THE UNITED STATES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Fall 1997 Theme: Race in Nineteenth-Century America

This course is designed to introduce students to important themes in American history between the American Revolution and the 20th century. To accomplish that aim, the course provides an overview of American history while focusing on a central theme. This semester's theme will be an exploration of the historical development of race, racial ideas, racism, and how the power relationships of the racial world of nineteenth-century America were influenced by class, gender, religion, and popular culture.

REQUIRED READINGS:

The following books are required reading and are available at the College Bookstore:

• Bruce Levine, Half Slave and Half Free.
• Dorothy Sterling, We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century.
• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, A Slave &
• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in H. L. Gates, The Classic Slave Narratives.
• Theda Perdue and Michael Green, eds., The Cherokee Removal.
• Joseph Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers.
• Patricia Limerick, Legacy of Conquest.
• Nell Painter, Standing at Armageddon.
• Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors and Other Writings.

In addition, both Reserve Readings and a Documents Binder have been placed at McCabe Library General Reserve.

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS: (Students are required to read at least one)

• Douglas Egerton, Gabriel's Rebellion.
• Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Class participation : Students are required to attend all class meetings, complete all readings, and be prepared for discussion of the assigned readings and documents each week. Students are expected to contribute actively to the collective learning experience of the course. Unexcused absences will result in a lower final grade.

Papers: Three papers (approximately 6 or 7 double-spaced typewritten pages) will be written during the entire course. There are six different paper topics among which students may chose (see class schedule below). Students may choose freely among paper topics with the following two exceptions:

1) Each student must write either Paper Topic 1 or Paper Topic 6.

2) No student may write all three papers in any one half of the course.

Note: Additional written assignments and/or quizzes may be given during the semester.

Final Examination: A comprehensive final examination will be given at the end of the course, on the scheduled exam date.

CLASS SCHEDULE:

Week 1:

Sept. 2 -- INTRODUCTION

Sept. 4 -- FRAMEWORK AND DEFINITIONS: THE UNITED STATES' RACIAL PAST

Readings:

• Audrey Smedley, "Some Theoretical Considerations," in Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a World View (1993), pp. 13-35.
• Barbara Fields, "Ideology and Race in American History," in J. Morgan Kousser and James McPherson, eds., Region, Race, and Reconstruction , pp. 143-77.
• Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, "African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race," Signs 17 (1992), 251-74.

Introductory Paper Assignment: Write a two-page (double-spaced) essay evaluating the historical perspective in the New York TImes editorial "Forty Acres and a Mule," July 21, 1997. Due in class, Sept. 4.

Week 2:

Sept. 9 -- RACE AND FREEDOM IN REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA

Sept. 11 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Levine, Half Slave and Half Free, Introduction.
• Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, chap. 18 (363-87).
• William W. Freehling, "The Founding Fathers and Slavery," American Historical Review (1972), 81-93.
• Thurgood Marshall, "Race and the Constitution," Social Policy 18 (1987), 29-31.
• Optional Reading: Donald G. Nieman, Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present (1991), pp. 3-14.

Documents: -- Slavery and Antislavery During the Revolutionary Era

• Runaway Slave Advertisements, Pennsylvania Gazette (1765-1776)
• Caesar Sarter, Essay on Slavery (1774)
• Tom Paine, Essay on Slavery (1775)
• John Cooper, "To the Public" (1780)
• Thomas Jefferson, Selected Writings.

Supplemental Reading: Douglas Egerton, Gabriel's Rebellion,.

Week 3:

Sept. 16 -- INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM AND FREE WHITE LABOR IN THE NORTH

Sept. 18 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Levine, Half Slave and Half Free, chap. 2 , 3 & 5.
• Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, chap. 8 & 9 (pp. 87-119).
• James H. Merrell, "Indian-White Relations in the New Nation" in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, pp. 197-223.
• Christine Stansell, City of Women, chap 2 (19-37).

   

Paper Topic 1: Race and the American Revolution -- Write an essay on the role of race in the founding of the United States, and in the development of American society in the new nation. What did freedom and slavery mean for the revolutionary generation and their new society?

Due: Sept. 23.

Note: You must utilize Egerton's Gabriel's Rebellion for this paper.

(A student may choose to substitute Gary B. Nash, Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia's Black Community, 1720-1840 , chap. 3-8 for Egerton's book, but only after receiving permission from the professor.)

Week 4:

Sept. 23 -- SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH

Sept. 25 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Levine, Half Slave and Half Free, chap. 1 & 4.
• Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, A Slave .
• George Fredrickson, The Arrogance of Race, chap. 1 OR Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, chap. 2.

Week 5:

Sept. 30 -- THE LIVES OF SLAVES AND AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE

Oct. 2 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl .
• Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, chap. 1-7 (pp. 3-84).
• Charles Joyner, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community, chap. 6 (pp. 172-95)

Paper Topic 2: Slavery and the Slave Experience -- Write an essay on the significance of slaves' experiences in the shaping of Southern slavery in the antebellum years. How do the narrative accounts of Douglass and Jacobs differ from one another? Due: Oct. 7.

