Syllabus

A 421 Topics: American Cultural History/H 511 American Cultural History

Wednesday, 5:45pm-8:25pm

Room CA 219

Professor: Dr. Melissa Bingmann

Office: CA 504N

Office Hours: Monday, 1:00pm-2:00pm; Wednesday, 4:30pm-5:30pm

Office Telephone: 278-9024

E-mail: mbingman@iupui.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This upper-division and graduate-level course will introduce students to American cultural history from the Great Awakening through the counterculture movements of the 1960s. Cultural history is integrative because it focuses on ideas and how these are shaped and transmitted through art, literature, educational institutions, religion, leisure activity, and material culture. Oftentimes, cultural history is associated with intellectual history and the history of intellectuals. With the shift to social history, or, history “from the bottom-up,” cultural historians have broadened the scope of the field to examine the culture of racially, gendered, and economically diverse groups. Inquiry into how different people shape and make meaning of intellectual ideas is a current driving force for cultural historical studies. Specific topics that will be explored in this course include the study of intellectuals, religion, literature, decorative art, architecture, popular culture, cultural institutions, education, civic culture, the creation of American tradition, and education.

PRINCIPLES OF UNDERGRADUATE LEARNING:

Core Communication and Quantitative Skills

• Through the assigned reading and writing assignments, students will enhance their ability to comprehend, interpret, and analyze both historical monographs and contextualize primary source literary works.
• Student-led book discussions will enable students to practice communicating their ideas in small groups.

Critical Thinking

• Because the study of cultural history is integrative, students will enhance their ability to synthesize information from a variety of disciplines to come to conclusions about the past and present.
• Through reading, discussing, and written reflection of Hunter’s Culture Wars, students will apply new content knowledge and thinking skills to generate and explore questions

about contemporary American life.

Understanding Society and Culture

• The content of this course will provide the basis for students’ ability to compare and contrast the range of diversity in human history.

POLICIES:

Attendance

Attendance is required for undergraduate students and will be taken at class meetings.

Cheating and plagiarism

Students who cheat or plagiarize will receive a zero for the work in question and will be reported to the Dean. According to the Academic Handbook, Indiana University, August 2001, pp. 172-173, “Any student who fails to give credit for ideas or materials taken from another source is guilty of plagiarism.”

For comprehensive information on IUPUI’s policy on cheating and plagiarism consult Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct available on-line.

Deadlines

• Reading must be completed prior to class discussion
• The primary source literature study assignment is due by Dec. 1
• Written book review is due one week after the group discussion
• Graduate student summary for reading goals and bibliography due Sept. 8
• Graduate student précis due by Dec. 15

Incompletes

I will be very reluctant to give a grade of Incomplete (I). I assign Incompletes only to students who have successfully completed most of the course work and who have been prevented by significant and unanticipated circumstances from finishing all of their assignments.

Classroom Courtesy

Please arrive on time and turn off cell phones and pagers prior to the beginning of class.

READINGS:

The following are available for sale in the IUPUI bookstore:

Frank Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening,” 1999

Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the

United States, 1880-1917, 1995.

Joseph Butler, Field Guide to American Antique Furniture, 1985. (recommended)

Lynn Dumenil, Modern Temper American Culture and Society in the 1920s, 1995

James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, 1990

The Norton Anthology of American Literature, shorter 6^th edition, 2003

ASSIGNMENTS

Book discussion and readings: Completion of the readings is essential to students’ success in this course. In addition to receiving a grade for your participation in group discussions, 20-30% of the exam questions will be directly related to these readings.

You will be divided into small groups of four at the beginning of the semester. Each student will lead the group discussion of one of the following:

Sept. 8 Lambert, Inventing the Great Awakening

Oct. 13 Bederman, Manliness and Civilization

Nov. 10 Dumenil, Modern Temper American Culture and Society in the 1920s

Dec. 8 Hunter, Culture Wars

All students will be graded on their ability to lead the discussion, as well as their participation in each discussion. Participation points should be assigned by the following guidelines:

2.5 it was clearly apparent that the student thoroughly read the book;

was an active participant during the discussion; provided exceptional

analysis that will assist the group leader in creating the paper.

2 group member read the book; contributed to the discussion; made helpful

points toward the development of the group paper but did not demonstrate

significant analysis during the discussion.

1.5 group member read portions of the book but was clearly unable to

participate in some of the discussion because of a lack of familiarity of the

book’s content. Minimal contribution to the discussion.

1 group member did not read the book and/or was unable to make any

substantial contribution to the discussion.

0 group member did not attend the group discussion.

