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HIST 588: Readings in 19th-Century U.S. History Flipbook PDF

HIST 588: Readings in 19th-Century U.S. History Prof. Caleb McDaniel Spring 2013 Mondays, 2:00-5:00 pm, Humanities 327 E

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HIST 588: Readings in 19th-Century U.S. History Prof. Caleb McDaniel Spring 2013

Mondays, 2:00-5:00 pm, Humanities 327 Email: [email protected] Web: http://wcm1.web.rice.edu Phone: 713-348-2556 Office Hours: Fridays, 2-4pm, Humanities Bldg 330

Objectives The objectives of this seminar are (a) to introduce graduate students to some of the major recent problems and questions in the field of nineteenth-century American history; (b) to learn to identify the historiographical issues that recent works of scholarship address and connect their individual arguments to larger debates in the field; and (c) to write about these issues for a public audience using individual blogs.

Assignments The semester is roughly divided into two parts. In the first half of the semester, all seminar participants will complete a “common reading”—usually a journal article or set of articles that deals with a major problem in the field—as well as an individual reading assignment of one book that somehow addresses the debate(s) introduced by the common reading. In these weeks, all seminar participants are responsible for: • completing both the common reading and the individual reading and preparing notes that will enable you to participate in a classroom discussion focused on the common reading, but informed by the individual readings; • writing a blog post by midnight on the Sunday preceding class that provides a brief precis of the individual reading’s major arguments, points, and sources, and also discusses how the individual reading speaks to, expands on, or addresses the problems outlined in one or more of the common readings; • reading the blog posts of the other participants in the seminar in preparation for the in-class discussion on Monday. 1

Assignments of the individual readings and further guidelines for blogging will take place on the first day of class; other assignments may be indicated on the schedule or distributed in the seminar.1 In the second half of the semester, we will all read one book each week. In this half, all participants are responsible for reading the week’s common reading. But on the first day of class each week’s book will also be assigned to one seminar participant who will be responsible for (a) leading that week’s discussion of the book in class; (b) identifying one of the broad historiographical literatures, questions, or problems the book addresses; (c) doing additional reading to identify other books with which the work in question is in conversation, in sympathy, or in dispute with, and working individually to write weekly, informal blog posts that keep seminar participants updated about what you are learning; these posts will precede and continue beyond the actual date of discussion of the book. Imagine this as your goal: if the book in question were on one of the “individual reading lists” of the sort provided in the first half of the semester, what other books would be on that list, and what “common reading” might it address? Your aim is both to create that list and by the end of the semester to work your way through the readings that you would put on it. The final writing assignment for the semester is to write a more formal, 10- to 15-page historiographical essay, drawing on the work you have done in your blog posts during the second half, which (a) reviews the assigned reading book that you have been focusing on and (b) shows how it connects to a broader, coherent historiographical debate initiated by books or articles that preceded it on a particular question. It can either be a review of the book that addresses its historiographical contributions, rejoinders, questions, answers, etc., or a thematic essay in which the book features prominently.

Schedule of Readings Part I January 7 Organization; assignment of readings January 14 David Waldstreicher, Jeffrey L. Pasley, and Andrew W. Robertson, “Introduction,” Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). John L. Brooke, “Trouble with Paradox,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 67, no. 3 (July 2010), 549–557. Available online. 1

If you would like to read more about how to maintain a blog or website for your professional work, see Ryan Cordell’s Profhacker post, “Creating and Maintaining a Professional Presence Online: A Roundup and Reflection.” Some good examples of good history blogs maintained by graduate students or junior faculty members are Religion in American History, U.S. Intellectual History, and The Junto.

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Blake: Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000). Wright: Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007). Andrew: Matthew Mason, Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Maria: Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Cara: Francois Furstenberg, In the Name of the Father: Washington’s Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Penguin, 2006). Nate: Seth Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America: The Rise and Fall of Transatlantic Radicalism in the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011). Wes: Rachel Hope Cleves, The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Suraya: Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2009), Parts 1 and 2. January 21 NO CLASS: I recommend that you begin reading your book assigned for end of semester so that you can create a list of other things to read. January 28 Barbara J. Fields, “Ideology and Race in American History,” in Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 143-177. Martha Hodes, “The Mercurial Nature and Abiding Power of Race: A Transnational Family Story,” American Historical Review 108, no. 1 (February 2003), 84-118. Peter Kolchin, “Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America,” Journal of American History 89, no. 1 (June 2002).

Nate: Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981). Blake: Love, Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 3

Maria: George Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914, rept. (Wesleyan University Press, 1971). Suraya: Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). Cara: Joanne Pope Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Wright: Edward Blum, Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005). Andrew: Theda Perdue, Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South(University of Georgia Press, 2005). Wes: Paul Escott, “What Shall We Do with the Negro?” Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009). David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1999) Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) February 4 Walter Johnson, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History 37, no. 1 (2003): 113–124. Available online. Douglas R. Egerton, “Slaves to the Marketplace: Economic Liberty and Black Rebelliousness in the Atlantic World,” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 4 (2006): 617–639. Available online. Walter Johnson, “Clerks All! Or, Slaves with Cash,” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 4 (2006): 641–651. Available online. Edward E. Baptist, “Toxic Debt, Liar Loans, and Securitized Human Beings,” Common-Place 10, no. 3 (April 2010), http://www.common-place.org/vol-10/no-03/baptist/

Cara: Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage, 1976). Nate: James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). Andrew: Sylvia Frey, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). Blake: Ira Berlin, Barbara J. Fields, et al., Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

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Maria: William Dusinberre, Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps (1996; Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000). Wes: Patrick Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). (Wes) Suraya: Stephanie M. H. Camp, Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). (Suraya) Wright: Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010). (Wright) Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999). Charles F. Irons, The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008) February 11 Thomas Bender, introduction to Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 1-21. Rosemarie Zagarri, “Significance of the ‘Global Turn’ for the Early American Republic: Globalization in the Age of Nation-Building,” Journal of the Early Republic 31, no. 1 (Spring 2011). Available online. Paul A. Kramer, “Power and Connection: Imperial Histories of the United States in the World,” American Historical Review 116, no. 5 (2011): 1348-1391. Available online.

Nate: Brian Schoen, The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). Wright: Andre Fleche, The Revolution of 1861: The American Civil War in the Age of Nationalist Conflict (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012). Maria: Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Wes: Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Mediterranean: American Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008). Andrew: Pekka Hamalainen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Cara: Sam W. Haynes, Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010). (Cara) Blake: Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

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Suraya: Robert W. Rydell and Rob Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna: The Americanization of the World, 1869-1922 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Edward B. Rugemer, The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008). Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, rev. ed. (New York: Cornell University Press, 2003). Timothy Roberts, Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009). Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Part II February 18 Cara: Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). February 25 NO CLASS: Spring Break March 4 Wright: Susan Schulten, Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). March 11 Andrew: Sharla M. Fett, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). March 18 Nate: Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003). March 25 Maria: Jim Downs, Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction 6

April 1 Wes: Moon-Ho Jung, Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2006). April 8 Blake: Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). April 15 Suraya: Madeline Yuan-Yin Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943 (Stanford University Press, 2000).

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