“American Working People: 1780-1980”
History 577
Syllabus and Survival Guide
Spring 2009
Wednesday 7:00 pm –
9:50 pm, Sierra Hall 268
Instructor
Dr. Thomas W. Devine
Phone: (818) 677-3550
Email: tom.devine@csun.edu
Office Hours:
The following books – listed in the order in
which we will read them – are available at the Matador Bookstore. Any other readings will be available through
the web syllabus.
• Charles Joyner, Down by the
• Denise Giardina, Storming Heaven, Ballantine Books,
1987.
• Richard Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics: Class
Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism in
• Jacquelyn Hall, et
al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World, UNC
Press, 1987.
• Kenneth L. Kusmer, Down
and Out on the Road: The Homeless in American History,
•
Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern
•
•
Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939,
•
Kenneth J. Heineman, A Catholic New Deal: Religion and Reform in Depression
Era
•
Thomas J. Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in
Postwar
•
Thaddeus Russell, Out of the Jungle: Jimmy Hoffa and the Remaking of the
American Working Class, A.A. Knopf, 2001.
•
Kenneth D. Durr, Behind the Backlash: White Working Class Politics in
•
Ben Hamper, Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line, Warner Books, 1991.
To subvert the system and to save yourself
some money, you might consider buying used copies of the books available at the
following web sites:
www.bookfinder.com;
www.half.com; www.amazon.com; www.bn.com
Spirit of the
Course
In focusing on the experiences of American
working people, this course will provide a broad overview of
Grading
Class Participation --25%
Oral Presentation/Analytical Essay --15%
Semester Project [Due May 2] --35%
Final Essay [Due May 13] --25%
All grading will be done on the +/ – system.
Explanation of Requirements
Completing
the
There’s no getting
around it – this class requires a lot of reading. But, as a Masters level seminar, it is
supposed to. To succeed in this course, you
will need to complete the reading, but you will also need to have given it some
thought. Read with a pencil in hand –
take notes in the margins. Record terms
that are unfamiliar to you or that you don’t understand, points that you find
interesting or surprising, arguments with which you strongly agree or disagree,
methods of research or analysis that seem especially creative or insightful (or
misguided and silly), or ideas that connect to things we’ve talked about in
previous classes. Also, read smart –
don’t read every single word of the first 4 chapters and nothing thereafter
because you ran out of time. If you catch the argument the author is making,
don’t sweat all the details or supporting examples – skim over them and get on
to the next major point. It is more
important to have gotten the gist of an entire book than to master every aspect
of the first one-third of it.
Participation in
Discussion
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
based on the assigned readings – and I expect everyone to take
part. I will do my best to insure each
student has ample opportunity to contribute, but, ultimately, it will be
up to you to make certain that you remain an active participant rather than a
passive observer. The seminar will be more enjoyable for everyone involved if
all of you participate actively in the discussions.
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. Each
discussion leader should meet with me briefly to go over his or her questions.
(If need be, this exchange can be done over email.) Optimally, the discussion
leader will have finished writing the questions at least 24 hours before the
seminar so I can distribute them to everyone via email attachment. If you have
not led a discussion before, I recommend setting up an appointment with me so
we can discuss some strategies for leading effective discussions. Your leading
of discussion will not receive a grade per se, but will be taken into
account in the calculation of your participation grade.
Précis
One person will be
responsible for producing a single-spaced 2-3 page précis of the readings for
each week. This assignment is meant to
be a more of a summary than a review, however, in the first paragraph
you should also discuss the book’s structure, its central themes and arguments,
and its use of sources. The person who
writes the précis should email it to me as an attachment at least 3 hours
before class so I can proofread it and make copies for the rest of the class.
This assignment, too, will not receive a grade per se, though in
calculating your participation grade, I will take into account the quality of
and amount of effort you appear to have put in to writing your précis.
Oral
Presentation/Analytical Essay
One person will be
responsible for producing a 1500-word essay based on or relating to the
assigned reading each week. This may be handled in one of four ways:
1) a summary of the
book’s critical reception and your own reaction to it;
2)
a historiographical review that explains where the assigned book or articles
fit within the existing secondary literature (you might counter pose the
assigned reading against a book or article that takes a contrary point of
view);
3)
a presentation that focuses on a particular theme or argument in the week’s
reading that you found especially interesting and wanted to explore further in
other sources;
4)
a report grounded in primary sources in which you examine such sources to see
if they lead you to the same kinds of interpretations that the author offers.
I
can provide you with both primary source suggestions and historiographical
background, so don’t hesitate to ask.
Also, though it is not required, feel free to include an audio-visual
component if you think it would enhance your presentation. At some point during class, usually right
after the break, you will have the floor to present your findings and field
questions from the class. Please do not extend your presentation
beyond 15 minutes. The written
assignment is due a week from the date of your presentation. Your grade will
take into account both the quality of your oral presentation and the
paper. I will evaluate your oral
presentation based on organization and content as well as on the quality of
your delivery.
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. 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. I recommend drawing on a variety of book
chapters and articles. After your
reading has made you an “expert” on the topic, summarize your findings and
offer your own insights and analysis in a double-spaced 10-12 page essay. The paper should be analytical rather than
narrative – that is, it should make an argument rather than tell a story. The more sources you incorporate, the more
thorough your essay will be. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the
number of sources, but anything under five major sources will likely produce a
rather thin piece of historical analysis. Also, since this is a semester project, not a “last two weeks
of the semester project,” your final product should reflect a semester’s worth
of work and will be evaluated accordingly.
So as
to prevent you from putting this assignment off until the last moment, I will
ask for a tentative bibliography with brief annotations at the mid-point of the
semester.
