HST 104BModern American CivilizationSPRING 2008

Lecture Hall 14 (LH 14)

MW 12-1 p.m.
Professor John Stoner
Office: LT 713
Phone: 777-2382
jstoner@binghamton.edu (best method of communication)
Office HoursMonday 10-11 a.m., Wednesday 2:30-4:30 p.m.
SYLLABUS AVAILABLE ON BLACKBOARD UNDER COURSE DOCUMENTS
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class will be an exploration of the social and political history
of the United States from the Civil War to the present. We will focus on particular groups or
phenomena throughout the term in order to try to craft a more intimate picture of the American
experience. Implicit in this is an attempt not only to understand how the nation functioned, but
also its level of dysfunction at various times. Given our use of an electronic classroom, we will
discuss electronic resources over the course of the term.
CLASSROOM DECORUM: Regularly coming to class late is a disruption for all of us and will
result in disciplinary action. Please be respectful during class; other disruptive behavior
(cellphones, talking, etc.) will not be tolerated.
ATTENDANCE/PARTICIPATION: Class attendance is expected. You will be examined both
on material presented in the texts in addition to information conveyed during lecture. If you are
an athlete attending a college-sanctioned game, you must inform your T.A. ahead of time so that
we can verify the event and make arrangements for you to make up any work missed. In terms of
participation, I will if necessary call upon students for their input about reading assignments.
EXAMINATIONS: There will be no midterm exam. There will be a take home final exam. No
makeups will be allowed on exams without a compelling reason. (Im the one who decides what is
compelling, but lets say that it is in the realm of doctors notes, etc.) Ive endeavored to schedule
assignments and exams outside of major religious holidays; should there be a conflict in terms of
your religious belief, please let me (or one of the TAs) know as soon as possible. You will receive
more information about the take home final closer to the end of the semester.
PAPERS: Given the composition focus of this course, you will write over the course of the term
a number of papers--for the two principal papers, you will be required to turn in a rough draft that
will be ungraded; however, not turning in a rough draft will result in failure of the assignment.
The first will be a 3-5 page essay, the second 7-8 pages. All papers must be submitted in paper
and electronic (Blackboard) format. More specific information will be provided to you as the
course continues. We will have a discussion about plagiarism; verified incidences of plagiarism
will be dealt with harshly and may result in failure of the course and/or disciplinary action at the
university level. All of your writing will be submitted to Turnitin.com, a service subscribed to by
the university which compares student work to that of websites and other sources. Should you
need assistance with writing, please speak to one of the TAs. There is also a writing center on
campus where you can get advice and assistance with a variety of paper-related issues. The phone

number for the writing center is 777-6725. Any papers turned in late without either a prior
arrangement with me or one of the TAs, or a compelling and verifiable excuse, will incur a penalty
of one letter grade per day.
GRADING: Grading will be as follows:
Paper #1
Paper #2
Take home final
Section attendance
Section participation

20%
30%
25%
10%
15%

Students requiring any assistance for disabilities must contact the appropriate office and also
contact me to discuss any arrangements.
TEACHING ASSISTANTS: I am supervising six teaching assistants in this course; they are
Mary Weikum, Derek Lan, Kazu Oharazeki, Joe Stanley, Laura Hill, and Bryan Bunnell. Teaching
assistants are an invaluable resource and should be treated as such. If you have any questions
about course material or requirements, please contact your TA first. Should you not be able to
resolve it with him/her, feel free to contact me. If you have a problem with your TA that you feel
you can not resolve with them, please let me know. Disputes over grades must follow the stated
policy (which you will receive with your first paper assignment).
DISCUSSION SECTIONS: Attendance at discussion sections is the surest way to participate in
a meaningful way. Note that attendance and participation at discussion sections constitute 25% of
your overall course grade.
TEXTS: There are seven required texts for this course. They should all be on sale at the
university bookstore. If you have any problems getting the texts, contact me as quickly as
possible. Should there be additional readings at any point, I will provide them online via the
Blackboard system (which we will discuss). The books are as follows:
Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick (New York: Signet Classic of Penguin, 2005).
Steven J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1998).
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Volume 2, Seagull Edition (New York:
Norton, 2005).
Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (New York: Signet Classic of Penguin, 1998).
Richard Marius and Melvin Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History (New York:
Longman, 2004).
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (New York: Laurel Books, 1997).
Tim OBrien, The Things They Carried (New York: Broadway Books, 1999).
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES: (Readings should be completed by the date listed)
January 28: Introduction, discussion of syllabus, Blackboard, etc.
January 30: Reconstruction Designed, Reconstruction Denied

