History 502B – Topics in American Cultural History

Syllabus and Survival Guide

Fall 2002

Thursday 7:00 pm – 9:50 pm, Sierra Hall 198

 

 

Instructor

 

Dr. Thomas W. Devine

Phone: (818) 677-3550 (office)  (818) 773-2681 (home)

Email: tom.devine@csun.edu

 

 

Reading

 

The following books – listed in the order in which we will read them – are available at the Matador Bookstore.  Any other readings will be provided in class.

 

 

To subvert the system and to save yourself some money, you might consider buying used copies of the books.  I would suggest the following web sites where you are likely to find used or discounted copies at significantly lower prices:

www.bookfinder.com; www.half.com; www.alibris.com; www.abebooks.com

 

Spirit of the Course

 

This course will examine the ways in which different individuals and groups have exercised cultural influence in American life and have contributed to what we call, perhaps somewhat awkwardly, “American culture.”  Through readings and class discussion, we will be exploring how nineteenth and twentieth century Americans understood, shaped, and participated in their worlds.  The course will cover the period from roughly 1820 through 1960.  Though the topics covered are quite eclectic – in fact, they are intentionally so – there are certain themes that we will be revisiting during the course of the semester:

 

 

You will also have the opportunity to follow the historiography that has developed around the topics we will explore.  Though the emphasis of the course will not be on historiographical issues, I will introduce and we will all discuss scholarly controversies where appropriate.

 

Requirements

 

Leading Discussion

One person will be responsible for leading the discussion each week.  That person will compose a list of 8 questions that address the major themes and issues raised in the reading.  The discussion leader will meet with me briefly ahead of time to go over his or her questions.  Before the seminar begins, he or she will also provide each member of the class 1) a copy of the questions and 2) a 2-page single-spaced précis of the required reading. (I can handle the Xeroxing if you get your questions and précis to me shortly before class.) 

 

Oral Presentation and Review Essay

The discussion leader will also read the “supplementary reading” for his or her week and start the class with a 15-minute presentation summarizing the arguments in these readings and placing them in the context of the required reading.  The following week, he or she will turn in an eight-page review essay that addresses the issues raised in the supplemental and required readings.

 

Semester Project

Select a topic from the period covered in the course that you find to be of interest and do some outside reading on it.  I would recommend a mixture of books and articles.  Your choice of focus need not be directly related to the material covered in the course.  Indeed, this is your opportunity to investigate a subject area that the course may neglect.  Then summarize your findings in a ten-page essay.  So as to prevent you from putting this assignment off until the last moment, I will ask for a written status report on your work at the mid-point of the semester. You might conceive of this survey of the secondary literature as an entrée into a possible Master Thesis or seminar paper topic, however, you are not to hand in work that you have already prepared in conjunction with another class.

 

Bringing Food

On one occasion during the semester, each person will bring a snack for the entire class to enjoy at the break.  Optimally, this snack will be related in some way to that week’s topic.

 

Grading

 

Class Participation/Oral Presentation           --50%

Review Essay [8 pages]                               --25%

Semester Project [10 pages]                     --25%

 

All grading will be done on the +/ – system.

 

Surviving

 

Course Format

This is a seminar-style course in which active participation in the weekly discussions is crucial to the class’s success.  Our meetings will be conversations – free, open, and informal exchanges of ideas – and I expect everyone to take part.  Since the reading load for this course is relatively heavy, I have deliberately minimized the writing assignments and other “busy work” to give you time to complete the required reading and to think about it critically BEFORE coming to class.

 

Attendance

Since class meets only once a week, it is important, and it is expected, that you will be at every session.  Inevitably, an occasion may arise when you are unable to attend.  Out of fairness to your classmates who do attend every week, however, each absence past the first two will adversely affect your final grade.  Also, given the heavy weight placed on in-class discussion, any absence is likely to detract from your participation grade.  To make up for a missed class, you may turn in a 2-page, single-spaced précis summarizing the reading for the class you missed.

 

Problems

I appreciate that most CSUN graduate students are stretching themselves quite thin, often working full time while taking classes at night.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, find yourself falling behind, or are having any problems outside of class that are adversely affecting your performance in class, be sure to let me know.  Do not wait until the end of the semester when it will be too late.  I am more than willing to work with you to insure you “survive,” but I need to know you are having difficulties.  You will find that as long as you keep me up to speed, I will be very sympathetic.

 

Discussion Topics and Assignments

 

Schedule

 

29 Aug.       Introduction

An explanation of course objectives, mechanics, and procedures.

 

 

5 Sept.        Religion and American Culture: The Second Great Awakening

 

Required Reading

Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity

                  

Supplemental Reading

1.     R. Laurence Moore, “Religion, Secularization, and the Shaping of the Culture of Industry in Antebellum America,” American Quarterly 41, 2 (June 1989): 216-42.

2.     Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Cross and the Pedestal: Women, Anti-Ritualism, and the Emergence of the American Bourgeoisie,” in Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985): 129-64.

3.     William G. McLoughlin, “The Second Great Awakening, 1800-1830,” chapter 4 from McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reforms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980): 98-140.

