History 476

Devine

Spring 2016

Essay #1

 

 

This essay is due February 27th by 11:59 pm. You may email your essay to me as an attachment (the preferred method), turn it in to the History Department office (Sierra Tower 610) during business hours, or hand it to me in person.

 

WRITING CENTER

 

If you are submitting this essay as a draft and intend to work with a writing tutor on a revision of your essay, please indicate on the paper or in your email that the document you are submitting is a draft. Note that to take advantage of the opportunity to revise your draft, you must submit a complete draft to me on February 27. Your final version will be due ONE WEEK after your appointment with the writing tutor. To make an appointment, call the History Department at 818.677.3566.

 

DIRECTIONS (follow them)

 

HOW LONG SHOULD THE PAPER BE?

 

Papers MUST be 1500 words and no more than 1900 words.

 

HOW SHOULD I FORMAT THE PAPER?

 

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

 

• Please number your pages.

 

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

 

• Base your essay entirely on the assigned course reading. You do not have to (nor should you) draw on any outside sources.

 

HOW DO I 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. (Nasaw, 47). All direct quotes MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn from the book MUST also be cited.

 

HOW WILL I BE GRADED?

 

You will be graded on:

                                                                                           

1)    focus (do you have a thesis statement and does it answer the question asked?)

 

2)    evidence (do you back up your argument with specific information from the reading and is the supporting information especially effective in making your case)

 

3)    coherence (is your argument consistent and understandable throughout the piece?)

 

4)    scope (does your paper deal with the question in appropriate depth and breadth?) 

 

THE ASSIGNMENT

 

Answer ONE of the following questions:

  

1.    How did urbanization, industrialization, and immigration give young people more freedom at the turn of the 20th Century? In particular, how did these forces give them leverage over their parents that children had not had previously?

 

2.    How did the city streets and the broader urban environment acculturate the children of the city to the capitalist, consumer society that was emerging at the turn of the century as well as to the gender roles they would be expected to adopt as adults?

 

3.    Why did urban children and adolescents come into conflict with Progressive reformers during the early part of the twentieth century?   

 

4.    How did money – having it, not having it, working for it, spending it – shape the lives and values of the children discussed in David Nasaw’s Children of the City?

 

5.    Most scholars agree that “masculinity” is not a fixed concept, but a social construct that changes over time. The very qualities that make one a “real man” in one era could get one tagged a “sissy” in another.

 

How do the course readings on boys and male college students at the turn of the 20th century confirm this view?

 

 

NOTE: In answering these questions – except for question #5 – you should cite specific evidence from David Nasaw’s Children of the City. If you believe that you can provide a more thorough and compelling answer to the question by drawing on evidence from other course readings, you are welcome to do so.