History H105/Section C245/W 5:45-8:25/Spring 2004/Dr. Ashendel

Office: CA 506

Office Hours:  MW 11-12:00 and by appointment

Office Telephone:  278-9020

Email:  aashendel@aol.com (preferred) or aashende@iupui.edu

 

Required Readings:

Inventing America, Volume 1, by Maier, Smith, Keyssar, and Kevles

The Lord Cornbury Scandal by Bonomi

The Shoemaker and the Tea Party by Young

The Kingdom of Matthias by Johnson and Wilentz

 

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 rots 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.

 

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 quietly.  Careful listening and note taking are important 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 Lord Cornbury Scandal, a quiz over The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, and a quiz over The Kingdom of Matthias.  The study questions for those quizzes are part of this syllabus.

 

Grading:

2 examinations at 100 points     200

3 quizzes at 50 points                150

Total points                              350

 

Grades are based on a straight scale:  350-315 = A; 314-280= B; 279-245= C; 244-210=D; 209 and lower = F.  A zero has a greater negative impact on your final grade than tat 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.

 

January 14:  Introduction to the Course/Age of Exploration

                        Read: IA, Chapter 1

January 21:  Early Colonial Settlements/ The Development of Slavery

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 2

January 28:  The Puritans

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 3

February 4:  Colonial Governments and Colonial Changes

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 4 to p. 149; and The Lord Cornbury Scandal

February 11:  Imperial Policy and Colonists Rights

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 4, pp. 149-54 and Chapter 5

                        QUIZ on Lord Cornbury

February 18:  Making a Rebellion

                        Read: IA, Chapter 6 to p. 217 and The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

February 25:  Constitutional Convention and Ratification Debates

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 7

                        QUIZ on The Shoemaker

March 3:  The Federalists and Jeffersonians

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 to p. 309

March 10:  EXAMINATION I

March 17:  SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS

March 24:  New Ways to Live and Work

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 6, pp. 217-24; Chapter 9, pp. 309-14; Chapter 10

March 31:  Southern Society and Slave Culture

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 12

April 7:  Limits of Liberty/Reform Impulse

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 13 and The Kingdom of Matthias

April 14:  The Common Man and Politics         

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 11

                        QUIZ on Kingdom of Matthias

April 21:  Manifest Destiny

                        Read:  IA, Chapter 14

April 28:  Civil War and Reconstruction

                        Read:  IA, Chapters 15 and 16

May 5:  EXAMINATION II  5:45-7:45

Study Questions for The Lord Cornbury Scandal

Introduction:  What are the stories which make up the Lord Cornbury legend?  What are the five pieces of evidence for this?  How did the Country persuasion and Grub Street join together in this?

Chapter 1:  How did Lord Cornbury first become associated wit the portrait at the New York Historical Society?  When?  Why is the time significant?  What is the evidence against this portrait as a representation of Lord Cornbury?

Chapter 2: Describe, in general, the rise and fall of Cornbury’s family fortunes.  How was Cornbury received by Queen Anne and her Government on his return to England?  What work was he given?

Chapter 3:  What sort of military preparations did Cornbury make in New York?  How did he promote the Church of England?

Chapter 4:  Why did New York’s royal governors have financial problems?  Give two examples of Cornbury’s financial problems as governor of New York.

Chapter 5:  Describe the Whig and Tory parties.  How were political parties viewed at that time?  How did Grub Street influence politics at that time?  Howa was this played out in the colonies?

Chapter 6:  What were normal instances of cross-dressing in England?  How did this change beginning in the 1690s?  Was transvestitism as acceptable in the colonies as in England?

Chapter 7:  Describe the trials and tribulations of imperial communications.  How does this explain the letters which reported that Cornbury dressed in women’s clothes?

Chapters 8 and 9:  Briefly, what was the reason behind the rumors about Cornbury?

 

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 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?