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College of Charleston
History 303 Dr. Stuart Knee
Office: Maybank 311 (3-5938)
Syllabus: U.S. History--The Young Republic, 1800-45
Description
A detailed study of the relationship of politics to society during the first half of
the 19th century, together with an analysis of the causes of the Civil War. The course
will emphasize the origins and development of American political parties, the War of 1812,
nationalism, sectionalism, "The Era of the Common Man," reform movements,
manifest destiny, slavery and the politics of secession.
Objectives
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to some fundamental texts and ideas
in 19th century American history and, through discussion, research and writing, come to
terms with their historic meaning.
Course Requirements
A. Attendance: Active participation in the class is welcomed
and will be evaluated in your favor, as will regular class attendance. After four (4)
unexcused absences, the student will receive a warning from me that his/her absences are
"excessive" (see Undergraduate Bulletin, p. 114). After the fifth (5th)
unexcused absence, the student will be dropped from the course with a grade of
"WA."
B. Tests:: A mid-term and a final.
C. Research Paper: Topic and focus to be decided in conference
with me (don't wait more than a month!). There are four general choices as to the required
term paper:
1. The work, or samples thereof, of a particular artist, philosopher, intellectual or
essayist (minimum: 1 novel, 2 short stores, 3 essays, 4 paintings or 5 poems) with
special attention to the milieu (social, cultural, political, personal) in which it or
they were created. What was the creative individual saying about his/her generation and
him/herself? Among those you might consider are William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson,
Margaret Fuller, Asher Durand, George Caleb Bingham, John J. Audubon, Thomas Cole,
Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville and Edgar
Allen Poe.
2. A primary resource paper based upon manuscript/archival holdings in the Robert Scott
Small Library or the Avery Institute. For a listing of these holdings, which include
family and plantation records, cultural reminiscences, College of Charleston history and
miscellany, see me or better yet, the rare books and manuscripts librarian (or both!). For
a summary of holdings at the Robert Scott Small Library, see the South Carolina
Historical Magazine, Vol. 81 (April 1980), pp. 131-53. Note: I'm scheduling a
library tour for the first or second week of classes. For those interested in our Avery
resources, visit the Institute's (125 Bull St.) Director, History Department Professor
Marvin Dulaney.
3. A critical study of a major historian. This calls for a brief biographical sketch of
the historian, placing him/her in the context of relevant historical writing, an extended
analysis of a group of his/her works or a single well-known work, with emphasis on
the dominating themes and theories which shape and inform his/her writing and a discussion
of the historian's influence on and contribution to scholarship. Generally speaking, this
sort of essay would demand that you consult the works of other historians who either
criticize or commend your subject, read book reviews and some works in intellectual
history in order to find and place your subject and, perhaps, show a transition in his/her
point of view during the course of a career. Some historians you should consider are
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Lee Benson, Kenneth Stampp, David Donald, Edward Pessen, Sean
Wilentz, Merrill Peterson, Fawn Brodie, John William Ward, Henry Adams, Alice Felt Tyler,
Margaret Coit, Drew McCoy, Claude G. Bowers, Eugene Genovese, Robert V. Remini, Roy
Nichols, Catherine Clinton, John Blassingame, Winthrop Jordan, Henry Steele Commager,
Stanley Elkins, Barbara Rush Welter, Richard Wade, Bernard DeVoto, David Brion Davis,
Gerda Lerner, Stephen Oates and Lawrence Levine.
4. An historiographical study of a particular event or figure in history. This involves
the question of how historians approach and interpret a personality, event or historical
problem. Examples:
a. The War of 1812--Did we jump or were we pushed?
b. Thomas Jefferson--Unsuccessful President or national
monument--or both?
c. James Madison--Weakling or warrior?
d. Slavery--Moral transgression, business enterprise or
Christianizing social system?
e. Jacksonian Democracy--A new kind of freedom or an old kind of
greed?
f. Mexican War--Manifest Destiny, Mission or something
else?
g. James K. Polk--Most successful U.S. President?
h. Abolitionists--Utopians or pragmatists?
i. The American "Loner"--Reality or myth on the
American frontier?
j. The American Indian--Noble savage or dispossessed?
k. 19th Century Women--Victorian or rebel?
l. The Civil War--Repressible or Irrepressible?
The point is you examine an incident, period, figure, gender or ethnic minority, or
even a document (e.g., the Constitution) and conduct a thorough study of how
historians vary in their interpretations of its significance. But I stress that this is
not to be a mere survey of historical opinion and it is definitely not to read like an
annotated bibliography. The student must trace trends and directions of scholarship on the
subject; he/she should relate these trends to the period in which the history was written;
he/she must deal with background and climates of opinion in an effort to judge to what
degree historians represent their times. Some articles to consult are:
1. Gene M. Gressley, "The Turner Thesis--A Problem in Historiography," Agricultural
History, 32 (October 1958), 227-49.
2. John Higham, "The Historian as Moral Critic," American Historical
Review, LXVII (April 1962), 609-25.
3. Stanley Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual
Life, Chapter 1: "An Introduction: Slavery as a Problem in Historiography,"
pp. 1-26.
4. Charles G. Sellers, Jr., "Andrew Jackson vs. The Historians," Mississippi
Valley Historical Review, XLIV (March 1958), 615-34.
5. Paul L. Murphy, "Time to Reclaim: The Current Challenge of American
Constitutional History," American Historical Review, LXIX (October 1963),
64-79.
6. David Brion Davis, "Some recent Directions in American Cultural History," American
Historical Review, LXXIII (February 1968), 696-707.
7 Robert Dallek, "Franklin Roosevelt as World Leader," American Historical
Review, 76 December 1971), 1503-13.
Papers are due (date) and are to be typewritten, between 10-15 pages. I will not
accept late papers. The paper counts 1/3 of your grade.
Required Texts
1. Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Republic, 1801-1815 (hereafter abbreviated D).
Prospect Heights, Ill., Waveland Press, Inc., 1992.
2. George Dangerfield, The Awakening of American Nationalism, 1815-1828
(hereafter abbreviated A). Prospect Heights, Ill., Waveland Press, Inc., 1994.
3. Robert V. Remini, The Jacksonian Era (hereafter abbreviated J).
Arlington Heights, Ill., Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1989.
4. Michael Feldberg, The Turbulent Era: Riot and Disorder in Jacksonian America
(hereafter abbreviated T). New York, Oxford University Press, 1980.
5. Robert H. Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination
(hereafter abbreviated C). New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.
6. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (hereafter abbreviated M). New York, Bantam
Books, 1986.
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