The University of Michigan

HISTORY 361: US Intellectual History, 1750-1940

 

Fall, 2002

John Carson

Monday/Wednesday, 2:30-4:00

238 University Towers

3439 Mason Hall

647-7378

Office Hours: Mon, 1-2; Th, 4-5 (+ by appt.)

E-mail: jscarson@umich.edu

 

America, one historian has remarked, is a nation of words. In this lecture course we will examine some of the words and concepts that have been central within American culture from the Enlightenment to World War II and how they have been articulated, debated, instantiated, and deployed at a variety of times and by a variety of people. Our approach, derived from the cultural history of ideas, will examine not just the world of thinking, but how those thoughts get translated into doing and making, and in the process are themselves transformed.  Our reading will include such major figures as Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, W.E.B. DuBois, William James, and Langston Hughes, as well as a host of less well known writers, scientists, political thinkers, popular commentators, and the like.  We will focus throughout, however, as much on how the words are used—in producing arguments, laws, social movements, consumer goods, and machines—and on the technologies that make them available, as on the language itself.

The goals of this course are to develop your ability to engage with historical materials critically and to gain some appreciation for the complex of issues that have been central to the development of American intellectual culture. We will not attempt to generate an over-arching narrative explaining America from the founders to the Cold War. Rather, we will interrogate various moments in the American past in order to enrich our understanding of the varieties of voices that have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the development of American culture and to uncover the dynamics of the process determining which voices get heard and in what ways.

 

Assignments and Grading

The assigned readings will average 65-90 pages/meeting and will include both primary and secondary sources. Emphasis in the class will be placed on analyzing texts closely and thoroughly and critically engaging with the material. Students are expected to attend every class, keep up with the weekly reading, actively participate in discussions, and turn in a not-to-be-graded 1-2 page reaction to the reading (select a theme in the text(s) for that session and write about it) once a week (note: no credit for reaction papers more than three weeks late).

Grades in the course will be based on a midterm examination (20%), two 5-7 page papers (20% each), the final examination (20%), and participation in class plus completion of the set of reading reactions (20%).  Papers can be revised for re-grading in consultation with the instructor. For general information about the grading policy, see Grading Standards Sheet Available Here. Any questions about specific grades should be directed first in writing to the instructor.

Note: Late papers will be penalized one-third of a grade per calendar day without prior approval of the instructor or a note from the Dean’s office. Makeup exams are possible, but will also require prior approval of the instructor or a note from the Dean’s office.

 

Papers

The first essay will be based on reading we have done for class, either Paine’s Common Sense, Thoreau’s Walden, or Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The second essay will be based on a close analysis of one of the documents or its equivalent listed at the end of volume 1 or 2 of The American Intellectual Tradition or on the list of possible texts in the following document: History 361 Reading List.  The purpose of both exercises is not simply to write a book review of the chosen text.  Rather, you will write an essay situating the text within the larger intellectual context of which it was a part.  What sort of debate was the author responding to?  What contributions did he or she make to that debate?  How does he or she develop the arguments in the text?  What sorts of techniques are employed to persuade the reader to adopt the author’s position?  Who was the author writing for and how were others likely to respond to the author’s contentions?  What kinds of response did the text receive and why?  In answering these questions, it is essential that you articulate a clear position and defend it carefully and thoroughly. The more focused and specific, the better the essay will be.  The second document must be one that we have not read for class and should be of substantial length (150 pages or more).  The choice must be approved in advance by the instructor.  Both essays must engage with the material and issues raised in the lectures and course reading, and should meet all the normal standards of appropriate citation and reference.  For guidance, please refer to the following document: Writing a History Paper.  For help with your essay, don't hesitate to make use of the services provided by the Sweetland Writing Center. Also check out the following site: Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students.

 

Plagiarism and Cheating

Plagiarism and cheating will not be tolerated. LS&A policy prohibits all forms of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, cheating, double submission of papers, and fabrication.  Any piece of work found to have violated these strictures will automatically receive a zero.  In addition, depending on the severity of the infraction, it is possible that the instructor or the university will impose additional penalties.  When in doubt, be sure to cite carefully and completely all sources from which information is obtained.

 

Required Purchases

Course pack (available at Accu-Copy, 518 E. William Street) [CP]

Books (available at Shaman Drum, 313 S. State St., 2nd floor; also at the Reserve Desk in UGL) [SD]:

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (New York: Dover, 1997)

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover, 1994)

Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1998)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (New York: Dover, 1998)

David Hollinger and Charles Capper, The American Intellectual Tradition, 4th ed., vols. 1-2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) [AIT]

Thomas Paine, Common Sense (New York: Dover, 1997)

Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths: Keywords in American Politics Since Independence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (New York: Bantam Books, 1981)

Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Dover, 1998)

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Dover, 1995)

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (NY: Random House, 2000)

 

Schedule

See the following pages for the specific schedule of class meetings and special events. The schedule is flexible, however, and may be changed depending on the needs and interests of the instructor and the class. Note that there will be films shown outside of class during weeks nine and fourteen, most likely Monday or Wednesday evening starting at 7:30 or 8:00 pm.

