THE  SYLLABUS

Lecture/Discussion: Monday -Thursday, 11:20 - 12:35 p.m.  Place: Ward 204
Instructor: Robert Griffith Tel: 202-885-2419 E-mail: bgriff@american.edu
Office: McCabe 209      Office Hours: Monday, 2:00-4:00 and by appointment

GoTo:

About the Course	The Readings	Schedule	The Projects
Assessment	Electronic Paper	Web Resources	Griffith 's Home Page

About the Course:  The United States From Emancipation Through World War II is a survey course in American history. Among the goals for the course are the following: 1) to provide students with a broad understanding of the people, events, ideas and forces that shaped U.S. history from 1865 to 1945; 2) to help students develop those skills that will allow them to continue to learn from the past -- accomplishing this goal includes increasing students' familiarity with the AU Library and with information available on the World Wide Web; 3) to help students learn to communicate their knowledge, both orally and in writing; and 4) to help students develop an informed understanding of historical practice -- the interplay of history and memory, the role of evidence, how history is created or "constructed" by historians, museum curators, movie makers and many others. For more details, including grading policies, click on Assessment.

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Required Reading and other Resources:

Mary Beth Norton et al., A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, Volume II: Since 1865 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998).   You will be expected to read regularly in this standard textbook and (beginning in November) to test your knowledge by using the on line study guide on the Houghton Mifflin Web site. There will be at least two examinations to test your understanding of the material presented in this volume.  For more information, click on Assessment.

 AU Library --  the AU Library's home page, a good place to begin your library searches. We will visit the Library to learn more about its resources, but you should also avail yourself of the Library's "Virtual Tour."

 A Guide to Web Resources for the Study of  History -- this is a list of web sites (many of which are themselves collections of  web sites) that are of particular use in the study of  U.S. history.

Web Hound -- a useful tutorial on navigating the web by the Maricopa (Community College) Teaching and Instruction Center.  See also the "Tips and tools for searching the Web" created by the American Crossroads Project.

Reading, Writing and Researching for History: A College Student's Guide, by Professor Patrick Rael of Bowdoin College. A useful guide to the study of history.

The Projects  -- much of the work in the course will be organized around a series of four group projects.  The class will be divided into teams of  four to five students.  Each team will be responsible for completing all four of the projects.  For details on the projects, click on THE PROJECTS.

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SCHEDULE:

Introduction to the Course

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Project One: Freedom

       Group Projects:  Separate But Equal
                               Land: the Key to Freedom
                               The Meaning of Freedom
                               Violence and Freedom in Post Reconstruction America

[Project One follow-up: Individual Comments due Friday, October 9; Final Draft of Projects due Monday, November 2.]
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                                   Project Two: E Pluribus Unum

Thursday, October 1:   Lecture: Engines of Change (Outline).

        Messages:  Click on Course Administration.
        Friday, October 2: Conference at Library of Congress.
        For details, click on Conference.

Monday, October 5:    Lecture(cont).  Project Two Team Meetings.

• By this meeting, everyone should have completed the assigned reading and prepared a list of the "five most important things we must know."

• Individual contributions due.

Group Projects:  Myth vs. Reality
                                Immigration Backlash
                                The Great Wave
                                The Illinois Immigrant
 

[Project Two follow-up: Individual Comments due Wednesday, October 21;  Final Draft of Projects due Monday, November 9.]

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Begin Second Half of Semester

Monday, October 26:  Discussion: Midterm Evaluations; Midterm Exam.
                                 Lecture: Politics in the Gilded Age (See Politics...Outline)
                                 Required Reading: A People and A Nation, Chapter 20.

Thursday, October 29:   Lecture/Discussion: The New Empire (See New Empire Outline)
                                    Required Reading, A People and a Nation, Chapter 22.

Monday, November 2:   Lecture/Discussion: The Progressive Era
                                    Required Reading, A People and a Nation, Chapter 21.
                                 Final Revisions Due on First Projects.

Thursday, November 5:   Lecture/Discussion: World War I, the Red Scare, the Politics of Intolerance
                                      Required Reading, A People and a Nation, Chapter 23.

Monday, November 9:  Lecture/Discussion: The 1920s and the Age of High Mass Consumption
                                   Required Reading, A People and a Nation, Chapter 24.
                                   See (The Twenties: An Outline)
                                Final Revisions Due on Second Projects.

Thursday, November 12:  Team Meetings to Plan Final Project.
 

Monday, November 16: Lecture/Discussion: The Great Depression and the New Deal (I)
                                    Required Reading, A People and a Nation, Chapter 25.

Thursday, November 19:   Lecture/Discussion: The Great Depression and the New Deal (II)
                                       Required Reading, A People and a Nation, Chapter 25.
                                       Click on New Deal Outline.

Monday, November 23:   Lecture/Discussion: World War II
                                      Required Reading: A People and a Nation, Chapters 26,27.
                                   Draft of Final Projects Due

THANKSGIVING VACATION: November 26-27.

Monday, November 30: Project Four: The Great Depression & the New Deal
Thursday, December 3: Project Four: The Great Depression & the New Deal

Group Projects: The New Deal: The First Hundred Days
                                  Eleanor Roosevelt
                                  Voices of Dissent: Opposition to the New Deal
                                 Federal One: The WPA Art Project

Monday, December 7:  Lecture: From WW II to the Cold War: Forging Postwar
                                                    America

FINAL EXAMINATION:  The final examination will be in two parts:

1) There will be an in class test that, like the midterm, will draw heavily on lectures, the textbooks and focus on identification and short answer.  As with the midterm, you will have an opportunity to contribute to this part of the final.  This part of the examination is scheduled for Monday, December 14,  from 11:20 a.m. to 1:50 p.m., in Ward 204.
2) There will also be a take-home, essay exam that will draw on the entire course, including the twelve group projects. This exam will be due on or before the last day of finals, which is Friday, December 18, 1998.  For additional information, click on Assessment.