Making America Modern
week 1
Lectures
March 31: Introduction to the Course
April 3: How to Think Like a Historian
April 4: What were "modern times"?
Readings
Give Me Liberty!, chap. 18
Websites
Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull-House and Its Neighborhoods, 1889–1963
Lectures
April 7: Why was the early twentieth century full of reform movements?
April 9: Did World War I and the 1920s advance or impede Progressivism?
April 11:profiles: Frederick Winslow Taylor; Jane Addams
Readings
Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, entire [The full text can be found online through Google book search.]
Taylor Reading and Discussion Questions
Give Me Liberty!, chaps. 19, 20.
Websites
Welfare States and Warfare States
week 3
Lectures
April 14: What made the Great Depression great?
April 16: How did the New Deal revolutionize the American state?
April 18: profile: Eleanor Roosevelt
Readings
Give Me Liberty!, chap. 21
Give Me Liberty! Digital History Center, chap. 21
audio, link 2: Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address (1933)
audio, link 3: Radio Debate over social security
Websites
Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
Writing Assignment
Short essay #1 due at the beginning of your discussion section
Lectures
April 21: What did it mean for the United States to be the "arsenal of democracy"?
April 23: Why is World War II known as the "good war"? Should it be?
guest speaker: Dave Hubin on the UO students interned during WWII who were awarded honorary degrees on April 6, 2008.
Please consider visiting the exhibit in Knight Library titled "Americans All: Japanese American Students at the University of Oregon, 1942-43."
April 25: profiles: Little Boy and Fat Man
Readings
Give Me Liberty!, chap. 22
Executive Order 9066, February 19, 1942
Korematsu v. United States (1944), excerpt
Websites
FDR Presidential Library Digital Archives
The Internment of Japanese-Americans
Camp
Harmony Exhibit
Lectures
April 28: What was the Cold War about?
April 30: Were Americans in the 1950s affluent citizens of a consumers' republic?
May 2: in-class midterm exam (covers material through week 4)
Readings
Give Me Liberty!, chap. 23
Joseph McCarthy, speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9, 1950
Nixon and Khruschev, Moscow, July 1959
Websites
Cold War International History Project
Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian
The Death of Consensus
Lectures
May 5: Was there more than one United States after 1945?
May 7: How did the African-American freedom struggle give birth to a rights revolution?
May 9: film: Eyes on the Prize, "Power!"
Readings
Martin, ed., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents. Your GTF may assign additional selections, but please read at least the following: Introduction (p. 1); Plessy v. Ferguson, majority opinion (p. 76); Plessy v. Ferguson, dissenting opinion by John Harlan (p. 81); Appellants’ Brief, 1952 (p. 137); “The Effects of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregation” (p. 142); Appellees’ Brief; 1952 (p. 151); Brown v. Board of Education (p. 168); Ruling on Relief (p. 194); Lillian Smith letter (p. 208); Zora Neale Hurston letter (p. 209); The Southern Manifesto (p. 220); “Forty Years and Still Struggling” (p. 228); Epilogue (p. 230)
Martin Reading and Discussion Questions
Give Me Liberty!, chap. 24
Barack Obama, "A More Pefect Union," a speech on race and politics delivered on March 18, 2008 in Philadelphia.
Websites
Civil Rights Movement Veterans
Civil Rights Oral History Interviews, Spokane, Washington
Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Segregated South
Lectures
May 12: What was the Great Society?
May 14: Why was the Vietnam War the most divisive war in U.S. history?
May 16: profile: Robert McNamara
Readings
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.
Please read the following
stories: "The Things They Carried" (1-25); "On the Rainy
River" (43-63);
"Speaking of Courage" (157-173); "Notes" (177-182)
Give Me Liberty! chap. 25
Websites
The Cuban Missile Crisis, National Security Archive
The National Security Archive: The Pentagon Papers
Writing Assignment
Short essay #2 due at the beginning of your discussion section
Lectures
May 19: What impact did femimism and the sexual revolution have in public and in private?
May 21: Why did the New Right and the Reagan Revolution set out to undo the liberal gains of the 1960s?
May 23: profiles: Alfred Kinsey; Betty Friedan
Readings
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
Please read the following stories: "Good Form" (203-204); "The Lives of
the Dead" (255-273)
Give Me Liberty! chap. 26
Give Me Liberty! Digital History Center, chapter 25
document, link 5: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
document, link 7: Loving v. Virginia (1967)
document, link 8: Roe v. Wade (1973)
Websites
Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement, Duke University
Is The American Century History?
Lectures
May 26: Memorial Day Holiday
May 28: profiles: Barry Goldwater; George Wallace, Phyllis Schlafly
May 30: Immigration Past and Present
guest lecture: Professor Lynn Stephen
Readings
Ken Ellingwood, Hard Line, pp. 3-121
Ellingwood Reading and Discussion Questions
"Drivers License Debate Hits Oregon Statehouse," January 11, 2008
Websites
Lectures
June 2: film: "When the Levees Broke"
June 4: What changed with the end of the Cold War, the rise of globalization, and September 11, 2001?
June 6: Looking Backward to Look Forward
Readings
Ken Ellingwood, Hard Line, pp. 122-235
Give Me Liberty! chap. 27, 28