 

Feedback

The instructor would greatly appreciate any and all constructive comments, including especially suggestions for improvement in the course and teaching. These can be submitted directly to the instructor or anonymously in an envelope on the instructor’s office door. Frankness will be welcome. There may also be a representative from CRLT who will observe one of the classes and ask for comments on it.

 


Schedule of Lecture Topics and Readings

 

Week 1: Introduction

9/4 Introduction — “Inventing America”: Europeans, Civilization, and the “New” World

Colin C. Calloway (ed.), The World Turned Upside Down, pp. 33-34 (Jeremy), 34-38 (Heckewelder), 40-41 (Quinney) [In Class]

Jack P. Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, pp. 8-33 [CP]

 

 

Week 2: Human Nature and Colonial Culture

Issues to consider:  How did various eighteenth-century Americans understand human nature?  How did they explain human differences?  How do Edwards and Franklin represent similar and different approaches to human nature and the power of human reason?  How did African Americans understand their own place within the new nation?

 

9/9 The Enlightenment in America: Edwards, Franklin, and the Age of Reason

Daniel Walker Howe, Making the American Self, pp. 21-47 [CP]

Lewis Perry, Intellectual Life in America: A History, pp. 147-156 [CP]

David A Hollinger and Charles Capper (eds.), The American Intellectual Tradition, 4th edition, vol. I, pp. 62-74 (Edwards), 99-112 (Franklin) [AIT]

 

9/11 Slavery and Freedom in American Thought

Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 3-28 (skim), 29-45 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 183-195 (Jefferson) [AIT]

Dorothy Porter (ed.), Early Negro Writing, pp. 13-27, 324-329 (Banneker) [CP]

Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, “A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia in the Year 1793,” pp. 1-2 [CP]

 

 

Week 3: A Land of Virtue / A Government of Man

Issues to consider:  What were some of the visions of a republic that were put forward?  What did people seem most to fear and most to desire?  What were some of the arguments in favor of and against ratification of the Constitution?  Why were passions so intense?  Who gained and who lost according to each of the positions?

 

9/16 New Foundations: Republicanism, Liberalism, and Political Order

Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths, pp. 45-79 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 113-124 (Adams), 133-136 (Declaration of Independence) [SD]

Thomas Paine, Common Sense [1776], pp. 1-44 [SD]

  

Note: Monday is Yom Kippur

 

9/18 Wrestling for the Soul of the Republic: Constitutional Compromises and the Politics of Transparency

Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, pp. 243-270 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, 137-142 (Hamilton), 143-154 (Brutus), 155-163 (Madison), 172-180 (Adams), 196-200 (Jefferson) [SD]

Optional: George Washington, “Farewell Address” [1796], pp. 1-8 [CP]; and The Constitution [1787], pp. 968-985 [CP]

 

 

Week 4: The People’s State?

Issues to consider:  What did the Revolution mean for various groups within the nation?  How did various women use the nation’s political language to make claims of their own, and of what sort were these claims?  In what ways was the average person accorded rights and power as a consequence of the revolution and their own demands?

 

9/23 Separate Spheres/Separate Lives: Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity

Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic, pp. 269-288 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 164-171 (Murray), 268-283 (Grimké), 310-323 (Beecher) [SD]

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol II[1840]: Bk 3, chs. 8-13 (pp. 726-54) [SD]

 

9/25 Democracy, Meritocracy, and the Power of the People

Rodgers, Contested Truths, pp. 80-111 [SD]

Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol I [1835]: ch. 15 (pp. 294-312); ch 18, through section “Situation of the black population ...” (pp. 383-440) [SD]

Optional: Jean V. Matthews, Toward a New Society, pp. 47-68 [CP]

 

 

Week 5: The American Landscape Transformed

Issues to consider:  What were some of the ways in which the machine and industrial production were understood in the early nineteenth century?  How did workers, mechanics, capitalists, farmers, etc., come to grips with the new technological advances and changes in the nature of work?  How did the culture embrace, criticize, and attempt to domesticate these changes?

