Out of Many: Histories of the United States

HCOM 253
Spring 2001

David A. Reichard
Institute for Human Communication
California State University, Monterey Bay

The syllabus given below is a small excerpt from the course Web site available at
http://classes.csumb.edu/HCOM/HCOM253-01/world/index.html

Satisfactory completion (at least a grade of C) of this course will allow you to meet two (2) University Learning Requirements (ULR) : Culture and Equity as well as U.S. Histories.

In this course, we will compare the commonly portrayed "standard narrative" of U.S. history with a variety of what may be termed "alternative histories." Through such an approach, we will seek not only to understand the underlying historical changes in the history of the United States over a significant period of time, but also will grapple with the politics of writing and conceptualizing history, as we analyze the sometimes contested interpretations of U.S. history among scholars and ordinary people.
To accomplish these goals, we will examine a wide range of source material including original documents, oral history, photographs and film, literature and material culture from particular times and places. We will also examine a variety of interpretations of such evidence from diverse points of view. Throughout the course, we will maintain a multi-cultural perspective of the history of the United States since 1848. In the process, you will develop your own skills in historical research, develop your own interpretive framework, and consider your own life in its historical context.

Course Materials

The following materials are required for the course. Books may be puchased at the CSUMB bookstore. If you purchase these books elsewhere, make sure to obtain the same editions we will be using.

Ronald Takaki, A Larger Memory: A History of Our Diversity With Voices (Boston: Little Brown & Co. 1998)

Choose one of the following novels:

Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers, A Novel (New York: Persea Books, 1999) (revised edition)

Yoshiko Uchida, Picture Bride, A Novel (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998)

Additional articles/documents available on the website for this course. Note that some of these materials are on e-reserve, available from the CSUMB library homepage. These materials are password protected. I will distribute this password in class.

Videos (screened in class). Most of these videos are available in the CSUMB library.

Deliverables

(1) Descriptions

(A) Class Participation (10 points)
(B) Reading Review Questions (20 points)
(C) Reflection Essay for Bread Givers or Picture Bride (20 points)
(D) Mid-Term Reflection (20 points)
(E) Participation in Final Class Project and Final Reflection (30 points)

(2) General Policies

(A) Class attendance
(B) Lateness
(C) Deliverable Due Dates and Point Allocation/Final Grade
(D) Final Portfolio of Coursework
(E) Policy on Incompletes

(1) Descriptions
(A) Class Participation (10 points)
The study of history requires dialogue and the exchange of ideas. While we may not always agree with each other, learning to listen and express ourselves with respect for each others' differences will make for a productive learning experience for all of us.
You will achieve satisfactory participation (8-10 points) for this course if you regularly attempt to meet at least most of the following criteria:

• regular class attendance (missing no more than 3 class meetings)
• expressing your opinion and analysis of course readings, documents or films
  
• respectfully responding to observations of your colleagues (including the professor)
  
• asking questions or seeking clarification of another person's point of view
  
• introducing outside materials, observations or issues we have NOT raised in class
  
• participation in our in-class group activities
  
• empathic and active listening to others' points of view
  

(B) Reading Review Questions (possible 20 points)

Each week, there will be a set of review questions linked from the course outline on the website. These questions are designed to encourage you to read the course materials and give you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to comprehend and analyze those materials. You will be required to hand in 10 of the 11 question sets available during the semester. These questions are due (as a general rule) on Thursdays in class. Assuming that your responses to these questions are satisfactory (see below) your final points will be adjusted as follows for any missing questions:

• hand in 11 of 11 questions--20 points PLUS extra 5 points bonus!
  
• hand in 10 of 11 questions---20 points
  
• hand in 9 of 11 questions---15 points
  
• hand in 8 of 11 questions--10 points
  
• hand in 7 of 11 questions 5 points
  
• hand in less than 7--no points

Satisfactory completion of these questions will include:

• responding to the assigned secondary materials for that week OR
  
• drawing on the assigned primary materials for that week to formulate your own interpretation AND
  
• using examples from the course materials for that week to illustrate your general conclusions

(C) Reflection Essay in response to Bread Givers or Picture Bride (20 Points)

Write a reflection essay about EITHER Bread Givers or Picture Bride. In the essay you should specifically address some of the following themes. Please feel free, however, to develop this essay in any form you see fit as long as you address at least two of the following themes:

How gender shaped the migration experience for men and women in different ways

• Social class and immigrant identity
  
• Inter cultural conflict in the "new world"
  
• The persistence of the memory of "home," life before migration
  
• Whether fiction is a useful way to examine history

You may submit papers electronically as an attachment to an e-mail. General guidelines for your papers:

• ALL PAPERS MUST BE HANDED IN ON THE DATE DUE. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
  
• The paper should be 3-5 pages, typed and double spaced.
  
