History 579

Devine

Spring 2011

 

First Analytical Essay Assignment

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Your first essay is due Saturday March 5th 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. Late essays will be penalized, so please turn your assignment in on time.

 

I prefer you email me the paper since this is the best way to ensure that it does not get lost. When you email me, you should also 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.

 

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 by using the “insert page number” feature on your word processor.

 

• Give your essay a title that indicates what the paper is about. (Something more revealing than “Essay #1” or “Tarzan”) 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. (Burroughs, 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?)

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.    Between the1890s and the 1920s, the United States shifted from a Victorian, genteel, producer-oriented culture to an urban, industrialized, consumerist, and modern culture. How was this gradual yet profound shift reflected in the popular entertainments of the time – for example, the rise of New York nightlife along Broadway, the emergence of cabarets and “friendly” entertainers like Sophie Tucker, the opening of amusement parks like those on Coney Island, the success of films featuring more open displays of sexuality?

 

  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?

 

3.    How does the popularity of both Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1914) and the films of Douglas Fairbanks reflect what the historian John Higham has called “the reorientation of American culture” that first began in the 1890s?

 

  1. Both Tarzan and Rudolph Valentino embodied different notions of “the ideal man.”  Tarzan seemed to appeal more to men, Valentino to women. Write an essay in which you compare and contrast these two idealized versions of masculinity and indicate why men preferred Tarzan and women Valentino.  Taking into account the historical context and shifting cultural values of this period, why would this be so?  What qualities made each figure “ideal” in the eyes of his admirers? What qualities did they share? What qualities made them different? Why did men admire Tarzan but denounce Valentino?

 

  1. Both Tarzan and Sam Spade were idealized masculine characters immensely popular with contemporary audiences. Do you find their similarities or their differences to be more striking?  To what extent do the cultural contexts that produced them account for their differences and similarities?