History 323 Syllabus

OBERLIN COLLEGE

Gary Kornblith	History 323
gary.kornblith@oberlin.edu	Spring 2006
Rice 306; x58526	Office hours: Tues., 3:00-4:30 p.m.

Liberty and Power, Democracy and Slavery in
Jacksonian America

Note: The official, up-to-date version of the course syllabus is maintained online at http://www.oberlin.edu/history/GJK/H323S06. This course explores the cultural dynamics, social relations, and political structures that shaped the lives of ordinary Americans -- black and white, male and female, rich and poor, urban and rural, native born and immigrant, Indian and other -- between approximately 1820 and 1850. Emphasis will be placed on current scholarly debates and different approaches to historical analysis. Student participation in class discussions (both online and face-to-face) is essential to the success of the course.
Format: The class meets regularly on Tuesdays from 1:00 to 2:50 p.m. Class attendance is mandatory. Active participation in class discussions is expected, and students are also required to post a question or comment on Blackboard in advance of each class session.
Evaluation: Students will be graded on the basis of class participation and two analytical essays (8-10 pages each). The basic formula is 1/3 for class participation (including postings on Blackboard), 1/3 for the first essay, and 1/3 for the second essay. The professor reserves the right to exercise some discretion in assigning final grades.
Honor Code: All course work is governed by Oberlin's Honor Code. If you have a question about how the Honor Code applies to a particular assignment, you should ask the professor in advance of the due date.
Purchases: The following books are available for purchase at the Oberlin Bookstore. Most are also on reserve at Mudd, but the professor strongly encourages you to acquire your own copies. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve (1835-1840; New York: Bantam, 2000) Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 (1978; New York: Hill and Wang, 2004) Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men's Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003) Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon, 1974) Jonathan Daniel Wells, The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) Charles Joyner, Down by the Riverside : A South Carolina Slave Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984) Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999)
Schedule of classes and assignments:

Feb. 7	Alexis de Tocqueville Tocqueville Society website	The Classic Interpretation Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 3-17, 51-64, 273-312, 368-373, 383-488, 497-504, 507-521, 544-546, 615-635, 646-669, 682-683, 690-694, 736-751, 767-769, 874-888 For information on Tocqueville's American travels and sources, go to Tocqueville's America: A Virtual Tour on the web
Feb. 14		A Recent Synthesis Sellers, Market Revolution, 3-33, 202-395
Feb. 21	Joseph Moore and His Family (1839) (see Jaffee article)	Rural New England Christopher Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780-1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 121-155, 195-227 [on reserve and on ERes] David Jaffee, "Peddlers of Progress and the Transformation of the Rural North, 1760-1860," Journal of American History 78 (Sept. 1991): 511-535 [in JSTOR] Catherine E. Kelly, "'Well Bred Country People': Sociability, Social Networks, and the Creation of a Provincial Middle Class, 1820-1860,"Journal of the Early Republic 19 (Fall 1999): 451-479 [in JSTOR] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), 374-412 [on reserve and on ERes]
Feb. 28	Plate with image of Boston Athenaeum (c. 1829) Boston Athenaeum website	Urban New England Peter R. Knights, "Population Turnover, Persistence, and Residential Mobility in Boston, 1830-1860," in Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sennett, eds., Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 258-274 [on reserve and on ERes] Ronald Story, "Class and Culture in Boston: The Athenaeum, 1807-1860," American Quarterly 27 (May 1975), 178-199 [in JSTOR] Paul Faler, "Cultural Aspects of the Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, Shoemakers and Industrial Morality, 1826-1860," in Milton Cantor, ed., American Workingclass Culture: Explorations in American Labor and Social History (Westport, CT : Greenwood Press, 1979), 121-148 [on reserve and on ERes] Gary J. Kornblith, "Hiram Hill: House Carpenter, Lumber Dealer, Self-Made Man," in Michael A. Morrison, ed., The Human Tradition in Antebellum America (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000), 53-65 [on reserve and on ERes]
March 7	View of Rochester (1830) The Erie Canal website	Upstate New York Johnson, Shopkeeper's Millennium, entire Mary P. Ryan, "A Women's Awakening: Evangelical Religion and the Families of Utica, New York, 1800-1840," American Quarterly 30 (Winter 1978): 602-623 [in JSTOR] Charles Grandison Finney, "What a Revival of Religion Is" (1835)
March 14	The Soaplocks, or Bowery Boys The Lost Museum website	New York City Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York City, 1789-1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 41-75 [on reserve and on ERes] David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991), 133-163 [on reserve and on ERes] Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy, 1-10, 37-156, 185-219 For a virtual field trip to P.T. Barnum's American Museum, visit The Lost Museum on the web
March 21	Kensington Riots Historical Society of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia David Montgomery, "The Shuttle and the Cross: Weavers and Artisans in the Kensington Riots of 1844," Journal of Social History 5 (Summer 1972): 411-446 [on ERes] Emma Jones Lapsansky, "'Since They Got Those Separate Churches': Afro-Americans and Racism in Jacksonian Philadelphia," American Quarterly 32 (Spring 1980): 54-78 [in JSTOR] Bruce Dorsey, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 90-135 [on reserve and on ERes]
March 25		First paper due
Spring Break
April 4	Oak Alley Plantation © Copyright 2005 FreeLargePhotos.com	Rural South Genovese, Roll, Jordon, Roll, 1-97, 113-149, 161-168, 183-193, 209-284, 330-388, 413-431, 587-621, 648-660 Recommended primary document: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), chaps. 9 and 10
April 11		Urban South Leonard P. Curry, "Urbanization and Urbanism in the Old South: A Comparative View," Journal of Southern History 40 (Feb. 1974): 43-60 [in JSTOR] Wells, Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861, 1-150 Recommended primary document: Caroline Lee Hentz, "An Address Delivered before the Total Abstinence Society of Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, on the Anniversary of American Independence," Southern Literary Messenger (Dec. 1843), p. 745.
April 18	Slave Cabin, Old Saints Parrish Belle W. Baruch Foundation	South Carolina Low Country (I) Joyner, Down by the Riverside, xv-xxii, 1-224, 241-242 Recommended primary document: Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856), 462-488 (scroll down)
April 25		South Carolina Low Country (II) McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds, xvi-ix, 2-207, 239-276 Recommended primary document: "Deplorable Condition of South Carolina," Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal [Boston], 18 (Aug. 25, 1847): 134.
May 2	Slave Auction Library of Congress	New Orleans Johnson, Soul by Soul, entire Recommended primary document: Solomon Northrup, Twelve Years a Slave (1853), 78-82, posted online as "'It Was a Mournful Scene Indeed': Solomon Northrup Remembers the New Orleans Slave Market" at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6230/
May 9	The Trail of Tears (1942) PBS website	Cherokee Nation William G. McLoughlin and Walter H. Conser, Jr., "The Cherokees in Transition: A Statistical Analysis of the Federal Cherokee Census of 1835," Journal of American History 64 (Dec. 1977): 678-703 [in JSTOR] Mary Young, "The Cherokee Nation: Mirror of the Republic," American Quarterly 33 (Winter 1981): 502-524 [in JSTOR] William G. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees' Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 34-85 [on reserve and on ERes] Recommended primary document: Constitution of the Cherokee Nation (1827)
May 20		Second paper due by 11 am