• Papers should be well organized, clearly written, professional and presentable.
  
• You should illustrate general conclusions with concrete examples from the readings.
  
• All quotes from the novel should note page numbers. Eg. (Picture Bride, p. 50) (Bread Givers, p. 50)

After I review this essay you will have an opportunity to review my comments and conduct a self assessment addressing whether and how well you have met these outcomes. You should then return the paper to me with:

• self assessment cover sheet for Novel Reflection Paper
  
• original paper with my comments
  
• rewritten paper (optional)

(D) Mid-Term Reflection (20 Points)
The mid-term reflection paper is a chance for you to consider how your understanding of U.S. histories has changed up to this point in the course. For this paper, choose one issue or topic that we have covered in the course up to this point that has challenged or changed the understanding of U.S. histories that you brought with you into the course. The paper should at minimum include:

• a description of the issue or topic you chose (eg. the slave experience)
  
• a description of how your understanding of that issue has changed (eg. had never considered the slave
• experience itself from the perspective of a slave)
  
• an example from the course materials that especially illustrates how your understanding of the issue
• has changed (eg. one of the narrartives from A Larger Memory)
  
• some indication of how this issue or topic has caused you to re-consider the history of the United States
• in general (eg. you were able to study the experiences of African-American slaves in relationships to other migration experiences, such as Irish men and women in the 19th century)

You may submit papers electronically as an attachment to an e-mail. General guidelines for your papers:

• ALL PAPERS MUST BE HANDED IN ON THE DATE DUE. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
• The paper should be 3-5 pages, typed and double spaced.
  
• Papers should be well organized, clearly written, professional and presentable.
  
• You should illustrate general conclusions with concrete examples from the readings.
  
• All examples from course readings should note the source and the page number. Eg. (A Larger Memory, p. 25)

After I review this essay you will have an opportunity to review my comments and conduct a self assessment addressing whether and how well you have met these outcomes. You should then return the paper to me with:

• self assessment cover sheet for The Mid-Term Reflection Paper
  
• original paper with my comments
  
• rewritten paper (optional)

(E) Final Course Project (30 Points)
The final project for this course will involve the class as a whole. We will define, design and display a public history project for the campus on a topic of the group's choosing. Some of the tasks that we will complete as a group will include:

identifying an issue/topic/historical question to explore
researching the substantive history of that issue
discuss choices as to how we will present our research in the form of a public history exhibit
divide the class into working groups so we can all contribute to the project in ways that take advantage of our individual interests, strengths and experiences.

Outcomes for the Final Project:

Outcome One: Analysis and comprehension of the subject matter chosen for the project

Outcome Two: Developing skills which will facilitate becoming your own historian

Outcome Three: A greater understanding of the politics of historical interpretation

Deliverables for the Final Project

• One page typed report from your Final Project working group (March 6)
  
• Evidence of your participation in your Final Project working group (ongoing)
  
• Final Reflection Paper (May 17)
  

  In this paper you should reflect on your participation in the final class project. This is a chance for you to consider how well you feel you have met the outcomes for the project and assess your participation in making the project possible. The paper should at minimum include:

  • describe your specific role in helping to bring the project to completion
    
  • a reflection on whether and how you feel you have met the stated outcomes for the project
    
  • an assessment of the experience, specifically addressing what you feel the strengths and weaknesses of this class project in terms of your learning experience.
    
    

You may submit papers electronically as an attachment to an e-mail. General guidelines for your papers:

• ALL PAPERS MUST BE HANDED IN ON THE DATE DUE. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
  
• The paper should be 3-5 pages, typed and double spaced.
  
• Papers should be well organized, clearly written, professional and presentable.
  
• You should illustrate general conclusions with concrete examples
  

(2) General Policies

(A) Class attendance

Because of the importance of class participation for the success of this course, YOUR ATTENDANCE IN CLASS IS EXPECTED ABSENT AN EMERGENCY. Significant absences from class will result in your inability to participate in class discussions and will have a detrimental effect on your final grade. If you are not in class, you cannot participate!

(B) Lateness

All deliverables are due on the days indicated on the syllabus. Absent an emergency, no late papers or other deliverables will be accepted after those due dates.

