History H105/Sections 15408 and 15409/Fall 2004/Dr. Ashendel

Office:  CA 506

Office Hours:  MW 1-2 and by appointment

Office Telephone:  278-9020

Email:  aashende@iupui.edu

 

Required Readings:

A Strange Likeness

The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

The Kingdom of Matthias

Enduring Vision, volume 1

 

Course Description and Objectives:  Despite all opinions to the contrary, history survey courses such as this one are not designed to make undergraduates jump through hoops or torture them with requirements to learn useless information and meaningless dates, all irrelevant to the students’ futures.  Instead a survey course is meant to give students a framework for understanding how both the present and future unfold within structures largely defined by the past.  Even the fast-paced, technology-driven society we find ourselves in today has roots in historical precedents that are still shaping its development.  This course will focus on the usual themes of politics and economics, but will also show how ordinary people shaped these forces.  History is not just a mountain of facts, but is instead a sequence of interconnected events.  Understanding those connections and explaining them through the use of facts is one way to sharpen your analytical skills, improve your ability to communicate with others, and, hopefully, to learn something to apply to your own life. These objectives are stated another way as the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning:  www.iupui.edu/~history/principlesundergradlearning.htm.  We will also discuss these on the first day of class.  More specifically, class objectives include:  identifying and explaining the economic, religious, and social reasons behind the colonization of North America by Europeans; identifying and analyzing the motivations for the American Revolution from the perspective of the colonists and the British; analyzing the development of slavery; analyzing the development of industrialization and transportation and how they affected the structure of our society; analyzing the ways the desire for land shaped the development of the country; and, finally, the Civil War will be examined from a multitude of perspectives to attempt to understand the long-term consequences of that particular war.

 

Attendance:  Attendance is required and will be taken at every class meeting.  Consistent attendance will be used to determine borderline grades.  Further, material covered in lecture is not necessarily covered in the required readings.  Attendance at every class meeting will result in a better grade.

 

Classroom procedures:  Please arrive on time.  If you must arrive late, please enter the room quietly.  Place all cell phones on vibrate or turn them off for the duration of the class. Please do not leave class early for other appointments. Listening and note taking are important study skills, therefore, no tape recorders are allowed.

 

Cheating and plagiarism:  Don’t do it.  You will earn a zero on the work in question.  We will discuss plagiarism on the first day of class.

 

Assignments:  Students will take three examinations.  These exams will consist of 6 identifications and an essay question.  A study guide will be distributed in class one week prior to each exam.  The study guide will include 13 possible identifications and at least 3 possible essays.  The actual exam will be taken from that study guide.  There will also be a quiz over A Strange Likeness, The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, and The Kingdom of Matthias.  The study questions for those quizzes are part of this syllabus.

 

Grading:

3 examinations @ 100 points    300

3 quizzes @ 50 points               150     

Total points                              450

Grades are based on a straight scale:  450-405 = A; 404-360 = B; 359-315 = C; 314-270 = D, 269 and lower = F.  A zero has a greater negative impact on your final grade than at least some attempt to complete an assignment.  Makeup examinations and quizzes are strongly discouraged.  Makeup quizzes WILL NOT be taken from the study guide which is part of this syllabus. No makeup exam or quiz will be given without documentation proving an extreme emergency.  Documentation includes doctors’ forms, funeral notices, accident reports, and similar verifiable papers.  The instructor reserves the right to refuse to grant a makeup exam or quiz if the documentation is not presented or is deemed invalid.  If a makeup exam or quiz is approved it must be completed within one week of the original exam or quiz.  Incompletes are never given. It is not fair to the rest of the class to request extra time to complete the work.

 

Schedule of lecture topics, readings, quizzes, and examinations.  Please complete the readings before class.

August 25:  Introduction to the Class

August 30:  Age of Exploration

                        Read:  EV Chapters 1 and 2

September 1:  Early Colonial Settlements

                        Read:  EV Chapter 3 and A Strange Likeness

September 6:  Labor Day—No classes

September 8:  Colonial Settlements and the Development of Slavery

September 13: QUIZ over A Strange Likeness

September 15:  The Puritans

September 20:  Witches and Historians

September 22:  Colonial Governments and Colonial Changes

                        Read:  EV Chapter 4

September: 27:  Reason and Religion

September 29:  EXAM I

October 4:  Imperial Policy and Colonists Rights

                        Read EV Chapters 5 and 6 and The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

