Workshop Assignment #4: Inferencing, Multiple Perspectives, & Limits to Knowledge

For Workshop on the Civil Rights Movement:

1. Read the documents on the Civil Rights Movement from Shi & Mayer chapters 33–34. (Note: not all these documents are relevant to the CRM. You’ll need to decide which ones are and which ones are not.)

2. Generate a historical question the documents could be useful for answering.

3. Note one connection you think others might be likely to miss.

4. Following the example below, design the outline of a perfect argument based on the documents.

Evidence:

A. The suburbs were all about filling empty houses (and empty lives?) with consumer goods. [quotes from film, data from Levitown document]
B. Even religion was "consumerized." [quotes from G. Winter, R. Niebuhr]
C. Economic data from editors' intro and the film

Warrants:

A. Since suburbanization invovled so many, we can safely assume that their experiences with consumer goods defined the postwar era.
B. If even religion was reduced to "being happy," then consumerism really did triumph!
C. The data shows that consumerism involved the majority of Americans.

Objection: Consumerism only affected white Americans. Blacks were left out.

Rebuttal: Not so! Look at the great sites of Civil Rights activity: lunch counters, dept. stores, swimming pools, bowling alleys. And look at how the early activists were dressed: middle-class black Americans fought to get into the consumerized version of the American Dream.

Your question, connection, and perfect argument written down on a sheet of paper will be your ticket to class for the Workshop.