(C) Deliverable Due Dates and Point Allocation/Final Grade

Participation

Question Sets

Reflection Papers

Final Project

You can use this progress tracking sheet to help you keep track of the deliverables for the course. [Tracking sheet available at course Web site.]

Final Grading Scale

90-100 points = A
80-89 points = B
70-79 points = C **
60-69 points = D
Less than 60 = F
** Minimum required to obtain ULR credit for this course

(D) Final Portfolio of Coursework

At the end of the semester, you should submit ALL of the deliverables for the course in the form of a portfolio. This portfolio should contain:

• All returned Question Sets you completed
  
• Mid-Term Reflection Paper and Self Assessment Sheet
  
• Reflection Paper for Bread Givers or Picture Bride and Self Assessment Sheet
  
• Final Reflection Paper for Final Project
  

(E) Policy on Incompletes

Incompletes in this course will ONLY be given to students who meet the following
criteria:

• nearly all the deliverables for this course have been submitted and only one major deliverble has not
• been completed by the end of the semester
  
• the student has clearly been unable to complete this deliverable due to unforseen circumstances that make completion impossible
  
• the student has requested an incomplete and has submitted all the required paper-work required by CSUMB to me by the last week of classes for the given semester
  
• the student is likely to complete the remaining deliverable by the end of the next sequential semester (if
• the course is a fall course) or the beginning of the fall semester (if the course is a spring course).
  

Weekly Outline

Week of January 29: Course Introduction
January 30: Syllabus and Outcomes

No reading assigned

February 1: Becoming Your Own Historian

We will discuss the final class project.

Week of February 5
February 6: Framework, Themes and Issues

A Larger Memory, pp. 3-28

"Prologue" and "Part I: A Larger Memory"

February 8: Overview presentations--Histories of the 19th Century United States

A Larger Memory, pp. 47-55
Maps for Class Discussion
DUE IN CLASS: Question Set One

Week of February 12
February 13: Overview Presentation--The Creation of an American West
A Larger Memory, pp. 56-78, including:
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History: An Indian Perspective"
"The Coming of the Wasichus"
"The End of the Frontier"
"The American West: Out of Myth, Into Reality" from an exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Art
Web Document: Browse these 19th Century Images of the Western Landscape.
February 15: Discussion: Remembering The U.S./ Mexican War

All Read
"Introduction,""Native American Displacement Amid U.S. Expansion" and "A Mexican Viewpoint on the War With the United States." These essays are from a website accompanying the PBS television series The U.S./Mexican War.
AND browse at least one of the following links:

"Where is their monument?" from the Descendants of Mexican War Veterans
Álbum conmemorativo de la guerra entre México y Estados Unidos/The Mexican American War Homepage from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (in Spanish or English)
The Aztec Club of 1847

VIDEO: Selection from "The U.S./Mexican War"
We will also discuss the choice of topic for the final class project and divide the class into working groups for the remainder of the semester. It is critical that you attend class this day!
DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Two

Week of February 19
February 20: Overview Presentation: The Making of an Ante-bellum Industrial Working Class

Jacqueline Jones, "The Northern Laboring Classes at Odds with One Another, Before and During the Civil War," from A Social History of the Laboring Classes from Colonial Times to the Present (Walden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1999) (E-Reserve)
EXTRA: Examples of on-line exhibits about industrialization and working class lives in the United States

Representations of Youngstown Exhibit, created by students at Youngstown State University
The Five Points Site
Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World
The Glovers of Fulton County
Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Sweatshop exhibit)
Bridgeport Working
Women and Work in Hawai`i: Into the Marketplace

February 22: Overview Presentation: Slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction

A Larger Memory, pp. 79-83

AND choose two of these documents from A Larger Memory

"Don't Give a Nigger An Inch" (84-88)
"The Best Mistress and Master in the World" (89-95)
"Git This Nigger to the Cotton Patch" (96-101)
"After Slavery: A Personal Account of the New Bondage" (102-111)

DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Three

Week of February 26
February 27: Discussion: Remembering The Civil War in Popular Culture

Leon F. Litwack, "Telling the Story: The Historian, the Filmaker and the Civil War," from Robert Brent Toplin, ed. Ken Burns's Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) (E-Reserve)
VIDEO: Selections from:

D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation,"
Ken Burns' "The Civil War"
Edward Zwick's "Glory"

DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Four

EXTRA!! There are numerous sources on the web relating to the U.S. Civil War. A comprehensive site with hundreds of links to other sites can be found at the American Civil War Homepage.
Here are some examples of documents, personal narratives or first person memories of the war.
Soldiers:

Newton Robert Scott, Private, Company A, of the 36th Infantry, Iowa Volunteers. Review several letters which are accessible from a Table of Contents by date.
Letters from Samuel S. Dunton to his family while in the 114th New York Infantry. Review several letters which are indexed on this main page.
Letters of Pvt. Giberson, 14th New Jersey Volunteers.
The Letters of Edmond Hardy Jones, Private, 64th Georgia
Civil War Letters of a Jewish Soldier from The American Civil War, 1861-1865, World Wide Web Information Archive
Melvin Dwinnell, Lieutenant, later Captain, Company A, Rome Light Guards, 8th Georgia Infantry

Euro-American Women (Union and Confederate)

Civil War Women, On-line Archival Collections, Special Collections Library, Duke University, especially the Alice Williamson Diary kept by a school girl in Tennessee which chronicles the arrival of Union troops.
Diary of Rachel Cormany, Chambersburg, Virginia (1863) from the Valley of the Shadow Project
Diary of Carrie Berry, Selections, 10 years old, Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 1, 1864 - Jan. 4, 1865
Civil War Reminiscences, Catharine Hunsecker, Franklin County, Pennsylvania from the Valley of the Shadow Project

Slave Narratives

Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson Slave Letters, 1837-1838, from the Campbell Family Papers, Special Collections Library at Duke University
Hariet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the life of a slave girl (1861), The Digital Schomburg, collections of the African Diaspora and Africa, The New York Public Library
The Underground Railroad Site, University of California, Davis: Especially review the personal narratives of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Anna Maria Weems, as well as the Music of the Underground Railroad
Prologue, from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, from the University of Southern California, Department of Ethnic Studies
Solomon Northrup, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REST" from Excerpts from Slave Narratives, Edited by Steven Mintz, University of Houston

Remembering the War in Popular Culture--Select Sites

Defending American Heritage, Preserving Confederate Memory
Civil War Photographs from the Library of Congress
The Civil War.Com
Civil War Book News
Bob Koch's Civil War Website
March 1: Class Project Working Group Meetings

There will be NO CLASS MEETING. You should use this time to meet with your project working group to continue work on the final project.

Week of March 5
March 6: Overview Presentation: The 19th Century Migration Experience--The Irish Example

A Larger Memory, pp. 112-116
Web Document: "The Tide of Emigration to the United States and to the British Colonies" (Illustrated London News, 1850) from the Irish Famine Homepage
Web Document: "Scenes of Misery," (The Cork Examiner, January 10, 1847) from the Irish Famine Homepage
Web Document: "Images of the Famine" especially "The Day after the Ejectment," an "Irish Coffin Ship," and "A family evicted by their landlords" from the Irish Famine Homepage
DUE IN CLASS: One page typed report from EACH final project working group

In this report the group should:
describe ideas that the groups has come up with regarding their role in the final project
identify specific tasks that the group will try to complete by March 15

March 8: Overview Presentation: The 19th Century Migration Experience--The Chinese Example

A Larger Memory, pp. 129-132

AND these documents from A Larger Memory

"How Can I Call This My Home?" (133-138)
"Like Country Pretty Much" (139-144)

Valerie Natale, "Angel Island: 'Guardian of the Western Gate'" from the National Archives and Records Administration
Web Document: Angel Island Poetry, composed by Chinese migrants to California in 19th-20th centuries on the walls of detention centers--browse the sample poetry included on this website.
VIDEO: Selection from "Chinese Gold: The Chinese of the Monterey Bay"
EXTRA!! Images of the Chinese in Harper's Weekly

"Hard to Please the `White Trash.'" April, 1878
"The Vintage in California--At Work at the Wine-Presses" October, 1878
"The Poor Barbarians Can't Understand Our Civilized Republican Form of Government," September, 1879
"See here, me Chinee Haythun, I'm wan of the Committee of National Safety.....Ye must go!" March, 1880
"Let the Chinese Embrace Civilization and They May Stay," n.d. (c. 1880)
"Scene of a Chinese Opium Palace, San Francisco," April, 1880
"Every Dog (No Distinction of Color) Has His Day," April, 1879
"The Comet of Chinese Labor" (referring to the importation of Chinese workers from the west coast to break a strike at a factory in Massachusetts), 1870

