History 305

Devine

Fall 2006

 

Essay Assignment #1 (Option A)

 

Your first essay is due Friday 13 October.  If you do not wish to do this paper, you can wait for the next essay assignment (Option B) which will be due on 24 November.  If I do not receive your paper by 11:59 pm on October 13th, I will assume you are doing Option B.  You may email your essay to me as an attachment, turn it in to the History Department office (Sierra Tower 610) during business hours, or hand it to me in person.

 

I prefer you email me the paper since this is the best way to ensure that your paper does not get lost.  When emailing, send a copy to yourself on the “cc” line. If you receive the email, it’s likely I did as well. I will send you a confirmation email when I receive your paper, however, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY (and not the email server’s) that I get it. (“But I sent it to you – didn’t you get it?” will not be a legitimate excuse for a late paper.) 

 

How Long? 

At least four FULL pages and no more than six full pages. (Five pages is respectable.)

 

Format?

• Typed, double-spaced, 12-point font with one inch margins all around.

 

• Please number your pages (use the INSERT menu and choose “page numbers…” on Microsoft Word)

 

• Give your essay a title that reflects what the paper is about. (Something more revealing than “Essay #1”) Clever titles will be duly noted.

 

How to cite?

 

If you are quoting directly from a source, cite the author and page number in parentheses within the body of the text, i.e. (Erenberg, 47). All direct quotes from sources MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn from sources MUST also be cited.

 

If you have any questions or are in any way unsure about what you are being asked to do, be sure to speak with me or one of the teaching assistants via email or in person.

 

Choose ONE (1) of the following five questions:

 

  1. Why did some welcome the new amusements that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States as liberating while others feared that they would foster disorder and immorality and hand over cultural power to the “lower orders”?  Ultimately, which side, if either, had it right? Were the new amusements liberating? Did they foster disorder and immorality and by whose standards? Did they transfer cultural power from the upper to the lower classes?

 

  1. Why did the Bolsheviks have an ambivalent or uncertain attitude regarding the role popular culture could (or should) play in furthering their revolution?  In what ways might new forms of entertainment like cinema and popular music like ragtime and jazz serve their purposes?  How might these forms of entertainment undermine or counteract their revolutionary agenda?

 

  1. During the 1920s, the younger generation in both the US and the USSR criticized or rejected the attitudes and behavior of their elders. Choose TWO of the groups we discussed in class – the “Flaming Youth” of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s America; the bratushki; or the Soviet bohemian foxtrotters – and explain why these two groups parted ways with the older generation.  In looking at your two groups side by side, are you struck more by their similarities or their differences?

 

  1. Why was the character of Sam Spade so popular with the Depression-era audience in the United States? How might his behavior, attitudes, loyalties, and approach to life have reflected the temper of the times and therefore made him a hero to contemporary readers?

 

  1. Would Sam Spade have made a terrific Bolshevik or a terrible Bolshevik? Drawing on what you read in the Maltese Falcon and what we have learned about the Bolsheviks, compose an essay making a compelling case for one side or the other.