American History to 1877:
Major Problems of Interpretation

This course provides an introduction to the study of American history from the eve of European colonization through the close of Reconstruction. Rather than try to address all the significant historical developments that took place across four centuries, we focus on key topics which hold special interest for scholars and which figure centrally in debates over the meaning of the American experience today. By sacrificing"coverage" for in-depth analysis, we are able to pay particular attention to how historians do history and construct interpretations from various kinds of evidence. We also consider why historians sometimes disagree about how to read and evaluate the existing sources. Historical interpretation is "contested terrain." Yet it is not simply a matter of opinion where all points of view are equally valid. Historical interpretation involves creative investigation, careful documentation, critical thinking, and logical analysis. Over the course of the semester, students will be expected to develop and to explain their own interpretations regarding a host of major issues in the study of American history to 1877.

Format: Most weeks there will be lectures on Mondays and Fridays and discussions on Wednesdays. The discussions will focus on the assigned readings, which should be done on time. In preparation for class discussions, students will be required to post responses to study questions on Blackboard by 8 a.m. the day of the discussion. Note also that attendance at discussion sessions is required and that student participation is expected.

Evaluation: Students will be evaluated on the basis of three 3-4 page papers (25% each) and class participation, including contributions to Blackboard (25%). The instructor reserves the right to exercise some discretion in assigning final grades.

Honor Code: All student work is governed by the Oberlin College Honor Code. If you have a question about how the Code applies to a particular assignment, you should raise that question with the professor in advance of the due date.

Purchases: The following materials are available at the Oberlin Bookstore and should be purchased.

• Alan Taylor, American Colonies
• Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, ed. Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz
• James D. Drake, King Philip's War
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense, ed. Edward Larkin
• Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution
• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, ed. John W. Blassingame et al.

Schedule of classes and assignments:

Wed., Sept. 7

North America before European Invasion

Mon., Sept. 12

Emergence of the Atlantic World

Fri., Sept. 16

Discussion: First Impressions

• Taylor, American Colonies, ix-xvii, 23-49
• Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, 1-176

John Smith's Map of Virginia

Mon., Sept. 19

Discussion: Collision of Cultures at Jamestown

• Taylor, American Colonies, 117-37
• Martin H. Quitt , "Trade and Acculturation at Jamestown, 1607-1609: The Limits of Understanding," William and Mary Quarterly 3rd. Ser., 52 (April 1995): 227-58 [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]
• Frederic W. Gleach, "Controlled Speculation and Constructed Myths: The Saga of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith," in Jennifer S. H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert, eds., Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History, 2nd ed. (Peterborough, Ontario, 2003), 39-74 [on ERes]

Early New England

Metacom (King Philip)
Library of Congress engraving

Mon., Sept. 26

Colonies in Crisis: Bacon's Rebellion and King Philip's War

Wed., Sept. 28

Discussion: Interpreting King Philip's War

• Taylor, American Colonies,187-203
• Drake, King Philip's War, 1-167

Fri., Sept. 30

Constructing the First British Empire

Discussion: Slavery, Racism, and the Problem of Causation

• Carl Degler, "Slavery and the Genesis of American Race Prejudice," Comparative Studies in Society and History 2 (Oct.1959): 49-66 [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]
• Edmund S. Morgan , "Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox," Journal of American History 59 (June 1972): 5-29 [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]
• Taylor, American Colonies, 139-57, 204-44

Great Awakening and Global War

Imperial Reform and American Resistance
First paper due

 Discussion: Logic of American Rebellion

• Taylor, American Colonies, 301-337, 420-443
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776) and James Chalmers, Plain Truth (1776) in Paine, Common Sense, ed. Larkin, 41-98 and 158-170. These pamphlets are also online:
  • Common Sense
  • Plain Truth
• Declaration of Independence [on WWW]

How Radical Was the American Revolution?

Designing a Federal Republic

Discussion: The Debate over the Federal Constitution

• [James Madison], Federalist No. 10 (1787) [on WWW]
• Speech by Melancton Smith, New York State Ratifying Convention, June 21-22, 1788 [on WWW]

Partisan Conflict in the 1790s

Illustration in Robert H. Thurston, A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine (1878)
Source: Steam Engine Library

Contours of Economic and Geographic Growth, 1790-1850

Discussion: Social Dynamics in the Early Republic

• Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution, 1-160, 239-66

From Jeffersonian Republicanism to Jacksonian Democracy

Second Great Awakening and Social Reform

Discussion: Gender Ideology and the Significance of "Woman's Sphere"

• Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860," American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966):151-74 [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]
• Nancy F. Cott, "Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 1790-1850," Signs 4 (Winter 1978): 219-36 [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]
• Amy Kaplan, "Manifest Domesticity," American Literature 70 (Sept. 1998): 581-606 [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]

Beginnings of the American Industrial Revolution

The "Old South" in Black and White

Discussion: Interpreting the Slave Experience

• Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, ed. Blassingame et al., vii-xli, 1-86 [Note: You are also encouraged to refer to "Historical Annotations," 87-122, for help with the text.]

Radical Impulses: Immediate Abolitionism and Early Feminism

Discussion: The Perfectionist Vision of Early Oberlin

• Documents from Early Oberlin
  • Covenant of the Oberlin Colony [on WWW]
  • Prospectus for the Oberlin Collegiate Institute [on WWW]
  • Constitution of the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society [on WWW]

No class

Political Crisis of the 1850s

Discussion: Comparing the North and the South

• Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery, 2nd ed. (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press,1989), 13-39 [on ERes]
• Edward Pessen, "How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South?" American Historical Review 85 (Dec. 1980): 1119-49. [in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer]
• William G. Thomas III and Edward L. Ayers, "The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities," American Historical Review 108 (Dec. 2003) [on WWW]

A House Dividing

Civil War and Emancipation

Discussion: An Irrepressible Conflict?

• J.G. Randall, "The Blundering Generation," in Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27 (June 1940): 3-28.
• Foner, "Politics, Ideology, and the Origins of the American Civil War," in Foner, Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War, pp. 34-53 [on ERes]
• Gary J. Kornblith, "Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise," Journal of American History 90 (June 2003): 76-105 [in the History Cooperative, accessible from a campus computer]

Reconstruction

Retreat from Reconstruction

Discussion: The Meaning of the Civil War

• Abraham Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address" (1863)
• Abraham Lincoln, "Second Inaugural Address" (1865)