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We meet: in 2011 . . . see you then!

Contact Matthew Lasar here.

The purpose of this course is to develop a broader understanding of the evolution of the United States from the beginning of World War One to the final year of World War Two. While exploring these years, we will focus on two questions: Why did American capitalism repeatedly find itself in crisis during this period? How did it resolve these crises, both domestically and internationally? This is certainly the story of the Great Depression and resulting New Deal. But it is also behind U.S. intervention in World War I, as well as World War II.

Within this context many narratives emerge: Asian-Americans, Latino-Americans and African-Americans demanding equal rights during World War II; an insurgent labor movement that, for a short period of American history, claimed 40 percent of the working population as dues-paying members; a besieged ruling class reluctantly (and temporarily) accepting government regulation as a fact of life; a generation of southwestern farmers staggering under the worst economic/ecological crisis the nation had ever seen; a generation of artists, writers, and musicians embracing their new role as troubadours for “the people.”

This is the framework within which we will discuss these critical years in American history: 1914 through 1945.

This course has four basic requirements: a mid-term, a final examination, weekly section response papers, and a term paper, which is explained here.

Section attendance and response papers

Over the course of the quarter you will be required to write five 1 to 2 page papers for your section, based on questions found in your syllabus. Come to section with these papers completed, ready to share ideas with your fellow students.

You can choose which section papers to do, except for the paper for Week 3, which is required. You can choose the question from Week 1, 2, or 3 to hand in on Week 3.

Attendance at sections is mandatory. I reserve the option to fail students who miss more than one section.

Exams

The mid-term and final examinations will be the same. You will be offered an array of essay questions and will have to answer one of them. Then you will be offered identifications, and have to describe some of them in paragraphs of three or four sentences each. I will put a short study guide on this web page before each exam so that you can focus your studying.

In these essay questions I’m hoping that you will offer information in the context of analysis and stories. That means that I’m less interested in your capacity to memorize dates than I am in your understanding of context.

What does this mean? Suppose that I ask you to describe the impact of the Agricultural Adjustment Act on the lives of migrant farm workers. What I want to see is if you can explain this legislation’s significance in a larger context. I’m not concerned if you get the date of the act wrong by a year.

Quizzes

There will also be two short quizzes based on your book readings, one during week 4 and one during week 8 or 9. Each will take ten minutes and will begin at the start of class.

Grading percentages

The mid-term will be worth 20 percent of your grade, the final 25 percent, and the paper 25 percent. Your section work (participation and papers) will be worth the remaining 20 percent. Your quizzes will be worth 5 percent each.

Readings:
Ronald Schaffer, America in the Great War: The Rise of the War Welfare State
David Goldberg, Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s
David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue
David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear

Week 1: January  5 and 7:
The Gilded Age, Progressivism, and the coming of the Great War

Schaffer, America in the Great War, Chapters One to Six
Goldberg, Discontented America, Chapter 1

No sections until week 3!

Week 1 slides

Week 2: January 12 and 14:
World War I and the transformation of the American state

Schaffer, Chapters Seven through Epilogue (chapter 10 is optional)
Goldberg, Chapter 2

Question: Did the “free market” truly reign in the late 19th century? Was the United States really an unregulated economy? Did the fittest survive because the government took a hands off policy? Or did regulation play a crucial role in the economic, social, and political lives of Americans?

Week 2 slides

No sections until week 3!

Week 3: January 19 and 21
Anything But Normal: The 1920s
Goldberg, Chapter 3

Sections begin!
Section discussion question: Would you have supported United States entry into the First World War? If so, why? If not, what alternative policy would you have supported the country pursuing? If so, would you have approved of the government’s domestic handling of the war?

Week 4: January 26 and 28
Race, Class and the Business Culture of the 1920s
Lewis, When Harlem Was In Vogue (start reading)
Goldberg, Chapter 4

Section discussion question: Warren G. Harding campaigned to return the United States to “normalcy” after the First World War. Did 1920s America seem “normal” to you? Why or why not?

First quiz, January 28, Schaffer, chaps 1 through epiologue

1920s slides here and
here.

Week 5: February 2 and 4
Race, Class and the Business Culture of the 1920s (continued)
Goldberg, Chapters 5 to 7
Lewis, When Harlem Was In Vogue (finish reading; you’re doing a great job!)

Section discussion question: What made the Harlem Renaissance new? How did it comprise the ideas of both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois? In what ways were its participants ambivalent about the phenomenon?

Week 6: February 9 and 11
The Big Crash
Kennedy, Chapters 1 through 4

Midterm exam, February 11

Sections: Study for mid-term or other stuff

Week 7: February 16 and 18
The First New Deal
Kennedy, Chapters 5 through 9
Section discussion question: How does the United States over the last decade resemble the economic roller coaster of the 1920s? How is our situation different? Reading about the Crash, are you scared? Confident in the future? Both?

New deal slides here

Week 8: February 23 and 25
The Second New Deal
Kennedy, Chapters 10 through 12

Section discussion question: How did the First New Deal reveal the limits of voluntarism and charity in dealing with a social crisis like the Great Depression?

Week 9: March 2 and 4
The coming of the Good War
Kennedy, Chapters 13 through 16
Section discussion questions: By today’s political standards, the New Deal was a radical social program. But were its intentions truly radical? Was the New Deal a revolution or a counter-revolution?

Post new deal slides

Second quiz, March 2; Kennedy, Chapters 1 through 5

Week 10: March 9 and 11
The transformation of the United States
Kennedy, Chapter 21

Term papers are due during the first ten minutes of class on March 11. See term paper page for more details.

Section discussion: How did World War II transform the United States? How was it an extension of the New Deal?

Final exam: to be scheduled. Please do not schedule vacations or outings for this date. I will not schedule make-up exams for students who are out-of-town.