 

9/30 The Machine in the Garden

John C. Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, pp. 3-51 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 324-334 (Carey) [SD]

Benita Eiser (ed.), The Lowell Offering: Writings of New England Mill Women (1840-1845), pp. 1-5 [CP]

Optional: Timothy Walker, “Defense of Mechanical Philosophy” [1832], in Readings in Technology and American Life, ed. Carroll W. Pursell, pp. 67-77 [CP]

 

10/2 Romanticism in America: The Transcendentalists, Nature, and the Sentimental Novel

Perry, Intellectual Life in America, pp. 207-229, 254-257 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 354-368 (Emerson), 403-416 (Thoreau) [SD]

Henry David Thoreau, Walden [1854], pp. 17-52 (Skim), 53-64, 84-90, 206-216 [SD]

 

 

Week 6: Evangelical Democracy: Middle-Class Culture Triumphant

Issues to consider:  What are the characteristics of middle-class culture as it developed during the early nineteenth-century?  What role did religion and gender play in shaping various middle-class reform projects?  How does Stowe mix sentiment, Christianity, and gender in her critique of slavery?

 

10/7 Reforming the Individual and Perfecting the World

Rodgers, Contested Truths, pp. 112-143 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 241-252 (Finney), 378-383 (Peabody) [SD]

“Declaration of Sentiments” [Seneca Falls, 1848], pp. 1-2 [CP]

 

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin [1852], pp. 1-47 [SD]

Optional: Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 384-402 (Fuller) [SD

 

10/9 A Victorian America

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 47-68 [SD]

Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, pp. 47-236 [SD]

 

 

Week 7: Evangelical Democracy continued

 

10/14 BREAK

 

10/16 Other Americas: The South and the West

Perry, Intellectual Life in America, pp. 229-254 [CP]

Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, pp 236-446 [SD]

  

Note: TERM PAPER #1 DUE TODAY

 

 

Week 8: A House Divided

Issues to consider:  What were some of the ways in which the issues of slavery and freedom were framed and how did these framings play on earlier understandings of freedom and liberty in America?  What rhetorical strategies and arguments did the proponents of slavery put forward, and how might these have been received in both the north and south?  What were some of the visions of freedom and approaches to undermining the ideology of slavery developed by African Americans and other opponents of slavery?

 

10/21 Human Nature and the Ideology of Slavery

Drew Gilpin Faust, A Sacred Circle, pp. 112-131 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 447-456 (Calhoun), 457-469 (McCord), 470-480 (Fitzhugh) [SD]

Abolition is National Death; or, The Attempt to Equalize Races. The Destruction of Society [1866] in Anti-Abolition Tracts and Anti-Black Stereotypes, ed. John David Smith, pp. 1-18 [CP]

 

10/23 Abolition, Anti-Slavery, and Black Nationalism

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 69-94 (start) [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT I, pp. 253-262 (Garrison), 481-496 (Delany), 497-512 (Douglass), 513-529 (Lincoln) [SD]

 

 

Week 9: Midterm

10/28 Review session

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 69-94 (finish), 95-113 (skim) [SD]

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward [1888]; pp. 1-66 [SD]

 

Note: Midterm Preparation Sheet Available Here

 

10/30 MIDTERM EXAMINATION

 

 

Week 10: American Modernity and Its Discontents

Issues to consider:  What are some of the pressing issues in American culture in the post-Civil War period?  What role does science come to play for many intellectuals as they made sense of the end of the nineteenth century?  How does Darwin explain his theory of evolution by natural selection and what are some of the implications drawn from the theory?

 

11/4 Scientism, Anti-Modernism, and the Emergence of a Secular America

George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War, pp. 199-216 [CP]

David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper (eds.), The American Intellectual Tradition, 4th edition, vol. II, pp. 79-83 (Adams) [SD]

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward; pp. 67-165 [SD]

 

11/6 Evolution and the Gospel of Progress

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 115-137 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 20-29 (Sumner), 30-38 (Ward), 45-51 (Gilman) [SD]

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species [1859], pp. 1-12 [CP]

Optional: Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth,” pp. 1-6 [CP]

 

Film: Greed [1924]

 

 

Week 11: Power and Its Perils

Issues to consider:  In what ways did the ideology of power that developed in America at the end of the nineteenth century express anxiety and fear as much as self confidence and belief in the future?  How did the supporters and opponents of American expansionism justify their positions?  What were some of the arguments put forward in favor of and against scientific racism?

