Spring 2021 HIST 80010 Literature Survey in American History Wednesday 4:15-6:15pm

Professor: Tanisha C. Ford Email: [email protected] Office: 5114.03 Office Hours: Wed 2-3pm (email for appointment)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is a reading-intensive course designed to introduce students to major themes, questions, and historiographical debates in U.S. history—from the end of the Civil War to the late twentieth century. One of the main course objectives is to prepare students for the departmental written exam at semester’s end. Additionally, the course will provide a foundation for students who will teach their own U.S. history courses and expose students to (sub)field-specific methods, modes of inquiry, and bibliographies that will aid in future research. A 5-credit course, Literature Survey is demanding and will require your full commitment and participation. Each week, students will read the equivalent of two book-length monographs and will be expected to actively engage with one another about the books’ core arguments, interventions, contributions to the field, use of source material, periodization, and so forth. Spirited, collegial debate is encouraged. In addition to the departmental exam, assignments will include weekly response papers, short literature reviews, and oral presentations. These assignments will serve as useful study aides as students prepare for the rigorous written exam. The course is organized chronologically as well as thematically and will explore topics/eras ranging from Reconstruction, (im)migration, and American capitalism to the interwar period, social movements, and the rise of the carceral state—by scholars of social, cultural, labor, gender, African American, and sexuality history. Attendance at each class session is mandatory. All students will be expected to participate fully and thoughtfully in class discussions.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

✓ to gain knowledge of key issues and critical debates in the field ✓ to develop a reading list useful for exams in U.S. field ✓ to provide foundational knowledge for teaching U.S. history survey ✓ to improve historical reading and writing skills ✓ to apply knowledge from this course to students’ own research projects ✓ to create a supportive and rigorous learning environment and intellectual community

ASSIGNMENTS Weekly Reviews: Each week, you will be responsible for producing a 2-3pp critical essay about the assigned texts. These essays are not book reviews. They are short, analytical pieces that explore the key historiographical interventions, theories, and frameworks that the texts (collectively) introduce. In other words, consider from your perspective: What major themes emerge from the texts? In which major debates in the field do they intervene? How do they (re)think about periodization and/or source material? These pieces will assist us in working toward the writing and analysis that will be expected for the examination. They should be submitted to be via email by Wednesdays @ 1pm. We will use these pieces to help launch into our discussions.

Discussion leader: You will be expected to lead discussion 2x in the semester. Leaders will 1) introduce a key idea that they explored in their critical essay. 2) Choose 3 other book monographs with which the assigned texts are in conversation and briefly explain why you chose them. These cannot be texts that are already on the syllabus. 3) Prepare 2-3 questions to help guide our discussion. The outside texts you select will be added to the “future U.S. oral exams” readings list we craft as a class. Please email the bibliographic info for your 3 selected texts when you send your critical essay on the weeks you lead discussion.

Written Exam: There will be a written exam at semester’s end, which will be evaluated by a committee of twentieth-century U.S. history faculty.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2/3 Course Intro + Reconstruction and its Failures Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles from Slavery to The Great Migration (Part 2 only)

Eric Foner, “Rights and the Constitution in Black Life during the Civil War and Reconstruction.” Journal of American History. Dec1987, Vol. 74 Issue 3, p863-883. Foner, “Panel II: Reconstruction Revisited.” Columbia Law Review. Nov 2012, Vol. 112 Issue 7, p1585-1606. Beth Lew-Williams, "‘Chinamen’ and ‘Delinquent Girls’: Intimacy, Exclusion, and a Search for 's Color Line.” Journal of American History. Dec 2017, Vol. 104 Issue 3, p632-655.

2/10 Jim Crow Capitalism & the Gilded Age Swen Beckert, Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850-1896 (Intro, part 1, part 3) Shennette Garret-Scott, Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal (Intro,1,3,4)

2/17 European Immigration and WWI Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race

George Chauncey, “Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion?: Homosexual identities and the Construction of Sexual Boundaries in the World War I Era.” Journal of Social History. Winter 1985, Vol. 19 Issue 2, p189-211.

2/24 New Directions in Black Women’s Labor History Tera Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom: Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War

Freda Fair, “Surveilling Social Difference: Black Women’s ‘Alley Work’ in Industrializing Minneapolis.” Surveillance & Society. 2017, Vol. 15 Issue 5, p655-675. Sarah Haley, “Like I Was a Man: Chain Gangs, Gender, and the Domestic Carceral Sphere in Jim Crow .” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society. Autumn 2013, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p53-77. Cheryl Hicks, “Bright and Good Looking Colored Girl: Black Women’s Sexuality and “Harmful Intimacy” in Early-Twentieth-Century New York.” Journal of the History of Sexuality. Sep 2009, Vol. 18 Issue 3, p418-456.

