HIST4000

SOCIAL HISTORY OF ANTEBELLUM AMERICA

Spring Semester 1999

LeConte Hall Room 321, TuTh 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Michael Gagnon

PHONE NUMBER	OFFICE LOCATION	OFFICE HOURS	EMAIL ADDRESS

(706) 542-2024	330 LeConte Hall	Tuesdays 3:30-4:30	mgagnon@arches.uga.edu

Course Requirements

Required Texts

Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress 1817-1862
Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers: America's Pre-Civil War Reformers
Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790- 1840

Readings

All articles listed as JSTOR readings, can be found by clicking on the button located next to the article name or by doing a search via the JSTOR logo button in the reference section of this syllabus. You should always print JSTOR readings and bring them to class. Other readings can be found in the required texts or in reserved reading at UGA Library. You should also photocopy reserved readings and bring them to class.

Tests: There will be NO tests in this class.

Writing:

1. Each student will write two 5-page reviews of books. Click here to see the list of suggestions, with their scheduled due dates. Click here to see which books your classmates have already picked out to review. This is not a book report, but a review. For a journal with good examples, click here. You can also find examples of history book reviews in JSTOR. Each written review will count 10% toward the final grade.

2. Each student will also complete a 10-15 page research assignment in which s/he will place at least three related antebellum newspaper articles (from Athens) in historical context. A database of newspaper articles will be provided by the instructor. Please bring a dos-formatted disk to class to receive a copy of this windows-based database. However, students may ask for access to other topics after consulting with the instructor. Click here for a version of the Turabian manual of style for citations in the footnotes and the bibliography. Use the general citation framework, although the specifics of this site are aimed at electronic sources. A fuller description of Turabian style footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographies can be found on a handout in the library, located on a shelf directly opposite from the reference desk. If you still are in doubt about how to do notes and bibliographies, purchase a copy of Turabian's Manual for Writers of Term Papers at the bookstore. The research assignment will count 35% of the final course grade.

3. Each student must also prepare a version of the research assignment in html for permanent publication on the Athens/Clarke County Regional Library web site, as part of the county's bicentennial celebration. I encourage your best efforts, since the result will be available on the web for all to see for some time to come. Web publication will count 5% of your grade. To see a tutorial of how to insert html codes into your papers, click here.

4. A quick note about plagiarism. Plagiarism is the quoting or the paraphrasing of any portion of another author's words or ideas without giving full credit to the original author. In short, it is theft of intellectual property. It violates UGA's honor code, and will be dealt with SEVERELY.

5. Paper Deadlines: As in a job, deadlines cannot be ignored without serious consequences. Missing one will negatively affect my assessment of your job performance. All deadlines are for the start of class period, and I expect you to hand deliver it to me, in class.

January 28	Topic Selection due
February 25	Preliminary Bibliography due
March 25	Outline of Paper/Summary of Themes due
April 15	Final Draft of Paper due
April 29	Web version of Paper due

Student web pages are now available. Click Here to access them.

Presentations:

1. Since each week will have 6 to 8 book reviews due, those reviewers will act as a team to plan and implement the pedagogy (the teaching) of the class for the week in which his or her book review is due, in order to share the information from the book with the rest of the class.

2. Each team will meet independently of class to plan the techniques of introducing their information and incorporating a discussion of the readings required of all students of the class. The plan must seek to involve the rest of the class as active participants, so that I can evaluate the preparedness of each student. I encourage creativity in making your lesson plans, but I also require that each team meet with me a week prior to their week to explain their plan and each team members' role in implementing the plan. I reserve the right to veto a plan at our meeting prior to the day of your presentation, but I don't anticipate doing so. Examples of different interactive pedagogical approaches might include (but would not be limited to): a game show, a debate, a trial, a panel discussion, role playing, etc. Each team sets the parameters. Be creative. We may wind up video taping the student directed classes.

3. Each presentation counts 15% of the final grade. The final 15 minutes of each week will be taken up with an evaluation of the content and competency of that week's teaching by the students who received the instruction. I will consider these evaluations when assigning presentation grades.

Participation:

Active participation in class discussions will count 10% of your final grade. Student presenters will evaluate the participation of their classmates by ranking them according to their interaction with the pedagogical plan. The instructor will use these evaluations, in conjunction with his own evaluations, in determining each student's final participation grade. To see current student evaluations both by presenters and by student participants, click here

Attendance:

1. Since part of your grade is based on your participation, attendance is required. I will check role daily. Three unexcused absences will result in an instructor initiated withdrawal from the class with a failing grade. Failure to prepare for class is equivalent to failing to attend. If it is apparent that you are not prepared for class, I will dismiss you from class, and count the dismissal as an unexcused absence. I will be the sole judge of who is prepared.

