History 479B

Devine/Adams

Fall 2012

Essay #1 (Option B)

You must turn in a copy of your essay to the professor and the writing tutor by Sunday, November 4th at 11:59pm. If you did not turn in Essay #1 Option A, you must turn in this paper. If you did turn in Essay #1 Option A, you may turn in this paper and I will count the higher of the two grades.

If you schedule a meeting with one of the writing tutors, your revised paper will be due one week from the day of your meeting.

DIRECTIONS

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 “Economic History Essay”) 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. (Summers, 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? do your sentences make sense?)

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

THE ASSIGNMENT

Answer ONE of the following questions:

1. Lawrence Mitchell argues that a shift from an industrial to a speculation economy occurred during the late nineteenth century. What factors caused this shift and why was it so significant? How did the shift to a speculation economy change the way companies were formed and how they did business? In considering the significance of the shift, also indicate how it affected the broader society and why it resulted in more demands for government to oversee or regulate businesses and financial markets.

2. What factors – both domestic and international – brought on the Great Depression of the 1930s? Why did various policies the U.S. government pursued after World War I seem to make things worse? Why did the government pursue such policies even when some experts warned that they might produce an economic collapse?

3. As an economic recovery program intended to lift the nation out of the Great Depression, what were the major achievements and shortcomings of the New Deal? Why, in the final analysis, was the New Deal not entirely successful in addressing the major economic problems of the 1930s?