Discussion leader:

2.5 asked open-ended questions that focused on broad concepts and demonstrated the

ability to lead a lively, intellectually engaging group discussion

2.0 the group leader clearly read the book, questions focused “facts” rather than broad

concepts

1.0 it was not certain whether or not the group leader understood the book well

enough to lead the discussion

0 group leader was absent

Group paper

The group leader is responsible for developing discussion questions, leading the discussion, and completing the group paper. Only the group leader will be graded on the paper. Grammar, spelling, and the quality of writing skills will be graded in addition to the quality of your study questions, reading comprehension, and historical analysis. Avoid writing in the passive voice and as you revise your paper prior to submission, try to cut out unnecessary words.

The final version of the group paper will consist of the following:

• A one-page list of discussion questions (five to six).
• A five to eight page double-spaced paper that addresses the discussion questions, states the thesis of the book, identifies and provides examples of the supporting arguments, and analyzes the historical sources used by the author.

Primary Source Literature Study: The purpose of this assignment is for each student to read a novel as a primary source for historical inquiry. Your five page paper should discuss the literary work in its historical context. Think about how your selected work is reflective of the time period in which it was written. Point out historical events that are important to the narrative. Is it “timeless,” necessary for 21^st century readers to have academic training in history, or a combination? Who was the audience? What was the author’s intent and what impact did the book have on American culture, society, politics? Grammar, spelling, and the quality of writing skills will be graded. Select one book from the attached reading list by Sept. 8^th. The final paper is due by Dec. 1^st.

The midterm and final examinations will contain essay questions, identifications, and short answer questions. Questions will be derived from the material covered in the lectures and 20 to 30 percent of the examination questions will come from the required readings. Blue books will be provided.

Review questions for lectures and readings will be posted on ONCOURSE in order to help students prepare for the midterm and final. All exam questions will come from the review questions.

Take-home essay from Hunter, Culture Wars: Because of the complexity of this work, students will take home an essay question based on the reading after the discussion on December 8^th. Your typed, edited essay will be due by 5:00pm on December 10^th via e-mail. Graduate students will write a précis instead of the take-home essay.

Graduate student exam option: Graduate students may choose to substitute a take-home midterm for one book and/or a take-home final for two books. Take-home exams must be turned in to the History Department secretary by 5:00pm on the Friday following the Wednesday evening the exam is distributed. Questions on the graduate student take-home exam option may vary from the undergraduate examination and must be typed, edited, organized, and written in a manner that reflects graduate-level work.

Graduate student précis: Graduate students will write a précis for each of the four monographs and complete the primary source literature written assignment. In addition, each student will develop an additional reading list of five books based on his/her academic goals and complete a précis for each book. A written summary of your reading goals (how and why you chose the focus for your reading) and your bibliography are due Sept. 8^th.

Graduate student review session for midterm examination: I will be presenting a paper at the Western Historical Association on October 13^th and need the graduate students to assist with the group discussions of Bederman’s book and run the review for the undergraduate students. Each student will most likely work with a partner to work through the review questions with the undergraduate students as they prepare for the midterm. Each of you will need to submit a 2-3 page written summary of your review session by Friday, October 15^th. Your written summary should identify topics that seemed particularly difficult, questions that may have been confusing because of the way they were written, questions that you spent a lot of time reviewing, and the general direction/instruction you provided. If the discussion generated questions that you had trouble addressing, be certain to let me know so I can address them via ONCOURSE. In preparation for the review, you need to bring notes that will help you steer students in the right direction. Questions should come from the undergraduates who should bring sample outlines for essay questions for you to review. Your role will be to help them structure an essay or identification rather than provide them direct answers. Keep in mind the goal of history is thinking, not memorization.

GRADING

Undergraduate grades will be based on the following:

Midterm 20

Final 20

Book discussions 10

Written book review 20

Primary Source Literature Study 20

Take-home essay questions from Culture Wars 10

100

Graduate student grades will be based on the following:

10 precis 200

Summary of reading goals and bibliography 10

Book discussions (4 grad student meetings) 10

“A Genius for Place” 10

Lead review session for midterm 10

Regular class book discussions 10

250

Extra Credit (undergraduate):

“A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era” at Lilly House, 5 points.

I have scheduled our group for Thursday, Sept. 16th at 5:00pm of the Lilly House grounds and “A Genius for Place,” or you may visit the grounds and exhibit on your own and complete a series of questions to earn extra credit. The exhibition runs through October 10, 2004.

COURSE SCHEDULE:

August 25 Introduction

Sept. 1 American decorative art and architecture in the early republic

Read Norton, pp. 425-445; Butler, Field Guide, pp. 17-45, 48-61

Sept. 8 The Great Awakening and religion through the nineteenth century

Book discussion of Lambert, Inventing the Great Awakening

Graduate student reading list due

Book selection for primary source literature study due

Sept. 15 Early American cultural institutions and entertainment

Transcendentalism

Read Norton, Washington Irving, pp. 446-460; James Fenimore Cooper, pp. 460-

469; Emerson pp. 482-514 and 539-556; Margaret Fuller pp. 760-770; Thoreau

pp. 834-939.