2. An unexcused absence of a team member during the week of their presentation will result in instructor initiated withdrawal of the student with a failing grade. Lack of preparation will equal an unexcused absence.

Research References

I expect you to use these references for your research.

	America: History and Life Only accessible fromcomputers on campus	GALIN UGA's archaic Electronic Catalog
Library of Congress	Georgia Departmentof Archives and History

Schedule of Classes & Readings

January 7
Course Introduction

January 12
The Concept of Social History
Sheriff, pp. vii-8 & 172-177; Larkin, pp. xi-xvii & 303; Mintz, pp. ix-xxii & 154-156.

January 14
Required Library Tour
Sheriff, pp. 223-241; Larkin, pp. 305-330; Mintz, pp. 157-171.

Week 1: Political Economy of Rural America
January 19
Larkin, pp. 1-15; Sheriff, pp. 9-26.

	James A. Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalite in Pre-Industrial America," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., Vol. 35, No. 1. (Jan., 1978), pp. 3-32.

OnReserve	Amy Dru Stanley, "Home Life and the Morality of the Market," pp. 74-96 (Chapter 3), in Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway (editors), The Market Revolution in America.

January 21
Larkin, pp. 15-39.

	David F. Weiman, "Farmers and the Market in Antebellum America: A View from the Georgia Upcountry," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 47, No. 3. (Sep., 1987), pp. 627-647.

	David Jaffee, "Peddlers of Progress and the Transformation of the Rural North, 1760-1860," The Journal of American History, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Sep., 1991), pp. 511-535.

Week 2: The Transportation Revolution
January 26
Sheriff, pp. 27-78.

January 28

Topic Selection Due

Sheriff pp. 110-137; Larkin 204-231.

Week 3: Industrialization
February 2
Sheriff, pp. 27-78.

OnReserve	Walter Licht, "Paths: The Unevenness of Early Industrial Development," pp. 21-45 (Chapter 2), Industrializing America.

OnReserve	Anthony F. C. Wallace, "The Machines, Their Operatives, and the Fabrics," pp. 124-147, 164-170, & 177-183 (parts of Chapter 4), Rockdale.

February 4
Larkin, pp. 54-61.

Claudia Goldin, & Kenneth Sokoloff, "Women, Children, and Industrialization in the Early Republic: Evidence from the Manufacturing Censuses," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 42, No. 4. (Dec., 1982), pp. 741-774.

Week 4: Mobility, Immigration & Urbanization
February 9
Sheriff, pp. 27-78.

OnReserve	Peter Knights and Stephan Thernstrom, "Men in Motion: Some Data and Speculations about Urban Population Mobility in the Nineteenth Century." In Tamara K. Hareven, Anonymous Americans: Explorations in Nineteenth-Century Social History, pp. 17-47.

ClassHandout	I substituted an article from Social Science History for the Forrest McDonald and Ellen Shapiro McDonald JSTOR article previously assigned.

February 11

	Thomas Dublin, "Rural-Urban Migrants in Industrial New England: The Case of Lynn, Massachusetts, in the Mid-Nineteenth Century," The Journal of American History, Vol. 73, No. 3. (Dec., 1986), pp. 623-644.

	Ira Berlin, and Herbert G. Gutman," Natives and Immigrants, Free Men and Slaves: Urban Workingmen in the Antebellum American South," The American Historical Review, Vol. 88, No. 5. (Dec., 1983), pp. 1175-1200.

Week 5: Labor & Work
February 16
Larkin, pp. 32-54.

OnReserve	Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work For Mother, Chapter 3, "The Invention of Housework: The Early Stages of Industrialization," pp. 40-68.

	Lee A. Craig, "The Value of Household Labor in Antebellum Northern Agriculture," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 51, No. 1. (Mar., 1991), pp. 67-81.

February 18

	Gavin Wright, "Cheap Labor and Southern Textiles before 1880," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 39, No. 3 (1979), pp. 655-680.

	Herbert G. Gutman, "Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919" The American Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 3. (Jun., 1973), pp. 531-588.

Week 6: Class Formation
February 23
Larkin, pp. 105-48; Sheriff, pp. 79-109.

Edward Pessen, "Social Mobility in American History: Some Brief Reflections," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 45, No. 2. (May, 1979), pp. 165-184.

February 24

Optional Research Field Trip to State Archives

You need to contact me in advance if you plan to go. This field trip is actually for another class of mine, but If you want to go, I will include you in our transportation plans. If I've made space for your and then you fail to show up, I will be very unhappy. So don't say you plan to attend unless you are really serious about it. See the Georgia Department of Archives and History's homepage, before you go, so you can do some advance research, and plan your research trip wisely.