October 6:  Making a Rebellion

October 11:  The Social Significance of War

October 13:  QUIZ over The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

October 18:  Constitutional Convention and Ratification Debates

October 20:  The Federalists

                        Read:  EV Chapter 7

October 25:  The Federalists

October 27:  The Jeffersonians

                        Read:  EV Chapter 8

November 1:  EXAM II

November 3:  New Ways to Live and Work

                        Read:  EV Chapters 9 and 11

November 8:  New Ways to Live and Work

November 10:  Southern Society and Slave Culture

                        Read:  EV Chapter 12

November 15:  Limits of Liberty

November 17:  Reform

                        Read:  EV Chapter 10 and The Kingdom of Matthias

November 22:  QUIZ over The Kingdom of Matthias

November 24:  Thanksgiving Holiday—No Classes

November 29:  Antebellum Politics

                        Read:  EV Chapter 13

December 1:  Manifest Destiny

                        Read:  EV Chapter 14

December 6:  Civil War

                        Read:  EV Chapter 15

December 8:  Civil War

December 13:  Civil War

FINAL EXAMS

Section 15409 MW 2:30-3:45 December 15 (Wednesday) 1-3:00 p.m.

Section 15408 MW 4:00-5:15 December 20 (Monday) 3:30-5:30 p.m.

Study Questions for A Strange Likeness

Omit the Introduction and Conclusion

Chapter 1:  What does the story of the Indians and McClure tell us about the two cultures?  How did Indian groups own land?  How did individual Indians use land?  Why and how did Indians change land use in the late eighteenth century?  How was land use similar to European patterns in the early years?  Describe differences in the ways Europeans and Indians measured the land. How did Indians mark the land?  How did Europeans mark the land?

Chapter 2:  Describe similarities in the political structures of Native Americans and European societies.  Why did Europeans try to find Indians who ruled as absolute monarchs?  How did Indians and Europeans show rank and status?  Were Indians impressed by European wealth?  Why?  What stereotypes did each group develop about the other?

Chapter 3:  Why was the painting of William Penn and the Delawares created?  How did Indians keep records when they had no form of writing as the Europeans did?  What was the reaction by each to their ways of remembering?

Chapter 4:  Explain “one dish and one spoon” alliances and give an example for Indians and Europeans.  Explain and give an example of “nation within nation” alliances for Indians and Europeans.

Chapter 5:  How were Indians and Europeans alike in the use of gender metaphors and gender roles?  How were they different?  How did Indian nations use kinship terms to signify relationships between them?

Chapter 6:  How does the author believe the terms white and red came into use among Indians and Europeans?  How did each group use the terms over time?

 

Study Questions for The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

Part I

Chapter 1:  Who recorded Hewes’ story and why.  Was Hewes’ memory reliable?

Chapters 2 and 3:  Describe Hewes’ childhood and years as an apprentice.  What sort of character traits and abilities did he develop over those years?

Chapter 4:  Describe his place in Boston society.  What sort of life did Hewes lead?

Chapters 5 and 6:  Describe Hewes’ participation in the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.  How did that participation affect him?

Chapters 7 and 8:  Describe the incident with Captain Malcolm. What had Hewes learned over the years?

Chapter 9:  How did Hewes participate in the American Revolutionary War?

Chapters 10, 11, and 12:  Describe his life after the war.  How and why are we able to read about Hewes today?

Part II

Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4:  How and why did the leaders of post-Revolutionary Boston choose to “forget” the Tea Party and other pre-Revolutionary events?

Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8:  How was the memory of the Tea Party revived?  Why?

 

Study questions for The Kingdom of Matthias

Introduction:  Compare the similarities between Joseph Smith and Matthias.

Chapter 1:  Describe Elijah Pierson’s early life and work.  Describe Pierson’s marriage.  How did he change after meeting Frances Folger?  How did his behavior reflect or not reflect middle-class norms for behavior?  What happened to him when his wife died?

Chapter 2:  Describe Robert Matthews’ childhood and early life and compare it to Elijah Pierson.  How did the national economy affect Matthews?  How did Matthews become Matthias?

Chapter 3:  What did Matthias think of women?  How did his economic well-being change when he became Matthias?  What did his clothing and thoughts on food say about his reactions to changing clothing and food habits of the people at large?  Give specific examples of each of these.

Chapter 4:  Explain the causes behind the Kingdom’s downfall.  Did Matthias kill Elijah Pierson?  How did contemporaries—people who lived at that time—outside the cult view Matthias?  Why did they think Matthias formed the cult and why did people join it?  What led to Matthias’ arrest and jailing?

Epilogue:  What happened after Matthias went to jail?