HISTORY 350 FINAL EXAM: INSTRUCTIONS AND QUESTIONS  

Notes and Instructions: As noted in class, I intend to provide a “level playing field.” Each exam format will be graded with an understanding of its advantages and disadvantages for the test taker. You should choose between the take-home exam and the in-class exam based on which one fits your schedule and academic strengths better.

Take Home Option:
* Answer three of the questions below. At least one of your essays must be from Group A. At least one must be from Group B. The exam itself is worth about 40% of the course grade.

* Type your exam, double spaced.  Maximum length of the exam is ten double-spaced pages with normal margins and fonts. Your individual answers may of course vary in length as long as the total is ten pages or less.  Number your pages.

* Take-home exams should be brought to my office, 366 McKenzie. If I am not there, make sure your pages are securely fastened together and slide it under my door. (Do not bring your take-home to the History Department office.) You can submit your take-home to my office any time between Mon., June 1 and 12:30 p.m. Monday, June 8, the start-time for the in-class option. At that point, bring your take-home to the classroom at the start of the in-class final.  If you do not submit a take-home exam by that time, you must take the in-class exam.

* If you need to submit your take-home final as an email attachment, contact me at least 24 hours in advance and explain your situation. I’ll confirm that an email submission is acceptable. Put “Hist 350 Take-home Final” in the subject line and attach your answer in a format I can read in MS Word. Otherwise, submit your exam as hard copy.

* If you quote or paraphrase another's words or distinctive ideas on the take-home, you must cite your source on the take-home final. As with your papers, author's last name and page number in parentheses should be usually adequate, for example: (Dubofsky, 117). For a website, give the full URL. Don’t worry about details of citation form. The key is to allow the reader to know where you got your language or specific information.

* You should be able to answer these questions based on the reading assignments and class sessions of this course. If you wish to use other information and sources—books, articles, websites, etc.—you may, but don’t base your answer to an essay on what you find in Wikipedia or some other item that comes up through a web search.

* Please put the numbers of the questions you answer on the first page of your exam. Please also number the pages of your exam.

* COLLABORATION: It is acceptable, in fact desirable, to study together, share information and work out strategies for answering questions.  What you write, however, must be your own.  If you begin to wonder if you're collaborating too closely in formulating your answers, it's time to stop and move to preparing independent answers.  If I see answers that duplicate or nearly duplicate each other, both will be judged unacceptable.

In-Class Option:
* The in-class final exam is scheduled for 12:30 Monday, June 8.  It will be two hours long.  Please bring exam booklets to the test.

* At the time of the in-class exam, I’ll eliminate one question from each group. You are to answer one question from Group A and one question from Group B.

* At the time of the test, I will offer nine or ten items (people, events, concepts, etc.); you will select five of these. For each, identify in a brief paragraph and give an idea of its historical significance. Try to provide the relevant "who, what, why, when, where" information.  The items will be drawn from both readings and class sessions.  Most, if not all, will have appeared in both. Most of the identification items will be from the second half of the term.

* The in-class exam is a no-notes, closed book test.

ESSAY QUESTIONS:

Group A: (Questions dealing with post-midterm topics)

1. ANSWER EITHER PART A OR PART B:
PART A: Suppose Albert and Lucy Parsons had both lived long enough to do a study of the life and career of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. How would they evaluate her? On what points would they probably agree with her? On what points would they probably disagree?
OR
PART B: Suppose that late in her life Elizabeth Cady Stanton had undertaken a study of Chicago labor radicalism and the Haymarket episode. What would her judgment be? With what aspects of the ideology, strategies, tactics and goals of the leading radicals would she agree? With what aspects would she disagree?

2. "The views and activities of the Chicago radicals in the era of Haymarket reflected their predominantly foreign backgrounds and their attachment to abstract ideologies rather than the realities of life in late nineteenth century America.  They were dreamers out of touch with the real, immediate concerns of American workers, and this, as much as the repression they faced, accounts for their failure to achieve power."
        Discuss and evaluate the statement above. You may, of course, agree or disagree, in whole or in part, with the statement.

3. Elizabeth Cady Stanton faced controversy with other advocates of reform at several points in her long career.  For any two of the following issues, describe the nature of the controversy and evaluate the position she took both ethically and strategically.
        a. Women's role in the antislavery movement in the years around 1840;
        b. The dispute over the 14th and 15th amendments to the US Constitution;
        c. Her critique of organized religion and her editing of the Women's Bible;
d. Conflicts with younger women activists over whether to focus exclusively on winning the right to vote.

4. ANSWER BOTH PARTS: How did racism and sexism affect the women’s rights movement? How did racism and sexism affect the radical labor movement of the late nineteenth century? (For both parts, you should consider both racism and sexism in the broader society and racism and sexism within the movements themselves.)

Group B (Questions covering the entire term’s material)

5. "Radical movements in the nineteenth century, notably the women’s rights movement and the radical labor movement in Chicago, can best be understood as attempts to implement and expand upon the ideas and ideals of the Declaration of Independence."
Discuss and evaluate the statement above with respect to the nineteenth century women’s movement and late nineteenth-century labor radicalism. You may, of course, agree or disagree, in whole or in part, with the statement.

6. Karl Marx wrote that religion was the “opium of the masses,” that it dulled their awareness of oppression and diverted them away from radical action. Yet we have also seen that religious beliefs can be a motivating force for radical opposition to the status quo. Discuss the role of religion in three of the following topics:
a. Tom Paine and the American Revolution
b. Nat Turner’s Rebellion
c. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the 19^th Century Women’s Movement
d. Radical labor in the 1880s.

7. "The lesson of studying radicalism from the American Revolution to the end of the nineteenth century is clear: To bring about desirable social change, violence doesn’t work.” Discuss and evaluate the statement above. You may, of course, agree or disagree, in whole or in part, with the statement.

8. "The history of social protest and revolt from the American Revolution to the end of the nineteenth century clearly reveals that radical activists were generally psychologically disturbed individuals who could not cope with the society they lived in and sought emotional fulfillment more than effective political action."
Discuss and evaluate the statement above. You may, of course, agree or disagree, in whole or in part, with the statement.

History 350
Spring 2015