listed in order of consideration)

Sally Jenkins, The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation (New York: Doubleday, 2007). Also available as audio book or podcast.

Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (New York: Henry Holt, 2004). Also available as audio book or podcast.

Ronald Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II (Boston : Little, Brown and Co., 2000.). Also available as audio book or podcast.

Attendance

Regular attendance and punctuality are indicative of serious scholarship. You should be in class, awake and aware, and prepared for discussion. Students missing more than five classes may receive a grade reduction at the end of the term. Students who are regularly tardy will be blocked from class.

Attendance and Religious Holy Days

Section 51.911(b) of the Texas Education Code requires that an institution of higher education excuse a student from attending classes or other required activities, including examinations, for the observance of a religious holy day, including travel for that purpose. A student whose absence is excused under this subsection may not be penalized for that absence and shall be allowed to take an examination or complete an assignment from which the student is excused within a reasonable time after the absence.

SHSU policy 861001 provides the procedure to be followed by the student and instructor.  A student desiring to absent himself/herself from a scheduled class in order to observe (a) religious holy day(s) shall present to the instructor involved a written statement concerning the religious holy day(s). This request must be made in the first fifteen days of the semester in which the absence(s) will occur. The instructor will complete a form notifying the student of a reasonable timeframe in which the missed assignments and/or examinations are to be completed.

Assignments and Grading

In this course, students will complete three exams, two book reviews, and participation assignments.
* Each exam will be worth 100 points.
* Each book review will be worth 50 points.
* Participation is worth 100 points.

The following grading scale -- based on 500 points -- will be used to calculate final grades:
A = 500-450 | B = 449-400 | C = 399-350 | D = 349-300 | F = 299-0 points.

Examinations

The three exams in this course will include multiple choice and document based questions. Each exam will cover the class notes and assigned readings from the section of the course immediately preceding it. Review sheets will be posted on the course webpage before each exam.

Book Reviews

Students will complete two book reviews during the term. You may review The Real All Americans, Arc of Justice, or Double Victory. Your reviews should explore the thesis and principal arguments of the text you are considering. Each of your reviews must fit on a flawlessly typewritten single sheet of paper with your name. This means that each or your reviews should be single-spaced, size 12 font, with no more than 1000 words (front and back). You may use parenthetical citations to reference pages in the book under review. Please do not turn in cover sheets, binders, or other paraphernalia.

Due Date
Real All Americans - September 20 | Arc of Justice - November 6 | Double Victory - December 9

Assistance
writing a book review | guidelines for clear writing | elements of style

Participation

Students should complete reading assignments, attend class, and participate in discussions. Periodically, a short quiz, writing assignment, or movie review will be given to determine how well each member of the class has prepared. These participation assignments will require that you attend class and be prepared. No make-ups will be offered. But, you may drop your lowest score.

Classroom Demeanor

HIS 378 is a hybrid course -- part lecture and part discussion. Students are encouraged to ask questions and initiate debate. The more you engage the material, the better you will learn it. To facilitate an open classroom dialogue, students should not: 1) have cell phones turned on; 2) text message or email; 3) read the school paper or do other homework; 4) leave early or disturb their fellows. Any violation of these rules will be grounds for dismissal from class. Serious discipline problems may result in your expulsion from the course and a failing grade.

Visitors in the Classroom

Unannounced visitors to class must present a current, official SHSU identification card to be permitted in the classroom. They must not present a disruption to the class by their attendance. If the visitor is not a registered student, it is at the instructor's discretion whether or not the visitor will be allowed to remain in the classroom.

Study Tips

I encourage you to contact me if you are feeling confused or out-of-step with the material we are covering. If you would like additional support, you may also contact the SAM Center ( Student Advising & Mentoring Center ), which helps students improve their note-taking, time management, and study skills. The SAM Center is located in room 210 of AB4. You may make an appointment at the Center by email ( SAMCenter@shsu.edu ) or phone (294-4444).  

