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

Mon., Oct. 26 New Frontiers, New Markets

Wed., Oct. 28 Discussion: Gender Roles in the Early Republic

• Required Reading:
  • Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale, 3-161, 204-261
  • Boyer, Enduring Vision, ch. 9
• Questions: How would you characterize Martha Ballard's relationships with her husband, her children, and other members of her community? Was the society she lived in patriarchal? egalitarian? How much freedom did women enjoy in the early republic?
  

Fri., Oct. 30 The Battles of Jacksonian Democracy

Evening: (video)

From A Midwife's Tale (video)
Source: Blueberry Hill Productions

Andrew Jackson's Inaugural Celebration

Robert Cruikshank, President's Levee, or all Creation going to the White House (London : Saunders and Otley, 1841)
Source: Library of Congress

Mon., Nov. 2 The Second Great Awakening and Social Reform

Lyman Beecher
Source: Matthew Brady Gallery

Charles Grandison Finney
Source: Oberlin College Archives

Wed., Nov. 4 Discussion: Early Oberlin

• Required Reading:

  NOTE: Some of these files are in "pdf" format. To read them, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available on the computers in public labs and can be downloaded for free from http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html.
  FURTHER NOTE: What was posted as "excerpt 3" under Mahan is now posted as "excerpt B" under Finney. Sorry for the confusion. --GJK 11/2/98

  • Covenant of the Oberlin Colony, 1833 (on WWW)
  • Prospectus for the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, 1833 (on WWW)
  • First Annual Report of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, 1834 (on WWW and on reserve)
  • John Jay Shipherd's Pastoral Letter, Jan. 27, 1835 (on WWW)
  • Asa Mahan, Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection (Boston, 1839), (excerpt 1, excerpt 2 on WWW and on reserve)
  • Charles Grandison Finney, Skeletons of a Course of Theological Lectures (Oberlin, 1840), (excerpt A, excerpt B on WWW and on reserve)
  • Boyer, Enduring Vision, ch. 10
• Questions: What was Oberlin's original mission? Why did the founders decide to admit women and blacks to the collegiate institute? What was the historical significance of early Oberlin's Christian perfectionism? How do you think early Oberlinians would react to today's college and community?

Old Slater Mill, Pawucket, R.I.
Source: The Mill Project

Boott Cotton Mills, Lowell, Mass.
Source: Lowell National Historic Park

Fri., Nov. 6 Launching the Industrial Revolution

Distribution of Second Paper Assignment

Mon., Nov. 9 The South: A Separate Civilization?

Source: Special Collections Library, Duke University

John Greenleaf Whittier, "Our Countrymen in Chains" (New York: Anti-Slavery Office, 1837)
Source: Library of Congress

Wed., Nov. 11 Discussion: The Slave Experience

• Required Reading:
  
  • Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, entire
    
  • Boyer, Enduring Vision, ch. 11-12
• Questions: Nineteenth-century American slavery has been interpreted as a "total institution" that robbed slaves of their self-esteem and made resistance virtually impossible. On the basis of Douglass's account, do you agree or disagree with this interpretation?

Frederick Douglass
Source: Frederick Douglass Papers

Fri., Nov. 13 Radical Impulses: Abolitionism and Feminism