February 25

Preliminary Bibliography Due

Larkin, pp. 149-182; Mintz, pp. 3-15.

Stuart M. Blumin, "The Hypothesis of Middle-Class Formation in Nineteenth-Century America: A Critique and Some Proposals," The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 2. (Apr., 1985), pp. 299-338.

Week 7: Religion
March 2
Sheriff, pp. 138-171; Mintz, pp. 16-38

March 4
Larkin, pp. 251-257 & 275-281.

Daniel Walker Howe, "The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture in the North During the Second Party System," The Journal of American History, Vol. 77, No. 4. (Mar., 1991), pp. 1216-1239.

Week 8: SPRING BREAK

Week 9: Popular Culture
March 16
Larkin pp. 232-251.

	Lawrence W. Levine, "William Shakespeare and the American People: A Study in Cultural Transformation," The American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 1. (Feb., 1984), pp. 34-66.

	Peter McCandless, "Mesmerism and Phrenology in Antebellum Charleston: 'Enough of the Marvellous,'" The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 58, No. 2. (May, 1992), pp. 199-230.

March 16
Larkin 258-275 & 281-294.

Elliott J. Gorn, "'Good-Bye Boys, I Die a True American': Homicide, Nativism, and Working-Class Culture in Antebellum New York City," The Journal of American History, Vol. 74, No. 2. (Sep., 1987), pp. 388-410.

Week 10: The South, Slavery, and Abolition
March 23

	Joyce E. Chaplin, "Creating a Cotton South in Georgia and South Carolina, 1760-1815," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 57, No. 2. (May, 1991), pp. 171-200.

OnReserve	Peter Kolchin, "Antebellum Slavery: Slave Life," pp. 133-168 (Chapter 5), American Slavery, 1619-1877.

March 25

Paper Outline/Theme Summary due

Mintz, pp. 117-142.

Elliott J. Gorn, "'Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch': The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry.," The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 1, Supplement to Volume 90. (Feb., 1985), pp. 18-43.

Week 11: Women
March 30
Mintz, pp. 142-146

Ellen Carol DuBois, "Outgrowing the Compact of the Fathers: Equal Rights, Woman Suffrage, and the United States Constitution, 1820-1878" (in "PART II: Rights Consciousness in American History"), The Journal of American History, Vol. 74, No. 3, The Constitution and American Life: A Special Issue. (Dec., 1987), pp. 836-862.

April 1

Stephanie McCurry, "The Two Faces of Republicanism: Gender and Proslavery Politics in Antebellum South Carolina," The Journal of American History, Vol. 78, No. 4. (Mar., 1992), pp. 1245-1264.

Week 12: Family
April 6
Larkin, pp. 62-104

Tamara K. Hareven, "The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change," The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 1. (Feb., 1991), pp. 95-124.

April 8
Larkin, pp. 182-203

	Sally McMillen, "Mothers' Sacred Duty: Breast-feeding Patterns among Middle- and Upper-Class Women in the Antebellum South," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 51, No. 3. (Aug., 1985), pp. 333-356.

	Jo Ann Manfra, and Robert R. Dykstra, "Serial Marriage and the Origins of the Black Stepfamily: The Rowanty Evidence" The Journal of American History, Vol. 72, No. 1. (Jun., 1985), pp. 18-44.

Week 13: Utopian Experiments
April 13
Mintz, pp. 38-49

OnReserve	Carl J. Guarneri, "Reconstructing the Antebellum Communitarian Movement: Oneida and Fourierism,"Journal of the Early Republic Vol. 16, No. 3 (1996), pp. 463-488.

OnReserve	Carl J. Guarneri, "Two Utopian Socialist Plans for Emancipation in Antebellum Louisiana," Louisiana History,Vol. 24, No. 1 (1983), pp. 5-24.

April 15

Research Papers Due

Mintz, pp. 50-78, 146-153.

Week 14: Deviancy and Asylum
April 20
Mintz, pp. 79-94.

Thomas L. Haskell, "Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1," The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 2. (Apr., 1985), pp. 339-361.

April 22
Mintz, pp. 94-106.

Thomas L. Haskell, "Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 2," The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 3. (Jun., 1985), pp. 547-566.

Week 15: Educational and Governmental Reforms
April 27
Mintz, pp. 106-116; Larkin, pp. 295-303.

April 29

Web Pages Due

Ruth M. Alexander, "'We Are Engaged as a Band of Sisters': Class and Domesticity in the Washingtonian Temperance Movement, 1840-1850," The Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Dec., 1988), pp. 763-785.

Student web pages are now available. Click Here to access them.
Return to Gagnon Home Page
Go to Department of History Home Page
Go to University of Georgia Home Page

Last Updated: May 4, 1999
© Michael Gagnon