For more information on the Angel Island, see:

Angel Island Poetry, especially the Angel Island Photo Gallery from A Multimedia Companion to the Anthology of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2000) Edited by Cary Nelson
Life on Angel Island from the Angel Island Website

DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Five

Week of March 12
March 13: Discussion: Becoming "--American" in the 19th Century--Irish and Chinese Second Generations

Philip Kasinitz, "A Third Way To America," from Culturefront Online, Summer 1999
AND the following documents:

A Larger Memory, "A Chance to Take Care of Myself" (145-151)
Alethea Callahan, "No Irish Need Apply": A Critical Perspective of the Irish in America

EXTRA!! Here are some examples of on-line resources relating to the history of Irish and Chinese immigration.

Building the Gold Mountain: Philadelphia's Chinatown from the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia
Gloria Ricci Lothrop, "The Irish in Los Angeles" from the Historical Society of Southern California
The Irish Heritage Museum, East Durham, NY

March 15: Mid-Term Class Reflection and Group Project Reports

DUE IN CLASS: Mid-Term Reflection Paper

Week of March 19: Spring Break
No classes!

Week of March 26
March 27: Overview Presentation: Major Themes in 20th Century U.S. Histories

A Larger Memory, pp. 155-160

March 29: Discussion: Hawai'i--State or Independent Nation?

Web Document: Political cartoons of Uncle Sam's role in the world, by Jim Zwick especially Uncle Sam -- "Guess I'll keep 'em!" (1898), The White (?) Man's Burden (1899) and "Before and After Taking." (1898) from the web site, Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935, maintained by Jim Zwick
Web Document: Committee on Indian Affairs, Selection from "To Express the Policy of the United States With Regard to the United States' Relationship With Native Hawaiians and for Other Purposes," Report submitted to the U.S. Senate, 106th Congress, September 2000 (Browse, paying special attention to how the committee describes the history of the relationship between native Hawai'ians and the U.S. government).
Web Document: U.S. apology to Native Hawai'ians (1993) and "We Need Your Kokua (Help)" from the Hawai'ian Independence Homepage
Web Document: Hawai'i United for Liberation and Independence (HULI)
VIDEO: Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawai'ian Nation
DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Six

Week of April 3
April 3: Overview Presentation: 20th Century Migrations to and Within the United States
"The 'Great Migration' of African Americans From the Rural South to the Urban North" from History Net's 1998 National History Day website.
April 5: Discussion: Women and Migration--Japanese and Jewish Women Compared

For those who choose Bread Givers:

A Larger Memory, pp. 161-164,

AND, choose ONE of the following documents from A Larger Memory:

"A Sweatshop Girl" (165-173)
"Dear Editor--Letters from Jewish America" (174-187)

Links of interest regarding Jewish immigration to the United States

How the Other Half Lives
Tenement Museum, New York City
Creating American Jews: An Online Exhibit

For those who choose Picture Bride:

To help you prepare to discuss this novel, consult the Glencoe Literature website which contains a useful study guide (in PDF format).
For more detailed background to Japanese "picture brides," and the Issei (or first generation) migrants to the United States, see "The Early Issei" from the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies exhibit on the Japanese American Experience.
Web Document: Images of Japanese American life before World War II. Japanese Town (Nihonjin-Machi), San Francisco, California; and the Nonaka Family Collection, Japanese Town, (Nihonjin-Nachi), San Francisco California from the Japanese Town Archives, the Fillmore Museum

DUE IN CLASS: Reflection Paper for Bread Givers or Picture Bride


Week of April 9
April 10: Overview Presentation: Major Themes in 20th Century Chicano History

Choose:
Rudolpho Anaya, "At a Crossroads," from The Anaya Reader (New York: Warner Books, 1995) (E-Reserve)
"A History of Mexican Americans in California: Revolution to Depression, 1900-1940" from the National Park Service Online
AND

Choose one of the following documents from A Larger Memory:

"Searching for a Door to America" (242-247)
"A Song of El Norte" (248-262)
VIDEO: Selection from "100 Years of Chicano History"

April 12: Discussion: The Relevance of Histor(ies)--Land Struggles in the American Southwest

Elizabeth Martínez, "Whose Chicano History Did Your Learn?" from De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multicolored Century (Cambridge: South End Press, 1998) (E-Reserve)
VIDEO: Selections from "The Border"
DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Seven

Week of April 16
April 17: Project Group Meetings!

IN CLASS, we will meet in our project sub-groups to work on the class project.