4.     John H. Wigger, “Slavery and African-American Methodism,” chapter 6 from Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 125-150.

 

12 Sept.      Class and American Culture: Performance, Audience Response, and Working-Class Consciousness in Jacksonian America

 

Required Reading

Lawrence Levine, High Brow/Low Brow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), chapter 1.

Richard Butsch, The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750-1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), chapters 3-4.

Elliott J. Gorn, “‘Good-Bye Boys, I Die a True American’: Homicide, Nativism, and Working-Class Culture in Antebellum New York City,” Journal of American History 74, 2 (September 1987): 388-410.

                  

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     David Grimsted, “Gods, Gentlemen, and Groundlings,” chapter 3 from Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled: American Theater & Culture, 1800-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968): 46-75.

2.     Richard B. Stott, “Working Class Institutions,” chapter 8 from Stott, Workers in the Metropolis: Class, Ethnicity, and Youth in Antebellum New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990): 211-246.

3.     Michael Kaplan, “B’hoys Will Be B’hoys: Tavern Violence and the Creation of a Working-Class Male Identity” (chapter 1) and “Conclusion” from Kaplan, “The World of the B’hoys: Urban Violence and the Political Culture of Antebellum New York City, 1825-1860,” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1996, pp. 147-204; 266-275.

4.     Christine Stansell, “Women and Men,” chapter 5 from Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1982): 76-101.

 

19 Sept.      P.T. Barnum and the Legitimation of American Amusement

 

Required Reading         

Bluford Adams, E Pluribus Barnum, chapters

Selections from P.T. Barnum, The Life of P.T. Barnum Written by Himself

                            

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     Neil Harris, “The Operational Aesthetic” and “The Man of Confidence” from Harris, Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973): 59-89; 205-231.

2.     James W. Cook, “The Feejee Mermaid and the Market Revolution,” chapter 2 from Cook, The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001): 73-118.

3.     Constance Rourke, “P.T. Barnum” from Rourke, Trumpets of Jubilee (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1927): 276-319.

 

26 Sept.      From Jim Crow to Chris Rock: The Origins and Legacy of Blackface Minstrelsy

 

Required Reading

Robert C. Toll, Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), chapters 2-3.

Alexander Saxton, “Blackface Minstrelsy and Jacksonian Ideology,” American Quarterly 27 (1975): 3-28.

William McFerrin Stowe, Jr., “Damned Funny: The Tragedy of Bert Williams,” Journal of Popular Culture 10, 1 (Summer 1976): 5-13.

Justin Driver, “The Mirth of a Nation: Black Comedy’s Reactionary Hipness,” New Republic 224 (June 11, 2001): 29-33.

 

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     David R. Roediger, “Black Skins, White Masks: Minstrelsy and White Working Class Formation Before the Civil War,” chapter 6 from Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New York: Verso, 1991): 115-131.

2.     James H. Dorman, “The Strange Career of Jim Crow Rice” Journal of Social History 3, 2 (1969-70): 109-22.

3.     Erik Lott, “‘Genuine Negro Fun’: Racial Pleasure and Class Formation in the 1840s,” chapter 6 from Lott, Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995): 136-168.

4.     Lawrence W. Levine, “Black Laughter,” chapter 5 from Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought From Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977): 298-366.

 

3 Oct.          Victorian America: The Development of Middle-Class Refinement

 

Required Reading

Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women

 

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966): 151-74.

2.     John F. Kasson, “Emotional Control,” chapter 5 from Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America (New York: Hill & Wang, 1990): 147-81.

3.     Ann Douglas, “The Legacy of American Victorianism” and “The Domestication of Death,” (introduction and chapter 6) from Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1977): 3-13; 200-226.

4.     Katherine C. Grier, “Quest for Refinement,” chapter 5 from Grier, Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-1930 rev. ed. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997): 143-175.

 

10 Oct.        History, Myth, and National Identity: The Wild West in American Culture

 

Required Reading

Joy S. Kasson, Buffalo Bill's Wild West

 

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     Richard White, “Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill,” from The Frontier in American Culture, James R. Grossman, ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994): 7-65.

2.     Richard Slotkin, “Nostalgia and Progress: Theodore Roosevelt’s Myth of the Frontier,” American Quarterly 33, 5 (Winter 1981): 608-37.

3.     Paul Reddin, “‘The Gladitorial Contest Revived’: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in the United States, 1883-87,” chapter 3 from Reddin, Wild West Shows (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999): 53-85.

4.     Thomas L. Altherr, “Let’er Rip: Popular Culture Images of the American West in Wild West Shows, Rodeos, and Rendezvous,” from Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West in Popular Culture, Richard Aquila, ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996): 73-104.

 

17 Oct.        Who is “Black,” Who is “White,” and Why? – Race as a Cultural Construct in Late Nineteenth-Century America

 

Required Reading

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson

Eric J. Sundquist, “Mark Twain and Homer Plessy,” Representations 24 (1988): 102-28.

Keith Weldon Medley, “The Sad Story of How ‘Separate but Equal’ was Born” Smithsonian (February 1994): 104-117.