Marius and Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History, ch. 1-3
Abraham Lincoln=s Annual Message to Congress, 12/8/1863. Available online at
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=426
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction by the President of the United States of
America, 12/8/1863 Available online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/malquery.html
Search using the exact phrase "Abraham Lincoln, Tuesday December 08, 1863
(Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction)" (using the transcription will make it easier
to read but look at the original document image as well)
Foner, 476-509

February 4: The conquest of the West and Native American resistance

Marius and Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History, ch. 4-6
Pick several documents to read from the PBS series on the West regarding Native
American resistanceavailable online at
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/
Also read Chester Arthurs statement on the need to reform Native American communities
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/seven/indpol.htm
Foner, 520-528
February 6: Political change and the rise of Jim Crow
Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Fergusonavailable online at
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=163&invol=537
Diner, A Very Different Age, ch. 5
Foner, 546-566
February 8: COURSE DROP DEADLINE/COURSE ADD DEADLINE
February 11: Squalor and popular discontent
Alger, 1-100
Marius and Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History, ch. 7-8
Foner, 512-520, 533-545
February 13: Immigration
Alger, 100-186
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, ch. 5, 9, 10. Available online at
http://www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html
Foner, 565-572
February 15: ROUGH DRAFT OF PAPER #1 DUE IN SECTION
February 18: Pax Americana
Excerpts from Mark Twains The War Prayer, available under Course Documents on
Blackboard.

Watch film adaptation of The War Prayer at http://www.thewarprayer.com/war_film.html

McKinley on the Philippines, 1898
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/mkinly3.htm
Excerpts from Edwin Wildman, Aguinaldo: A Narrative of Filipino Ambitions, available
under Course Documents on Blackboard
Foner, 572-581

February 20: The Progressive Era I

Diner, A Very Different Age, ch. 1-4
Foner, 582-604
February 25: The Progressive Era II
Diner, A Very Different Age, ch. 6-8
Foner, 604-619
February 27: What was a world war? World War I Abroad
Statistics on U.S. participation in WWI-http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/memoir/docs/statistics/statstc.htm
Project: Pick several sets of statistics from this publication about U.S. participation in
WWI. What do they tell you? How can you use those statistics to build a broader
argument about patterns in the war?
Read excerpts from Wilfred Allen's war diary at
http://members.aol.com/dickallen2000/diary/index.html
Foner, 628-632
March 3: World War I at Home: Propaganda and social unrest
David Kennedy, Over Here, ch. 3 (On Blackboard)
Propaganda posters and photographs
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/amposter.htm
Project: Look at the propaganda posters available at the above website. Be prepared to discuss
the different ways in which these posters sought to motivate Americans for the war effort.
Foner, 632-651
March 5: 1919 and the Death of Idealism
J. Edgar Hoover recommends deportation for Goldman and Berkman,
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Exhibition/deportation.html
Emma Goldmans plea to avoid extradition,
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Exhibition/plea.html
Lewis, Babbitt, ch. 1-4
New York Times article on the passage of woman suffrage, 6/5/1919. Available through Alexander
Street Press Women and American History website--go to
http://referenc.lib.binghamton.edu:2417/wass/ Click on advanced search--at the very bottom of
the screen enter S10016636 in the box for Record Number. Click Search and then View
document.

Foner, 651-659

March 7: PAPER #1 DUE IN SECTION!