Academic Dishonesty

All students are expected to engage in all academic pursuits in a manner that is above reproach. Students are expected to maintain complete honesty and integrity in their academic experiences both in and out of the classroom. Any student found guilty of dishonesty in any phase of academic work will be subject to disciplinary action. The University and its official representatives may initiate disciplinary proceedings against a student accused of any form of academic dishonesty including, but not limited to, cheating on an examination or other academic work which is to be submitted, plagiarism, collusion and the abuse of resource materials.

Any violation of the University's Academic Honesty standard will result in a failing grade for the course and a recommendation for University discipline.

Americans with Disabilities Act

It is the policy of Sam Houston State University that individuals otherwise qualified shall not be excluded, solely by reason of their disability, from participation in any academic program of the university. Further, they shall not be denied the benefits of these programs nor shall they be subjected to discrimination. Students with disabilities that might affect their academic performance are expected to visit the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities located next to the Counseling Center . They should then make arrangements with the instructor in order that accommodations can be made to assure that participation and achievement opportunities are not impaired.

SHSU adheres to all applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and guidelines with respect to providing reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. If you have a disability that may adversely affect your work in this class, then I encourage you to register with the SHSU Counseling Center and to talk with me. All disclosures of disabilities will be kept strictly confidential. NOTE: no accommodation can be made until you register with the Counseling Center.

Instructor's Right to Update Course Schedule

This syllabus is your contract for the course. The instructor will not change the nature of the course, the number of assignments, or the grading scheme. However, the instructor reserves the right to update the course schedule and reading assignments throughout the term.

Course Schedule

Unit I -- The United States, 1861-1900

August 26: Welcome and Course Overview

August 28: What Historians Do: The Duel

Online Module | connect here

September 2: Background: Re-envisioning the Mid-Nineteenth Century | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

Elliott West, “Reconstructing Race,” WHQ, Spring 2003, 34 (1) [ online pdf ]

Available Resources

Film Excerpt Shown in Class: Race: The Power of an Illusion, Vol. 2 [ online ]

Website: Chinese in California: 1850-1925 [ online ]

Website: Chinese Immigration, Origins and Opinions [ online ]

September 4: Reconstruction, 1865-1877 | ppt slides in pdf

Reading -- All Students

Eric Foner, "The New View of Reconstruction," American Heritage, 1983 | online

Primary Sources for Class

Source A: "The Freedmen's Bureau" (FB) from Rise and Fall of Jim Crow [ online ]

Source B: FB Inspection of the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville [ online ]

Source C: Freed people Confined in Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville [ online ]

Source D: "Miscellaneous Records Relating to Murders and Other Criminal Offenses Committed in Texas 1865 - 1868" [ Search page for Huntsville ] [ online ]

Available Resources

Website: Reconstruction: The Second Civil War [ online ]

The Election of 1877 [ online ]

September 9: Race and the “New South,” 1877-1900 | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

Barbara Young Welke, “The Railway Journey: The Spatial Transformation” from
Recasting American Liberty [ online pdf ]

Available Resources

Barbara Young Welke, Recasting American Liberty [ Race and the Railroads ]

Without Sanctuary: Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America [ online ]

The History of Jim Crow [ online ]

Civil Rights Cases (1883) [ online 1 ] [ online 2 ]

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) [ online 1 ] [ online 2 ]

September 11 to September 18: Out for Hurricane Ike

September 23: The Rise of Corporations and the Fourteenth Amendment | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, “The Rise of Big Business in America, 1862-1913” from The Company [ online ]

Available Resources

Corporation: What is a Corporation [ online ]

Corporation Video: Birth of the Corporation [ online ]

Corporation Video: A Legal Person [ online ]

Website: The Corporation [ online ]

September 25: Labor in the Gilded Age | continue ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

Sources of Worker Unrest [ online ]

Homestead Strike Introduction [ online ]

Andrew Carnegie: Making Money the Old Fashioned Way [ online ]
Read the brief entries under each of the headings.