         

Supplemental Reading

1.     Vince Brewton, “‘An Honour as well as a Pleasure’: Dueling, Violence, and Race in Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Southern Quarterly 38, 4 (2000): 101-18.

2.     Robert Moss, “Tracing Mark Twain’s Intentions: The Retreat from Issues of Race in Pudd’nhead Wilson,” American Literary Realism, 1970-1910 30, 2 (1998): 43-55.

3.     Lee Clark Mitchell, “‘De Nigger in You’: Race or Training in Pudd’nhead Wilson? Nineteenth-Century Literature 42, 3 (December 1987): 295-312.

4.     Susan Gillman, “Racial Identity in Pudd’nhead Wilson and ‘Those Extraordinary Twins’” chapter 3 in Gillman, Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain’s America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989): 53-95.

 

24 Oct.        Barroom Culture: Working-Class and Immigrant Responses to Urbanization and Industrialization

 

Required Reading

Madelon Powers, Faces Along the Bar

 

Supplemental Reading

1.     Jon M. Kingsdale, “‘The Poor Man’s Club’: Social Functions of the Urban Working-Class Saloon,” American Quarterly 25, 4 (October 1973): 472-89.

2.     Perry Duis, “The Saloon in a City of Strangers,” chapter 6 from Duis, The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983): 172-203.

3.     Mary Murphy, “Bootlegging Mothers and Drinking Daughters: Gender and Prohibition in Butte, Montana,” American Quarterly 46, 2 (June 1994): 174-94.

4.     Elaine Frantz Parsons, “Risky Business: The Uncertain Boundaries of Manhood in the Midwestern Saloon,” Journal of Social History 34, 2 (Winter 2000): 283-307.

 

31 Oct.        Manliness and Modernity: Gender Roles and Cultural Crisis at the Turn of the Century

 

Required Reading

John F. Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man

                    [Recommended: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes]

 

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     John Higham, “The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s,” from Higham, Writing American History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970)

2.     Margaret Marsh, “Suburban Men and Masculine Domesticity, 1870-1915,” American Quarterly 40, 2 (June 1988): 165-86.

3.     E. Anthony Rotundo, “Body and Soul: Changing Ideals of American Middle-Class Manhood, 1770-1920,” Journal of Social History 16 (Summer 1983): 23-38.

4.     Elliott Gorn, “Fight Like a Gentleman, You Son of a Bitch, If You Can,” chapter 6 from Gorn, The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986): 179-206.

 

7 Nov.         Assault on Victorianism: The “New Amusements”

 

Required Reading

Lewis A. Erenberg, Steppin' Out

 

Supplemental Reading

1.     James R. McGovern, “The American Woman’s Pre-World War I Freedom in Manners and Morals,” Journal of American History 55 (September 1968): 315-33.

2.     Kathy Peiss, “Dance Madness,” chapter 4 from Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986): 88-114.

3.     David Nasaw, “‘Laughter and Liberty Galore’: Early Twentieth-Century Dance Halls, Ballrooms, and Cabarets,” from Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993): 105-119.

4.     Elisabeth I. Perry, “‘The General Motherhood of the Commonwealth’: Dance Hall Reform in the Progressive Era,” American Quarterly 37, 5 (Winter 1985): 719-733.

 

14 Nov.       Assault on Victorianism II: Bohemian Intellectuals and the Modern Aesthetic

 

Required Reading

Christine Stansell, American Moderns

 

Supplemental Reading

1.       Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870-1936,” in Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985): 245-296.

2.       Henry F. May, “Radicals,” from part three of May, The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1959): 302-329.

3.       John Patrick Diggins, “The Lyrical Left,” chapter 4 in Diggins, The Rise and Fall of the American Left (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992): 93-143.

4.       William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff, “Bohemian Ecstasy: Modern Art and Culture,” chapter 3 in Scott and Rutkoff, New York Modern: The Arts and the City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): 73-100.

 

21 Nov.       Radio and Race: Amos’n’Andy and Depression American

 

Required Reading

Melvin Patrick Ely, The Adventures of Amos’n’Andy

 

                    Supplemental Reading

1.     Joseph Boskin, “The Radio Ear: The Odd-Couples Connection,” chapter 8 in Boskin, Sambo: The Rise and Demise of an American Jester (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986): 164-97.

2.     Susan J. Douglas, “Radio Comedy and Linguistic Slapstick,” chapter 5 from Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (New York: Times Books, 1999): 100-123.

3.     Arthur Frank Wertheim, “Relieving Social Tensions: Radio Comedy and the Great Depression” Journal of Popular Culture 10, 3 (Winter 1976): 501-519.

4.     Michele Hilmes, “Who We Are, Who We Are Not: The Emergence of National Narratives,” chapter 3 in Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997): 75-96.

 

28 Nov.          THANKSGIVING

 

5 Dec.         Assessing Popular Culture: Opiate of the Masses or Backbone of Democracy?

 

Required Reading

Paul R. Gorman, Left Intellectuals and Popular Culture In Twentieth Century America

 

Supplemental Reading

                        1.