Sept. 22 Slave culture, antebellum South, abolitionism

Read Norton, Harriet Jacobs, pp. 812-834; Frederick Douglass, pp. 939-973.

Sept. 29 The emergence of post-war civic culture and regionalism

The closing of the American frontier and Western landscape

Read Norton, 1223-1234; Louise Amelia Smith Clappe, pp. 973-985; Bret Harte,

pp. 1473-1481; Constance Fenimore Woolson, 1482-1497; Sarah Orne Jewett,

1586-1594; Kate Chopin, pp. 1594-1596.

Oct. 6 Victorian Art and Architecture

World’s Fairs 1876-1915

Read Norton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, pp. 1658-1671. Butler, Field Guide pp.

64-77.

Oct. 13 Book discussion of Bederman, Manliness and Civilization

Midterm review

Oct. 20 Midterm

Oct. 27 Consumerism, leisure, urban culture

Social Gospel movement

Read Norton, 1807-1821; Carl Sandburg, pp. 1916-1918.

Nov. 3 Post-war modernism

Harlem Rennaissance

Art Nouveau

Frank Lloyd Wright

Read Norton, W.E.B. Du Bois, pp. 1702-1719; William Carlos Williams, pp.

1933-1946; Ezra Pound, pp. 1946-1953; F. Scott Fitzgerald, pp. 2126-2143;

Claude McKay, pp. 2082-2086; Zora Neale Hurston, pp. 2096-2108; Langston

Hughes, pp. 2225-2231.

Butler, Field Guide, 83-87.

Nov. 10 Anti-modernism

Book discussion of Dumenil, Modern Temper: American Culture and Society

in the 1920s

Nov. 17 New Deal arts & culture

Read Norton, John Steinbeck, pp. 2232-2245.

Nov. 24 No Class

Dec. 1 Post-World War II disillusionment

Suburbia

Counterculture

Primary source literature study due

Read Norton, pp. 2275-2285, Kurt Vonnegut, pp. 2405-2414; James Baldwin,

2414-2426; Gloria Anzaldua, pp. 2566-2575; Allen Ginsberg, pp. 2730-2739.

Dec. 8 Book discussion of Hunter, Culture Wars

Review for Final Exam

Dec. 10 Take-home questions from Hunter, Culture Wars due by 5:00pm

Dec. 15 Final Exam

Reading List for Primary Source Literature (choose one from the following list):

Edward Abbey, Monkey Wrench Gang

Willa Cather, My Antonia (1918)

Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

John dos Passos, The 42^nd Parallel (1930)

*E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate, (1989)

Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900)

Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

*Frank Gilbreth, Cheaper by the Dozen (1948)

Graham Greene, The Quiet American

Nathaniel Hawthorne, House of Seven Gables

Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)

Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona (1884).

Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy (1929)

Sinclair Lewis, Babbit (1922)

Herman Melville, Typee (1930s)

Grace Metalious, Peyton Place (1954)

*Pat Mora, House of Houses, Beacon Press, 1997.

*Greg Sarris, Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream, University of California Press, 1994.

J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

Hubert Selby, Jr., Last Exit to Brooklyn (1957)

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)

Gene Stratton-Porter, Freckles

Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (1938)

*Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram, (1958)

*Gore Vidal, Burr

William H. Whyte, Organization Man (1956)

Sloan Wilson, Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1955)

Owen Wister, The Virginian

Virginia Wolf, A Room of One’s Own

Thomas Wolfe, Electric Koolaid Acid Test

Graduate Student Reading List

10 book reviews (5 required) + choice of (5) additional from the attached reading list. Graduate students may choose to substitute a take-home midterm for one book and/or a take-home final for two books.

Early Republic, and Antebellum America

Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and the New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s,

1984.

Rosemarie Bank, Theater Culture in America, 1825-1860, 1997.

Thomas Bender, Toward an Urban Vision: Ideas and Institutions in Nineteenth Century

America, 1982.

Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of

Slave Life in the Americas, 1993.

Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1861, 1981.

Alice Fahs, Publishing the Civil War: Popular Literature and the Meanings of the Nation, 1861-

1865,

David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, 1974.

Thomas F. Grossett, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture, 1985.

James Oliver Horton, Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community, 1993.

Christine Leigh Heyman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt, 1997.

Carl F. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-

1860, 1983.

John F. Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century America, 1990.

Jill Lepore, A is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States,

Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2002.

Jean V. Matthews, Toward a New Society: American Thought and Culture, 1800-1830, 1991.

