"What happens to a dream deferred?" --Langston Hughes

Spring, 2003

The semester we will be exploring the social movements of the 20th century, from the labor struggles at the turn of the century to the rise of the Christian Right, focusing most of our attention on the explosive decades of the 1960s and 1970s. There will be two course essays, the first asking you to make sense of a primary document from the era 1890-1960, in the context of the other class readings, the second asking you to explore the meaning of the movement you gave a (collective) lecture on April 22nd. (See the assignments page for more information.)

Readings:

Candace Serena Falk, Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman
James R. Grossman, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration
Jean H. Baker, editor, Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited
Anzia Yezierska, The BreadGivers
Michael Miller Topp, Those Without a Country: The Political Culture of Italian American Syndicalists
Michael Denning, The Cultural Front
Robin D. G. Kelley Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
Charles M. Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and Mississippi Freedom Struggle
Jim Miller, 'Democracy is in the Streets': From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago
Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America
Martin Duberman, Stonewall
Christian G. Appy , Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam
Barbara Kingsolver, Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983
Sara Diamond, Not by Politics Alone: The Induring Influence of the Christian Right
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Week One, Jan. 21st

Candace Serena Falk, Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman

Week Two, Jan. 28th

James R. Grossman, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration

Week Three, Feb. 4th

Jean H. Baker, editor, Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited

Week Four, Feb. 11th

Anzia Yezierska, The Breadgivers or Mary Heaton Vorse, Strike!

Essay #1 Due
Friday, Feb. 14th (Valentine's Day), 2 pm

Week Five, Feb. 18th

Michael Miller Topp, Those Without a Country: The Political Culture of Italian American Syndicalists

Week Six, Feb. 25th

Michael Denning, The Cultural Front

Week Seven, Mar. 4th

Robin D. G. Kelley Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression

Conference Proposal or Sketch
Due Friday, March 7th, 2 pm

Week Eight, Mar. 11th

Charles M. Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and Mississippi Freedom Struggle

Spring Break!

Week Nine, April Fool's Day

Jim Miller, 'Democracy is in the Streets': From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago

Essay #2 Due
Friday Apr. 4 , 2pm

Week Ten, Apr. 8th

Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America

Week Eleven, Apr. 15th

Collective Reading TBA

Conference Paper Draft Due
Friday, April 18th, 2 pm

Week Twelve, Apr. 22nd--Lectures

Martin Duberman, Stonewall

Week Thirteen, Apr. 29th

Christian G. Appy , Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam

Conference Paper Finals Due
Friday, May 2, 2 pm

Week Fourteen, May 6th

Barbara Kingsolver, Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983

Oral Exhibitions

Week Fifteen, May 13th

Sara Diamond, Not by Politics Alone: The Induring Influence of the Christian Right

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Fall

There are a number of ways to define "social history" and "social movements." What, in the end, does social mean, exactly? What is its relationahip to cultural? Political? The definition this course adopts is deliberately ambiguous, a definition in search of itself. To make sense of the meanings of social history, we will read classic older texts in the field (the Genovese, the Dawley, even the now classic White and Painter) along with new versions, versions which synthesize with cultural and political history (for example the Masur, McCurry and the Edwards). To give a sense of the voices of contemporaries, and thus occasion moments when we can act as historians--as opposed to just reading them--we will read accounts short and long.

In this semester we will focus on three "moments," each roughly 30 years in duration: the first, as the Industrial Revolution was reshaping daily life in the 1820s and 1830s; the second, as the nation divided, fought, and reconstructed itself, from the 1850s to the 1870s; the third, as the modern era began, in the huge transformations in labor and capital at the turn of the century.

Section I
Great Awakenings of All Kinds: the antebellum world

Week One (Tuesday Sep. 10th)
Louis Masur, 1831

Week Two (Tuesday Sep. 17th)
Eugene Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery

Essay #1 Due
Friday September 20th, 12:30 pm
(Rewrites due one week after you get the paper back.)

Week Three (Tuesday Sep. 24th)
Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South

Week Four (Tuesday Oct. 1)
Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn

Week Five (Tuesday Oct. 8)
Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills
**Reid Mitchell, The Civil War, chapters 1-2.

Conference Proposal Due
Post and Send/Deliver by Friday, Oct. 11, 12:30

Section II
Conflict and Resolution? The Civil War and Reconstruction

Week Six (Tuesday, Oct. 15th)
Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds : Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country

Essay #2 Due
Friday, Oct. 18th, 12:30 pm

Week Seven (Tuesday, Oct. 22th)
Finish Reid Mitchell, The Civil War
An Uncommon Soldier edited by Lauren Cook Burgess

October Study Days

Week Eight (Tuesday, Nov. 5th)
Nell Irvin Painter, The Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction

Week Nine (Tuesday, Nov. 12th)
Laura Edwards, Gendered Strife & Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction

The Gilded Age and Dis-Order

Week Ten (Tuesday, Nov. 19th)
Mark Twain, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Essay #3 Due
Friday Nov. 22nd, 12:30 pm

Week Eleven (Tuesday, Nov. 26th)
Robert Weir, Beyond Labor's Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor

Draft of Conference Paper due Friday, Nov. 29th, 12:30 pm

Week Twelve (Tuesday, Dec. 3rd)
Barbara Goldsmith, Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull

Week Thirteen (Tuesday, Dec. 10th)
Carl Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman

Final Conference Draft due Friday, Dec. 13th, 12:30 pm

Week Fourteen (Tuesday, Dec. 17th)
Abraham Cahan, Yekl and the Imported Bridegroom and other stories of Yiddish New York

Oral Exhibitions

Recommended: Priscilla Murolo & A.B. Chitty, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend

For over Winter Break:
Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction