History H106/Section X462/Summer II 2004/Dr. Ashendel

Office:  CA 506

Office Telephone:  278-9020

Office Hours:  9:30-10:30 Tuesday and Thursday

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

 

Required Readings:

Enduring Vision, volume 2

Looking Backward

Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism

 

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 those 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:  understanding the consequences of the Civil War for all regions of the country; analyzing the rise of big business and labor unions; understanding the interplay between business and the federal government; analyzing the move from an isolationist foreign policy to one of intervention; analyzing the role of reform organizations; and finally, students will examine all events from multiple perspectives to understand how all segments of society influenced important events.

 

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 for the course.

 

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 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 directly from that study guide.  There will also be a quiz over Looking Backward and a quiz over LBJ and American Liberalism.  The study questions for those quizzes are part of this syllabus.

 

Grading:

2 examinations @ 100 points                200

2 quizzes @ 50 points                           100

Total points                                          300

 

Grades are based on a straight scale:  300-270=A; 269-240= B; 239-210=C; 209-180= D; 179 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.  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 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.

 

June 28:  Introduction to the Course/Reconstruction

            Read:  EV Chapter 16

June 29:  Rise of Big Business

            Read:  EV Chapter 18

July 1:  Workers and Farmers

            Read:  EV Chapters 17 and 19

July 5:  HOLIDAY—NO CLASS       

July 6:  Progressives

            Read:  EV Chapter 21 and Looking Backward

July 8:  Progressives/QUIZ on Looking Backward

July 12:  Imperialism

            Read:  EV Chapter 20

July 13:  World War I

            Read:  EV Chapter 22

July 15:  The 1920s

            Read:  EV Chapter 23

July 19:  Depression and the New Deal

            Read:  EV Chapter 24

July 20:  EXAM I/World War II

July 22:  World War II

            Read:  EV Chapter 25

July 26:  Cold War

            Read:  EV Chapters 26 and 27

July 27:  Civil Rights

            Read:  EV Chapter 28

July 29:  Vietnam

August 2:  1960s

            Read:  EV Chapter 29 and LBJ

August 3:  QUIZ on LBJ/The1960s

August 5:  That 70s Decade/The 80s

            Read:  EV Chapter 30

August 9:  EXAM II

 

Study Guide for Looking Backward

Introduction:  What were some of the causes of “disharmony” at the end of the nineteenth century?  What were historical cases of utopianism in the United States?  What attraction did Looking Backward have for the middle-class?  To farmers?  What did nationalists want to do in the United States?  What were some of the criticisms of Bellamy’s utopia?

Chapters 1-4:  Explain the coach story and what does it mean?  Why did people strike?  How did West arrive in 2000?

Chapters 5-7:  Why does Dr. Leete say unions existed in 1887 and how was the labor problem resolved by 2000?  Describe the industrial army and how it worked.

Chapters 9 and 10:  How do people acquire goods with no merchants or banks?  What motivates people to work?  How did stores function?

Chapters 11-14:  What does music come from in 2000?  What can people inherit?  Who does the laundry and the cooking?  How does this aid women?  What sorts of honors do people receive?  How does this system work world-wide?  Can you walk in the rain?

Chapters 15, 17, 19, 21:  How are books and newspapers published?  How is the United States president chosen?  Describe crime and criminals and prison in 2000.  Why does Congress meet so infrequently?  Describe the system of education.

Chapter 22:  How can the government afford to support everyone?  In other words, how does the economic system operate?

Chapter 25:  Describe women’s lives in 2000.

 

Study Guide for Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism

You do not have to read the documents section of the book.

Chapter 1:  Describe LBJ’s early years.  How did LBJ participate in New Deal activities?

Chapter 2:  What were three new areas of focus for liberals in the late 1940s and 1950s?  How did LBJ function as Senate majority leader?  What changes did he make in the office?  How did the Democratic Senate work with the Republican president?  How did Johnson deal with racial issues in the 1950s?

Chapter 3:  What were LBJ’s views on racial policy and Vietnam as vice-president?  How did he respond to poverty programs introduced to him when he became president?  How did he persuade Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964?  What was the political response of the South?

Chapter 4:  What was the philosophical basis of the Great Society?  How did LBJ pursue his programs with Congress?  Describe some of the Great Society programs. What sorts of problems did some Great Society programs encounter?  Why didn’t the middle-class think the Great Society benefited them when it actually did?

Chapter 5:  What was the impetus for the Voting Rights Act of 1965?  Why did universalism appear not to work with the civil rights problems?  How did the EEOC change in the late 1960s?

Chapter 6:  What principles and ideas shaped LBJs attitude toward Vietnam?  Briefly explain the activities of the presidents before LBJ in Vietnam.  Why did LBJ get the United States more involved in Vietnam?  What problems did soldiers face in Vietnam?  What was the credibility gap?

Chapter 7:  What were the economic consequences of funding both the Vietnam War and social programs?  Why did people leave the “liberal coalition?”