Devon Mihuseuh, Cultivating the Rosebuds: The Education of Women at the Cherokee Female

Seminary, 1851-1909, 1993.

David Reynolds, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography, 1995.

W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, 1979.

Anne C. Rose, Voices of the Marketplace: American Thought and Culture, 1830-1860, 1995.

Albert J. Von Frank, The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s

Boston, 1998.

Post Civil War & Twentieth Century

Cindy Aron, Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States, 1999.

Keith Beattie, The Scar That Binds: American Culture and the Vietnam War, 1998.

Robert M. Crunden, Ministers of Reform: The Progressive’s Achievement in American

Civilization, 1889-1920, 1982.

Susan Curtis, The Social Gospel and Modern American Culture, 1991.

Angela Davis, Blues Legacy and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith,

and Billie Holiday, 1998.

Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the

Twentieth Century, 1997.

Thomas P. Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American

Cinema, 1930-1934, 1999.

Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, 1994.

Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor

Politics at the Turn of the Century, 1999.

Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch, eds., The War in American Culture: Society and

Consciousness during World War II, 1996.

John P. Ferre, A Social Gospel for Millions, The Religious Bestsellers of Charles

Sheldon, Charles Gordon, and Harold Bell Wright,

James Gilbert, Perfect Cities

Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, Harvard University Press, 1999.

Katherine C. Grier, Culture and Comfort, Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity,

1850-1930, 1988, 1997.

Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South,

1890-1940, 1998.

Jacqueline Dowd Hall, Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World, 1987.

Margot Henriksen, Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age,

1997.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the

Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920, Harvard University Press, 1993.

Tera Hunter, To n’joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil

War, 1997.

Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 1985.

Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture, Harvard University

Press, 2002.

John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century, 1978.

Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the

Challenge of Modernity in America, Hill and Wang: New York, 2001.

Michael B. Katz, Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, the “Underclass,” and

Urban Schools as History, 1995.

Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America,

1994.

Lawrence Levine, The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History,

Beacon Press, 1996.

David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868-1919, 1993.

W.T. Lhamon Jr., Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style n the American

1950s, Harvard University Press, 2002.

George Lipsitz, A Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s, 1994.

William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America,

1996.

Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden, 1964.

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, 1988.

Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle

East, 1945-2000, University of California Press, 2001.

Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood

Blacklist, 1997.

John C. McWilliams, The 1960s Cultural Revolution, 2000.

Barbara Melosh, Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhood in New Deal Public

Art and Theater, 1991.

Carol D. Mintz, Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance, 1988.

Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century

New York, Temple University Press, 1986.

Laura Prieto, At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in

America, 2001.

Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature, The

University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Robert Rydell, All the World’s A Fair: Visions of Empire at American International

Expositions, 1876-1916, The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Thomas Hill Schaub, American Fiction in the Cold War, University of Wisconsin Press,

Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and

Politics, 2001.

Kathryn Kish Sklar, Florence Kelley and the Nation’s Work: The Rise of Women’s Political

Culture, 1830-1900, 1995.

Susan Smulyan, Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting, 1920-

1934, 1994.

Warren Sussman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth

Century, 1984.

Christine Stansell, American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of A New

Century, 2000.

Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded

Age, 1982.

William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and

American Culture, 1965-1975, 1992.

Visions of War: World War II in Popular Literature and Culture, ed. M. Paul Holsinger

and Mary Anne Schofield, University of Wisconsin Press,

Susan Ware, Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism, W. W.

Norton, 1993.

William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 1989.

Gwendolyn Wright, Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural

Conflict in Chicago, 1873-1913, 1980.

Public History

John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in

the Twentieth Century, 1994.

David Chidester and Edward Linenthal, American Sacred Space, 1994.

Steven Conn, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926, 1998.

David Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry, 1990.

Martha Norkunas, The Politics of Public Memory: Tourism, History, and Ethnicity in Monterey,

California, 1993.

American West/Southwest

Robert Athearn, The Mythic West in Twentieth-Century America, 1986.

Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic

Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940, 1987.

Margaret D. Jacobs, Engendered Encounters: Feminism and Pueblo Cultures, 1879-

1934, University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, 1991.

L.G. Moses, Wild West Shows and Images of American Indians, 1883-1933, 1996.

Mary Murphy, Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-1941, 1997.

Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue: The Search for Moral Authority in the American West,

1874-1939, 1990.

Greg Sarris, Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream, University of California Press, 1994.

Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of

National Parks, 1999.

Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, 1950.

John G. Neihart, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Ogala

Sioux, 1961.

Chris Wilson, The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating A Modern Regional Tradition, University

of New Mexico Press, 1997.

General

Thomas Bender, New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City from

1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time, 1987.

Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 1985.

Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, (1991, 1993) (counts as two)

Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Little, Brown

and Company, 1993.