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21H.105

American Classics

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2006

This subject is devoted to reading and discussing basic American historical texts that are often cited but often remain unread, understanding their meaning, and assessing their continuing significance in American culture. Since it is a "Communications Intensive" subject, 21H.105 is also dedicated to improving students' capacities to write and speak well. It requires a substantial amount of writing, participation in discussions, and individual presentations to the class.

Readings

  • Winthrop, John. “ A Modell of Christian Charity .” A Sermon of 1630 (abridged). In Volume I of The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings . Revised edition. Edited by Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1963, pp. 195-199. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647 . Edited by Samuel Eliot Morison. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, esp. chapters 4 and 9, pp. 23-27 and 58-63.
    Listed reading
  • Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography and Other Writings . New York, NY: Bantam Classic, 1982, vii-xiii, 3-230, and 270. ISBN: 9780553210750.
    Listed reading
  • Paine, Thomas. Common Sense and Related Writings . Mineola, NY: Dover, 1997. ISBN: 9780486296029.
    Listed reading
  • Mason, George. Draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Pennsylvania Gazette , June 12, 1776.
    Listed reading
  • The committee or “Jefferson” draft of the Declaration of Independence, with Congress’s editings (June-July 1776). In Maier, Pauline. Appendix C of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence . New York, NY: Knopf, 1997, pp. 236-241. ISBN: 9780679454922.
    Listed reading
  • Koch, Adrienne, ed. Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison . New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1987, introduction, Madison’s preface, pp. 21- 166. ISBN: 9780393304053.
    Listed reading
  • Moulton, Gary E., ed. The Lewis and Clark Journals . New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004. ISBN: 9780803280397.
    Listed reading
  • Douglass, Frederick, Harriet Jacobs, and Kwame Anthony Appiah. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass…and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl . New York, NY: Modern Library Classics, 2000. ISBN: 9780679783282.
    Listed reading
  • Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (orig. (in book form) 1852). New York, NY: Penguin, 1981. ISBN: 9780140390032.
    Listed reading
  • Holzer, Harry, ed. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text . New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780823223428.
    Listed reading
  • Week #: 9 · Topics: Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War · Readings: Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs . New York, NY: Penguin, 1999. ISBN: 9780140437010. (Especially pp. xiii-xxvi, 3-54, 92-133, read about some battle of the Civil War (Shiloh, 177-99, for example; Vicksburg was more important, but the account is also much longer), 376-82, 525 (bottom) -35, 558-61, 580-640.
    Reading assignment
  • Review: Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography and Other Writings . New York, NY: Bantam Classic, 1982, pp. 184-93. ISBN: 9780553210750.
    Listed reading
  • Alger, Horatio. Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks . New York, NY: Signet, 1990, introduction by Alan Trachtenberg. ISBN: 9780451524805.
    Listed reading
  • Carnegie, Andrew. The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. Edited by Edward C. Kirkland. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1962, pp. 3-13 (“Introduction: How I Served My Apprenticeship”) and 14-49 (the “Gospel of Wealth”).
    Listed reading
  • Johnson, James, Booker T. Washington, and William E. B. Dubois. Three Negro classics . New York, NY: Avon, 1965 (reprint 1999). ISBN: 9780380015818.
    Listed reading
  • Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery . In Three Negro Classics, especially chapters 1-5, 7-8, and 10-14 (pp. 29- 77, 85- 100, 108-57). ↗
    Listed reading
  • DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk . In Three Negro Classics. pp. 207-390. ↗
    Listed reading
  • -–. “ Of the Meaning of Progress .” In Three Negro Classics . pp. 240-61. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Week #: 13 · Topics: What a Difference the Radio Made: the Presidency, at Home · Readings: Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. Great Speeches . New York, NY: Dover, 1999. ISBN: 9780486408941.
    Reading assignment
  • Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique . Pennsylvania, U.S.: Laurel, 1984 (reprint 1997), especially chapters 1-4, 10, 12, and 14. ISBN: 9780440324973.
    Listed reading
  • King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I have a dream” speech , August 28, 1963. ↗
    Listed reading
Fall 2002

"What then is the American, this new man?" asked J. Hector St-John de Crèvecoeur in his _Letters from an American Farmer_ in 1782. This subject takes Crèvecoeur's question as the starting point for an examination of the changing meanings of national identity in the American past. We will consider a diverse collection of classic texts in American history to see how Americans have defined themselves and their nation in politics, literature, art, and popular culture. As a communications-intensive subject, students will be expected to engage intensively with the material through frequent oral and written exercises.