Video: Homestead Strike [ link ] [ link2 ] [ link3 ]

Reading -- Group 1: Knights of Labor

Reading: Knights of Labor in Texas [ online ]

Reading: Drawing the Line on Black-White Equality, Knights of Labor [ online ]

Reading: Haymarket Square [ brief ] [ brief 2 ] [ Chicago ] [ LOC ]

Reading -- Group 2: American Federation of Labor

Reading: Samuel Gompers and the AFL [ online ]

Reading: American Federation of Labor [ online ]

Reading: Samuel Gompers [ online ]

Reading -- Group 3: Eugene Debs, the American Railway Union, and the Pullman Strike

Reading: Eugene Debs [ online ]

Reading: Pullman Strike [ brief ] [ brief 2 ] [ online ]

Reading: re Debs [ online ]

September 30: "What a Funny Little Government": Politics and Empire, 1877-1900 | ppt slides

Reading -- Group 1

Lewis L. Gould, "Party Conflict: Republicans versus Democrats, 1877-1901." [ online ]

Reading -- Group 2

Worth Robert Miller, "Farmers and Third-Party Politics." [ online ]

Reading -- Group 3

Thomas G. Paterson, "U.S. Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpreting the Spanish American Cuban-Filipino War" [ online ]

Michael Hunt, "1898: Onset of America's Troubled Asian Century" [ online ]

Available Resources

Website: The World of 1898 [ online ]

October 2: EXAM ONE | exam review sheet

October 9 to 14: The Four Themes of the Progressive Era | ppt slides

Module: The Themes and Contradictions of the Progressive Era [ online ]

October 16: Presidential Progressivism and the Real All Americans | ppt continued

Reading: Sally Jenkins, The Real All Americans

October 21: The Origins of WWI and American Entrance Into World War I | ppt slides

Reading: Course Packet Sent Via Email [ online ]

How It Began: Read the Summaries [ online ]

General Information: Events leading to American Involvement

May 7, 1915: German U-boats sink the Lusitania
March 24, 1916: German U-boats sink the Sussex
Nov 1916: Wilson reelected, “He kept us out of war”
Jan 22, 1917: Wilson's “peace without victory” speech
Jan 31, 1917: Germany announced unlimited submarine warfare in war zone February 1
Feb 1917: Wilson breaks diplomatic ties with Germany
March 1917: Zimmerman Note
March 1917: Germany sinks 4 U.S. merchant vessels
March 1917: February Revolution in Russia
April 2, 1917, Wilson asked for Declaration of War

Optional Available Resources

Woodrow Wilson, Request for a Declaration of War, April 2, 1917 [ online ]

Randolph Bourne, “The War and the Intellectuals,” Seven Arts 2 (June 1917) [ pdf ]

Randolph Bourne, "Twilight of Idols," Seven Arts 2 (Oct. 1917) [ pdf ]

John Dewey, "The Social Possibilities of War" [ pdf ]

James Livingston "War and the Intellectuals: Bourne, Dewey, and the Fate of Pragmatism" [ online ]

October 23: Fighting World War I: At Home and Abroad | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

Ronald Schaffer, “The Home Front,” OAH Magazine of History, October 2002 [ online ]

Abrams v. U.S.

Schenck v. U.S.

Arthur S. Link, “ Wilson 's Higher Realism” [ online ]

Jan Schulte-Nordholt, “The Peace Advocate Out of Touch With Reality” [ online ]

Available Resources

Woodrow Wilson: American Experience [ link ]

October 28: American Society in the 1920s | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

David Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, 10-29. Available online through library.

October 30: The Sweet Trial

Reading -- All Students

Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (New York: Henry Holt, 2004).

November 4 : American Politics in the 1920s | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

David Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, 29-59. Available online through library.

November 6: The Stock Market Crash and Great Depression | ppt slides

Reading -- All Students

David Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, 59-111. Available online through library.

November 11: Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression

November 13: EXAM TWO | exam review sheet

November 18: Enter Franklin Roosevelt

Reading -- All Students

Richard Hofstadter, "Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Patrician as Opportunist" [ pdf ]
read pages 410 to 446

November 20: The New Deal and Its Critics

Reading -- All Students

TBA

November 25: The Court Fight

Reading -- All Students

William Leuchtenberg, "FDR's Court-Packing Plan: Second Life, Second Death" [ pdf ]

Court-Packing Plan Cartoons [ online ]

November 27: Thanksgiving Holiday

December 2: Origins of World War II

December 4: Enter America

December 9: The Good War at Home

December 11: The End of World War II

FINAL EXAM