March 10: The Roaring Twenties
Robert S. And Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture,
250-271 (On Blackboard)
Lewis, Babbitt, ch. 5-13
Foner, 660-688
March 12: The Depression
Selections from Studs Terkel, Hard Times. (On Blackboard)
Foner, 688-695
March 17: The First New Deal
William Green on African-Americans and unions.
http://newdeal.feri.org/opp/opp34299.htm
Lorena Hicock to Harry Hopkins, 6/6/1934. http://newdeal.feri.org/hopkins/hop15.htm
Lorena Hicock to Harry Hopkins, 6/11/1934. http://newdeal.feri.org/hopkins/hop16.htm
Louisa Wilson to Harry Hopkins, 11/30/1934. http://newdeal.feri.org/hopkins/hop14.htm
Photos from http://newdeal.feri.org/library/index.htm
Foner, 696-712
March 19: The Second New Deal
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Annual Message to the Congress, 1936,
http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1936a.htm
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Annual Message to the Congress, 1937,
http://www.newdeal.feri.org/court/fdr010637.htm
Project: Examine some of the political cartoons regarding the controversy over Roosevelts
relationship with the Supreme Court, including his attempt to pack it. What themes recur and
what do they suggest about opposition to Roosevelts effort and indeed his presidency? For
cartoons, see http://newdeal.feri.org/court/toons01.htm
Foner, 712-734
March 21: NO DISCUSSION SECTIONSSPRING RECESS
March 31: World War II Abroad
Address by FDR to Congress, 9/21/1939,
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/fdr9.htm
The Atlantic Charter, 1941. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic.htm
Roosevelt=s Radio Address asking for a declaration of war, Dec. 9, 1941
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/dec/dec06.htm
George S. Patton speaks to troops before the invasion of Normandy, May 17, 1944.
Available online at http://www.ww2homefront.com/pattonspeech.html

Foner, 736-748

April 2: World War II at home

Eleanor Roosevelt, American Women in the War, http://newdeal.feri.org/er/er14.htm
Eleanor Roosevelt, What We Are Fighting For, http://newdeal.feri.org/er/er30.htm
WWII propaganda posters:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_home.htm
l
Foner, 748-770
Project: Think about the rhetoric used in the various documents provided to you on the above
mentioned web pages. How does it fit into the American identity (if there is one) that we have
been discussing throughout the course of the semester?
April 4: COURSE WITHDRAW DEADLINE
April 7: The Freezing of the Cold War: U.S. foreign policy in an atomic age
United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, National Security Council
Document 68 (NSC-68), available online at http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc68.htm
Foner, 770-775
April 9: The Cold War at home
Sections from Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with
Documents (On Blackboard)
Moody, ch. 1-9
Foner, 797-807
April 11: ROUGH DRAFT OF PAPER 2 DUE IN SECTION
April 14: Early Civil Rights Struggles
Transcript, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), available online at
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=347&invol=483
Moody, ch. 10-17
Foner, 833-842
April 16: Civil Rights Ascendant
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, available online at
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf
Malcolm X, interview at UC Berkeley, streaming audio at
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html#malcolm
Moody, ch. 18-21
Foner, 847-864
April 18: NO DISCUSSION SECTIONSPASSOVER RECESS

April 21: NO CLASSPASSOVER RECESS

April 23: Social Revolutions of the 1960s
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, ch. 1, available online at http://www.hnet.org/~hst203/documents/friedan1.html
Moody, ch. 22-30
Foner, 871-884
April 28: Vietnam
OBrien, 1-118
April 30: Vietnam at Home
OBrien, 118-246
Tom Hayden et al., The Port Huron Statement of Students for a Democratic Society,
online at
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SDS_Po
rt_Huron.html
Foner, 864-871, 899-903
May 2: Paper #2 DUE IN SECTION
May 5: Post-industrial society and the 1980s
"A Time Bomb Inside of You"--testimony on AIDS to Congress, available on
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6893
Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address, available at
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres61.html
The Iran-contra affair--read Executive Summary and Summary of Prosecutions sections of
the independent counsel's report on Iran-Contra--available online at
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/
Foner, 903-907, 917-926
May 7: The 1990s--History at the end of the millenium
Bill Clinton's First Inaugural Address, available at
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres64.html
Defense Department discussion paper on Rwanda, 5/1/94, available at
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/rw050194.pdf
State Department memorandum on Rwanda, 5/20/94, available at
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/rw052194.pdf
George W. Bush's First Inaugural Address, available at
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres66.html
Foner, 933-940
May 9: FINAL DISCUSSION SECTIONS

TAKE HOME FINAL (DETAILS TO BE PROVIDED)