Readings

  • Alger, Horatio. Struggling Upward, or, Luke Larkin’s Luck (1886). New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
    Listed reading
  • The Bill of Rights (1791).
    Listed reading
  • Carnegie, Andrew. “How I Served My Apprenticeship,” and “The Gospel of Wealth.” In The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays . Edited by Edward C. Kirkland. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962, pp. 3-49.
    Listed reading
  • Casas, Bartolomé de las. In Defense of the Indians (c. 1552). Translated by Stafford Poole. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992, pp. 25-30.
    Listed reading
  • The Constitution (1787).
    Listed reading
  • The Declaration of Independence (1776).
    Listed reading
  • “The Declaration of Independence: The Jefferson Draft with Congress’s Editorial Changes.” In Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997, pp. 235-241.
    Listed reading
  • Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (1845). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
    Listed reading
  • DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk (1903). In Three Negro Classics . Edited by John Hope Franklin. New York: Avon, 1970, Forethought, chap. 1, 3-4, 7-8, 14, and Afterthought.
    Listed reading
  • Easy Rider (1969).
    Listed reading
  • Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The American Scholar” (1837) and “Self-Reliance” (1841). In The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 6th ed. Edited by Nina Baym et al. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003, pp. 1135-1147 and 1160-1176.
    Listed reading
  • Franklin, Benjamin. “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,” “Poor Richard’s Maxims,” “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North-America,” and “The Way to Wealth.” In Autobiography and Other Writings. Edited by Ormond Seavey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique (1963). New York: W. W. Norton, 2001, chap. 1-3, 10, 12-13.
    Listed reading
  • Ginsberg, Allen. “A Supermarket in California” (1956), and “America” (1956). In The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 2nd ed. Edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988, pp. 1215-1218.
    Listed reading
  • Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl” (1956). In The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 6th ed. Edited by Nina Baym et al. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003, pp. 2865-2872.
    Listed reading
  • Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers (1788). New York: Bantam Books, 1982, nos. 1-6, 9-10, 14, 37-39, 44-46, 51, 84-85.
    Listed reading
  • Jefferson, Thomas. “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1785), “An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom” (1786), and “Correspondence with Benjamin Banneker” (1791). In Notes on the State of Virginia . New York: Penguin, 1999, pp. 1-204, 231-232, and 271-275.
    Listed reading
  • Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life (1903). New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
    Listed reading
  • King, Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963). In Why We Can’t Wait. New York: Harper & Row, 1964, pp. 76-95.
    Listed reading
  • Lincoln, Abraham. Selected Speeches and Writings . New York: Vintage Books, 1992. ( PDF ) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Losada, Ángel. “The Controversy between Sepúlveda and Las Casas in the Junta of Valladolid.” In Bartolomé de las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work. Edited by Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971, pp. 279-300.
    Listed reading
  • Luce, Henry R. “The American Century” (1941). In The Ideas of Henry Luce . Edited by John K. Jessup. New York: Atheneum, 1969, pp. 105-120.
    Listed reading
  • Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. “The Four Freedoms” (1941), and “War Message to Congress” (1941). In The American Reader . Edited by Diane Ravitch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 281-284.
    Listed reading
  • Sledge, E. B. With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981, pp. 1-158, 161-315.
    Listed reading
  • Thoreau, Henry David. “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849). In The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 6th ed. Edited by Nina Baym et al. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003, pp. 1792-1807.
    Listed reading
  • United Nations General Assembly. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
    Listed reading
  • Veblen, Thorstein. “Conspicuous Consumption.” In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). New York: Penguin Books, 1994, pp. 68-101.
    Listed reading
  • Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery (1901). In Three Negro Classics . Edited by John Hope Franklin. New York: Avon, 1970, chap. 1-5, 7-8, and 10-14.
    Listed reading
  • Winthrop , John. “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630). In The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry . Edited by Perry Miller. New York: Columbia University Press, 1956, pp. 78-84.
    Listed reading
Sources