History H105/Section 15413/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:

Enduring Vision Volume 1

The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

After the Fact Volume 1

 

Course Description and Objectives:  Despite all opinion 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-drive 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 (although you must remember those), 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 in another way at the IUPUI web site under 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 two examinations.  These examinations will consist of six 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 The Shoemaker and the Tea Party. The study questions for that quiz are part of this syllabus.  There will also be 6 short quizzes over the After the Fact readings.

 

Grading:

2 examinations at 100 points     200

Shoemaker quiz                         50

6 short quizzes at 25 points       150

Total points                              400

 

Grades are based on a straight scale:  400-360 = A; 359-320= B; 319-280 = C; 279-240=D; 239 and lower = F.  A zero has a greater negative impact on your final grade than at least some attempt to complete an assignment.  Make-up examinations and quizzes are strongly discouraged.  No make up 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 make up exam or quiz if the documentation is not presented or is deemed invalid.  If a make up exam or quiz is approved it must be completed within one week of the original exam or quiz.  Incompletes are strongly discouraged and rarely 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 31:        Introduction to the Course/Age of Exploration

                        Read: EV, Chapters 1 and 2

September 7:  Early Colonial Settlements/ The Development of Slavery

                        Read:  EV, Chapter 3

                        QUIZ on After the Fact, Chapter 1

September 14:  The Puritans

                         QUIZ on After the Fact, Chapter 2

September 21:  Colonial Governments and Colonial Changes

                         Read:  EV, Chapter 4

September 28:  Imperial Policy and Colonists Rights

                        Read:  EV, Chapter 5

October 5:        Making a Rebellion

                        QUIZ on The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

 

 

October 12:      Constitutional Convention and Ratification Debates

                        Read:  EV, Chapter 6

                        QUIZ on After the Fact, Chapter 3

October 19:       The Federalists and Jeffersonians

                        Read:  EV, Chapters 7 and 8

October 26:      EXAMINATION I

November 2:    New Ways to Live and Work

                        Read:  EV, Chapters 9 and 11

                        QUIZ  on After the Fact, Chapter 4

November 9:    Southern Society and Slave Culture

                        Read:  EV, Chapter 12

November 16:  Limits of Liberty/Reform Impulse

                        Read:  EV, Chapter 10

November 23:  The Common Man and Politics

                        QUIZ on After the Fact, Chapter 6

November 30:  Manifest Destiny

                        Read:  EV, Chapters 13 and 14

December 7:  Civil War and Reconstruction

                        Read:  EV, Chapter 15

                        QUIZ on After the Fact, Chapter 7

December 14:  EXAMINATION II 

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.  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 After the Fact quizzes

Chapter 1:  What are two interpretations of John Smith’s experience with Powhatan and Pocahontas?  What were some of the earliest problems in Virginia?  Did tobacco solve those problems?  Why or why not?

Chapter 2:  Describe two of these three reasons behind the Salem witch trials:  hysteria, community conflict, and gender.

Chapter 3:  “The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson, signed by the delegates to the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and contained a list of grievances that congressional delegates would agree were obvious acts of tyranny on the part of Great Britain.”  What is wrong with this statement?

Chapter 4:  How did heat and cold affect everyday life?  Describe and explain the evidence from Krimmel’s painting, house plans, and material artifacts which indicate a refinement of American culture.

Chapter 5:  Briefly explain the frontier thesis.  Describe two of the research projects which verified or challenged Turner’s thesis.

Chapter 7:  What is psychohistory?  Describe the authors’ analysis of John Brown.  Do you agree with it?  Why or why not?