Week 6:

Oct. 7 -- RELIGIOUS REVIVALISM & REFORM -- ABOLITIONISM

Oct. 9 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Levine, Half Slave and Half Free, chap. 6 & 7.
• Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, chap. 10-11 (pp. 119-180).
• Optional Reading: Alexander Saxton, "Blackface Minstrelsy and Jacksonian Ideology," American Quarterly 27 (1975), 3-28.

Documents: - The Abolitionist Controversy

• William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator (1831).
• Angelina Grimke, Appeals to the Christian Women of the South (1836).
• David Walker's Appeal (1829).
• T.H. Sullivan, Letters Against Immediate Abolitionism (1835).

Fall Vacation: October 14 & 16

Week 7:

Oct. 21 -- CONQUEST, REMOVAL, & "MANIFEST DESTINY"

Oct. 23 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Perdue and Green, eds., The Cherokee Removal.
• Levine, Half Slave and Half Free, chap. 8 & 9.
• Optional Reading: Michael P. Rogin, Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian, chap. 7.

Paper Topic 3: Cherokee Removal -- Write an essay on the reasons, rationalizations, and reactions to the removal of Native Americans (such as the Cherokee) to lands west of the Mississippi. What was the significance of this event? Due: Oct. 28.

Week 8:

Oct. 28 -- THE CIVIL WAR

Oct. 30 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Levine, Half Slave and Half Free, chap. 10.
• Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, esp. chap. 1-2, 4-5, 7-10.
• Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, chap. 13-15 (pp. 213-61).

Documents: - New York City Draft Riots, 1863

• J.T. Headley, The Great Riots of New York.
• Diary of George Templeton Strong.
• "A Letter from One of the Rioters," New York Times, July 15, 1863.
• "The $300 Exemption," New York Times, July 15, 1863.
• Two New York City Broadsides.

Film: Glory Date & Time:_________________________

Week 9:

Nov. 4--EMANCIPATION AND RECONSTRUCTION

Nov. 6 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Painter, Standing at Armageddon, chap. 1.
• Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, chap. 17-20 (pp. 309-94).
• Eric Foner, "Black Reconstruction Leaders at the Grass Roots," in Black Leaders in the Nineteenth Century (1988), pp. 219-34.
• Optional Reading: Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, pp. 44-46, 52-72.

Documents: - Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction South

• Z. B. Hargrove (former Confederate and white Democrat) Senate Investigation of the KKK.
• Thomas M. Allen (former slave, Baptist minister) Senate Investigation of the KKK.
• Pierce Harper (former slave, sharecropper) Texas Slave Narratives.
• Sue Craft (former slave) Texas Slave Narratives.
• Morgan Ray (former slave) Ohio Slave Narratives.

Paper Topic 4: Civil War & Reconstruction -- Write an essay on the experiences of war and freedom for African Americans. How do you explain why they seemed both to win freedom and to lose freedom over the course of a few decades? Due: Nov. 11.

Week 10:

Nov. 11--WESTWARD EXPANSION

Nov. 13 --Discussion

Readings:

• Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, especially pp. 17-65, 97-133, 179-292.

Documents: - Conflict at Wounded Knee, 1890.

• Anonymous Pine Ridge Sioux "The Dead Did Not Return."
• Letters from United States Indian Agents.
• Petitions from white settlers.
• Government & U.S. Military versus Indian accounts of Wounded Knee.

Week 11:

Nov. 18 -- IMMIGRATION, IMPERIALISM, AND SOCIAL DARWINISM

Nov. 20 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Painter, Standing at Armageddon, chap. 3-6.
• Thomas F. Gossett, "Race and Social Darwinism," in Race: The History of an Idea in America, chap. 7 (145-75).
• Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, pp. 79-115.

Documents: - Immigration / Social Darwinism

• Josiah Strong, Our Country (1886).
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "To the Electors of the Eighth Congressional District" (1866).
• Frederick Bushee "The Declining Birth Rate and Its Cause," Popular Science Monthly (1903).

Paper Topic 5: Expansionism -- Write an essay on the relationship between westward expansion, imperialism, and responses to American immigration at the end of the nineteenth century. How does race figure into your interpretation? Due: Nov. 25.

Week 12:

Nov. 25 -- LABOR VS. CAPITAL

Readings:

• Painter, Standing at Armageddon, chap. 2.

Film: 1877: The Grand Army of Starvation Date & Time:____________________

Nov. 23 -- Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 13:

Dec. 2 -- SEGREGATION & RACE VIOLENCE

Dec. 4 -- Discussion

Readings:

• Painter, Standing at Armageddon, chap. 7.
• Wells, Southern Horrors and Other Writings.
• Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, pp. 426-445, 479-95.

Supplemental Reading: Glenda E. Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow.

Film: Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice. Date & Time:_______________________

Week 14:

Dec. 9 -- OVERVIEW AND REVIEW

Paper Topic 6: Racial Segregation -- Write an essay on race relations during the age of Jim Crow and lynching in the "New South." Be careful to include the voices and perspectives of both white and black Southerners. Due: Dec. 12.

Note: You must make use of Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow, for this paper.

Final Examination: Date & Time:_________________________