During weeks ten and eleven, I will hold extra office
hours to meet with you to discuss your topic. At this point, you should have
completed most of the reading for your project and be well on your way toward
completing a first draft. I highly recommend submitting a complete draft by the
end of week 12 (two weeks before the due date). Though submitting a draft is
not required, having the chance to respond to my comments is likely to improve
the finished product.
Final
Essay
In your final essay, you will choose a theme
from the course that is of particular interest to you and compose an essay
demonstrating how various course readings address or develop that theme. We
will discuss potential themes throughout the semester, but, ultimately, the
choice of theme is yours. I recommend that you complete each week’s reading
with the final essay in mind – take notes that indicate how different aspects
of the assigned works fit into the theme you are considering for your final
essay. We will meet during the period
scheduled for the final exam to discuss your essays. The essay will be due in
class that evening.
Bringing
Food
On one occasion during the semester, each
person will bring a snack for the entire class to enjoy at the break. Optimally, your culinary contribution will be
related in some way to that week’s discussion topic. Creativity and
originality are always appreciated.
Surviving History
577…
Attendance
It
is important, and it is expected, that you will attend 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 bring down your final grade.
Any absences beyond four will put you in jeopardy of failing the course.
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 précis of no more than 1500 words 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.
Resources
Specialized
Journals in the Field
Labor
History
Labor:
Studies in Working-Class History of the
International
Labor and Working Class History
Radical
History Review
Journal
of Social History
Labour/Le
Travail
On-line
Bibliographies
http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-831/831bib.html
http://www.albany.edu/history/history316/Laborbib1.html
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/labor/labor-bib.html
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Quad/6460/AmLabHist/
Links
to Working-Class History Resources
http://www.tntech.edu/history/labor.html
[Guide to Labor History resources on the internet]
http://calpedia.sfsu.edu/calabor/bibliography.html
[California Labor History]
http://www.afscme.org/publications/10404.cfm
[Women’s Labor History]
http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/ [Illinois
Labor History Society]
Archives
The
Special Collections Department at Oviatt Library features one of the best
working-class/labor related archival collections in
Videos/Documentaries
Life
and Times of Rosie the Riveter, Daughters of Free Men, Company Town, Heartland,
The Great Sit Down, Modern Times, The Homefront, The Wobblies, Brass Valley,
1877: The Grand Army of Starvation, The River Ran Red, The Killing Floor, Union
Maids, Seeing Red, The Global Assembly Line, Controlling Interest, With Babies
and Banners, Salt of the Earth, Harlan County, USA, Clockwork, Bullet
Bargaining at Ludlow, The Great Sitdown, Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle,
Matewan, Norma Rae, The Women of Summer, Business of America, Seeing Red,
Northern Lights, The Prize, Minimum Wages: The New Economy, The Great Depression,
Out of the Depths: The Miners' Story, Los Mineros, Our Land Too!: The STFU,
Roger and Me, Cesar Chaves and the Farmworkers' Movement, The Textile Strike of
1934.
Discussion Topics and Assignments
January
21 Introduction and
Overview
Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and
Society in Industrializing America, pp. 3-77
Sean Wilentz, “The Rise of the
America Working Class, 1776-1877: A Survey”
January 28 “Boxing,
Blackface, Bowery B’hoys, and the Bible:” Antebellum Worker Thought and Culture
in the North
Elliott Gorn, The Manly Art:
Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America, Chapter 4
Alexander Saxton, “Blackface Minstrelsy
and Jacksonian Ideology,” American Quarterly 27 (1975): 3-28
Bruce Laurie,
Working People of Philadelphia, Chapters 2-5
Richard Butsch, The Making of American
Audiences, Chapters 3-4, 6
Nigel Cliff, The Shakespeare Riots,
Chapter 10
Jama Lazerow, Religion and the Working Class in Antebellum America, pp. Introduction, Chapters 9, 11
February 4 “Work
was all we Did:” Slave Labor in the Antebellum South
Charles
Joyner, Down by the
February 11 “Coal Country:” Life and Labor in
Denise Giardina, Storming Heaven
Ronald D. Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, Chapter
5
Optional
Robert Shogan, “A Power Keg Ready to Blow”
February 18 “Knights Unhorsed”: Labor Political Activism in the
Gilded Age
Reading: Richard Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics
February 25 “Life among the Lintheads”: Family,
Work, and Community in the Cotton Mill South
Jacquelyn D. Hall,
et al., Like a Family
March 4 “Into the Great Wide Open”:
Hoboes and Homeless
Kenneth
L. Kusmer, Down and Out on the Road
March 11 “Beware
the State?” Government-Labor Relations in the 20th Century
Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and
Labor in Modern
March 18 “Workers
Become Consumers:” The Emergence of the Modern Labor Force
March 25 “From Paternalism to Federal Protection:” Redefining
Workers’ Rights
Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal
April 1 “Catholic Workers and Union
Activism:” A Neglected Story
Kenneth
J. Heineman, A Catholic New Deal
April 8 SPRING BREAK
April 15 “Not in my Backyard!” Working Class Racism in the Postwar
Era
Thomas J. Sugrue, Origins of the
Urban Crisis
April
22 “Bringing Home the Bacon:” Jimmy Hoffa
and the Teamsters
Thaddeus Russell, Out of the Jungle
April 29 “Workers against Liberalism:” The Fraying of the New Deal
Coalition
Kenneth D. Durr, Behind the
Backlash
May 6 “Life
on Line:” Deindustrialization and Worker Disillusionment
Ben Hamper, Rivethead
Jefferson Cowie, “‘Vigorously Left, Right, and Center:’ The
Crosscurrents of Working-Class
May 13 Summing Up