 

11/11 Imperial Discourses and the Cult of Strength

Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization, pp. 170-215 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 84-92 (Turner), 123-130 (Wilson) [SD]

Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life” [1899], pp. 1-6 [CP]

Black Elk, Excerpt from Black Elk Speaks [1932], pp. 1-5 [CP]

Optional: Mark Twain, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” [1901], pp. 1-9 [CP]

 

11/13 What to Do With the “Other”?: Nativism, Racism, and an American Eugenics

John Higham, Strangers in the Land, pp. 131-157 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 171-181 (Bourne) [SD]

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1903], pp. 1-24 [SD]

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race [1916], pp. 1-5 [CP]

Optional: Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man [1911], pp. 3-18 [CP]

  

Note: DOCUMENT CHOICE FOR FINAL PAPER DUE TODAY

 

 

Week 12: Theory and Praxis, American Style

Issues to consider:  What was the vision of the American state being developed by various Progressive political thinkers and philosophers?  How did Addams, Pierce, James, Dewey, among others, connect knowledge and action?  What was the place of the common person in these theories of how the state and society should operate?

 

11/18 Transforming the American State: Socialist Dreams/Progressivist Visions/Maternalist Means

Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths, pp. 144-175 (skim), 176-211 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 131-136 (Addams), 141-155 (Veblen) [SD]

Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life [1909], pp. 265-279 [CP]

 

11/20 Pragmatism and the Problem of Democratic Knowledge

Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in America, pp. 123-142 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 65-78 (James), 112-122 (James), 162-170 (Dewey), 181-188 (Bourne) [SD]

 

 

Week 13: Engineering the Future

Issues to consider:  What was the significance of the rise of the expert in American culture?  How was power redistributed and to whose advantage and whose loss?  How were the technological and material changes of the early twentieth century being incorporated within middle-class culture?  What effects did these changes have on gender roles, family expectations, and notions of class and race?

 

11/25 Tayloring the Work Force and the Rise of the Expert

John M. Jordan, Machine-Age Ideology, pp. 33-55, 55-67 (Skim) [CP]

Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management [1911], pp. iii-iv, 1-22, 38-43, 74-76; skim rest [SD]

Optional: John B. Watson, Behaviorism [1924], pp. 3-11 [CP]

Film: Modern Times [1936] in class; first half hour

 

Note: INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH AND OUTLINE DUE TODAY

 

11/27 Modernism, the Masses, and Popular Culture

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 139-161 [SD]

Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday [1931], pp. 1-17, 155-187 (skim), 188-203 [CP]

Work on term paper #2

 

Note:  No class today.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

 

Week 14: A Plurality of Cultures?

Issues to consider:  To what degree did African Americans and women develop ideologies that challenged white, middle-class, male culture, and to what degree did they adopt those forms?  What were some of the visions of a transformed America being put forward by African American and women authors?  How open was American culture to contending voices and alternative sets of values?

 

12/2 “When Harlem was in Vogue”: Black Intellectuals from Du Bois to the Harlem Renaissance

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1903], pp. 25-35, 99-113, 155-164 [SD]

W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth” [1903], pp. 1-10 [CP]

David Levering Lewis, The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, pp. 91-95 (Hughes), 194-205 (Wright), 256-265 (Hughes) [CP]

Optional: Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race, pp. 100-127 [CP]

 

12/4 Feminism and the “New Woman”

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 163-193 (Skim) [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 39-44 (Stanton), 199-206 (Mead) [SD]

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland [1915], pp. 42-124 [SD]

Optional: Nancy F. Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism, pp. 11-50 [CP]

  

Note: TERM PAPER #2 DUE TODAY

 

 

Week 15: The Great Depression

Issues to consider:  To what degree did the Depression challenge middle-class culture and to what degree did it confirm middle-class values?  What were some of the ways in which science, technology, and the ideology of progress were reconceptualized and revalued during the Depression?  How did the languages of individualism and community get deployed and to what purposes during the Depression?

 

12/9 A Time of Hope, A Time of Fear: Science and Culture in Depression-Era America

Richard Pells, Radical Visions and American Dreams, pp. 96-118, 118-125 (Skim), 148-150 [CP]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 207-218 (Ransome), 219-228 (Hook) [SD]

Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society [1932], Ch. 1, pp. 1-8 [CP]

  

Film: Meet John Doe [1941]

 

12/11 An American Liberalism: Niebuhr, Dewey, the New Deal, and Beyond

Foner, The Story of American Freedom, pp. 195-218 [SD]

Hollinger and Capper, AIT II, pp. 258-265 (Niebuhr) [SD]

Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Ch. 7, pp. 8-15 [CP]

John Dewey, “Science and Society” [1931] in The Later Works, vol. 6, pp. 53-63 [CP]

 

Note: Final Exam Preparation Sheet Available Here

 

Note: Words, Concepts, and Names Review Sheet Available Here

 

 

 

FINAL EXAMINATION:

DECEMBER 18th, 1:30-3:30 pm.