April 19: Open Forum: Creating an Action Plan for Completing Class Project

DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Eight

Week of April 23
April 24: Overview: From Depression to War--The 1930's and 1940's as Watershed

A Larger Memory, pp. 211-221
Web Document: Browse the Migrant Experience web site from the Library of Congress.

April 26: Discussion: Japanese-American Internment--The View from Within

A Larger Memory, pp. 188-189 also including

"A Birthright Denied: Monica Sone" (190-201)
"A Birthright Renounced: Joseph Kurihara" (202-210)
Web Document: Photographs from the War Relocation Authority on Japanese Americans returning to the Monterey Peninsula.
VIDEO: "Something Strong Within: Home Movies from America's Concentration Camps"(produced by the Japanese American National Museum, 1994)
EXTRA!! You can visit a number of sites which illustrate the Japanese American experience in the camps. Here are some suggestions: On the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, formed to fight against the internment camps in the 1940's, see the website accompanying the documentary Conscience and the Constitution: A Story of Japanese America which deals with the controversial role of resistance to the internment experience within Japanese American communities.
Other sites include the Rabbit in the Moon site which is also a companion to an important new video about the internment experience, especially its treatment on how "No-No Boys," Japanese American men who refused to be drafted into the U.S. military during the war.
The experience of "No-No Boys" was the subject of the controversial novel, No No Boy, written in the 1950's by John Okada. The book is now considered a classic Japanese American novel. See quotes from the book here and one persons commentary on Okada.
See also a site from the University of Washington which looks at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as "Camp Harmony."
Japanese-Americans Internment Camps During World War II, from the Special Collections Department, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah
Photographs from the War Relocation Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942-1946 from the library at the University of Arizona
DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Nine

Week of April 30
May 1: In-class discussion about the final format of the Final Project
May 3: Discussion: The "Other" 1950's--Gay and Lesbian Histories and the Reclaiming of Memory

Choose one:
Lillian Faderman, "Butches, Femmes and Kikis: Creating Lesbian Subcultures in the 1950's and '60's" from Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America (New York: Penguin Press, 1991) (E-Reserve)
John Howard, "Place and Movement in Gay American History: A Case from the Post-World War II South," from Brett Beemyn, Ed. Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories (New York: Routledge, 1997) (E-Reserve)
James T. Sears, "Growing up as a Jewish Lesbian in South Florida: Queer Teen Life in the Fifties," from Cultured Youth (New York: NYU Press, 1997)
VIDEO: Selections from "Before Stonewall"
DUE IN CLASS: Question Set Ten

EXTRA!! Lesbian, Gay. Bisexual and Transgender community histories have become more and more prevalent in the United States since the 1980's. Here are some examples of such projects from the web:
The Lesbian History Project
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society of Northern California
History of the Rainbow Flag
Artifacts and Disclosures: Michigan's LGBT Heritage
History of the Gay & Lesbian Community in Denver Colorado
The Lesbian Herstory Archives

Week of May 7
May 8: Final Project Installation/Set Up!!

May 10: Project!!

Week of May 14
May 15: Overview: Social Movements of the Late 20th Century
Choose one of the following document sets:
The Chicano Movement

Roberto Rodriguez, "The Origins and History of the Chicano Movement," (April 1996) from the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University
"A History of Mexican Americans in California: The Chicano Movement" from the National Park Service Online

The African American Civil Rights Movement

"The Civil Rights Era," selection from the African American Odyssey on-line exhibit, the Library of Congress
Web Document: The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., "Loving Your Enemies" (1957) and "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (1968) from the Martin Luther King Papers Project at Stanford University. Note you can hear excerpts from these and other sermons and speeches from King on the multimedia page.
Web Document: Malcolm X, excerpts from "It's The Ballot Or The Bullet," speech delivered April 3, 1964 at the Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio. Reprinted at the World History Archives

Women's Liberation Movement

Women's Liberation: Origins and Development of the Movement from Women's History Shaping San Francisco
Web Document: Gloria Steinem, 'Women's Liberation' Aims to Free Men, Too" in The Washington Post, June 7, 1970 reprinted on the Women's Liberation On-line Archives
Web Document: Rep. Shirley Chisholm, "Equal Rights for Women," presented in the U.S. House of Representatives, May 21, 1969, reprinted on the Women's Liberation On-line Archives
May 17: Final Course Reflection
DUE IN CLASS: Final Reflection Paper Due in Class

That's All Folks!