3/3 Communism and Working-Class Politics in the U.S. South Robin Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Communists During the Great Depression

LaShawn Harris, “Running with the Reds: African American Women and the Communist Party During the Great Depression.” Journal of African American History. Winter 2009, Vol. 94 Issue 1, p21-43. James Gregory, “Southernizing the American Working Class.” Labor History, May 1998, v. 39, is. 2, pp. 135-54. Grace Hale, “James Gregory: Southernizing the American Working Class: A Note on Region, Race, and Vision.” Labor History. May 1998, Vol. 39 Issue 2, p155-157. Alex Lichtenstein, “Antiliberalism and the Working-Class Politics of Nostalgia.” Labor History, May 1998, v. 39, is. 2, pp. 158-61.

3/10 LGBTQ Movement Before Stonewall Julio Capo, Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940

Emily Skidmore, “Constructing the ‘Good Transsexual’: Christine Jorgensen, Whiteness and Heteronormativity in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Press.” Feminist Studies. Summer 2011, Vol. 37 Issue 2, p270-300. Siobhan Somerville, “Queer Loving.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies. 2005, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p335-370.

3/17 Race, Class, and the New Deal Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America

Kathy Peiss, “Cultural Policy in a Time of War: The American Response to Endangered Books in World War II.” Library Trends. Winter 2007, Vol. 55 Issue 3, p370-386. Elaine Tyler May, “Security Against Democracy: The Legacy of the Cold War at Home.” Journal of American History. Ma r2011, Vol. 97 Issue 4, p939-957.

3/24 WWII and Latina/o/x Labor History Elizabeth Escobedo, From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Homefront

Vicki Ruiz, “Nuestra America: Latino History as American History.” Journal of American History. Dec 2006, Vol. 93 Issue 3, p655-672. Cecilia Marquez, “Juan Crow and the Erasure of Blackness in the Latina/o South.” Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas. Sep2019, Vol. 16 Issue 3, p79-85. WATCH: The Riots

3/31 ***SPRING BREAK***

4/7 The (Inter-/Post-War) American Crisis in Cities and Suburbs Tom Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

Victoria Wolcott, “The Culture of Informal Economy: Numbers Runners in Inter-War Detroit.” Radical History Review. Fall 1997, Issue 69, p46-75. Kevin Kruse and Matthew Lassiter, “The Bulldozer Revolution: Suburbs and Southern History Since World War II.” Journal of Southern History. Aug 2009, Vol. 75 Issue 3, p691- 706. Andrew Kahrl, “The Power to Destroy: Discriminatory Property Assessments and the Fight for Tax Justice in Mississippi.” Journal of Southern History. Aug 2016, Vol. 82 Issue 3, p579-616.

4/14 Race, Capitalism, and the New Right Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right Nathan Connolly, A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Making of Jim Crow South Florida (Intro, 1,3,7,8)

4/21 The “Long Civil Rights Movement” Debate Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle” (Intro, 1, 3, 6, 12, 13)

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past.” Journal of American History. Mar 2005, Vol. 91 Issue 4, p1233-1263. Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Clarence Lang, “The ‘Long Movement’ as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom Studies.”Journal of African American History. Spring 2007, Vol. 92 Issue 2, p265-288. Glenda Gilmore, “‘The Reddest of the Blacks’: History Across the Full Spectrum of Civil Rights Activism.” American Communist History. Dec 2015, Vol. 14 Issue 3, p231-239.

4/28 Centering Women in Civil Rights History Danielle McGuire, At The Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

Tanisha C. Ford, “SNCC Women, Denim, and the Politics of Dress.” Journal of Southern History. Aug 2013, Vol. 79 Issue 3, p625-658. Ruth Feldstein, “I Don’t Trust You Anymore: Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 1960s.” Journal of American History. Mar 2005, Vol. 91 No. 4,1349-379. WATCH: The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017)

5/5 Black Power and the New Left Alondra Nelson, Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination

Van Gosse, “A Movement of Movements: The Definition and Periodization of the New Left” in A Companion to Post-1945 America (ed. Jean-Christophe Agnew) WATCH: The Weather Underground (2002)

5/12 Carceral Studies: Freedom For All Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America

Kevin Mumford, “The Trouble with Gay Rights: Race and the Politics of Sexual Orientation in Philadelphia, 1969-1982.” Journal of American History. Jun2011, Vol. 98 Issue 1, p49-72. Timothy Stewart-Winter, “Queer Law & Order: Sex, Criminality, and Policing in the Late Twentieth-Century .” Journal of American History. Jun 2015, Vol. 102 Issue 1, p61-72.

5/20 ***WRITTEN EXAM *** More details to come