America: from Revolution to Republic, Part II

HIST3198

America: From Revolution to Republic, Part II

University of Southampton

History

Dr Rachel Herrmann

Office: Building 65, Room 2057

Email:

Office Hours: Mondays, 10-11, and Tuesdays 1-2

Table of Contents

Introduction p. 3

Teaching Aims, Learning Outcomes, & Learning Activitiesp. 4

How Classes will Run p. 6

Discussion Leaders’ Responsibilitiesp. 6

Your Preparationp. 7

Assessment, Plagiarism, & Attendancep. 8

Recommended Textsp. 9

The Programme in Brief p. 10

The Programme in Detail p. 11

Assessments in Detail p. 29

Introduction

As Jeffersonian America evolved into Jacksonian America, tensions continued unabated. Fuelled by the desire for new territory, American inhabitants flooded the continent in search of land, gold, and cotton. The Age of Jackson witnessed brutal conflicts in Indian affairs as well as an outpouring of writing on the state of slavery in the United States. The second half of this module will continue to explore themes relative to the later decades of the early republic while also providing support to you as you embark on dissertation writing.

Teaching Aims

Provide linked case studies of people living in the Early American Republic within a wider examination of early American, Revolutionary, and antebellum (pre-Civil War) history.

Provide an overview of the Early American Republic and the events that preceded the Civil War.

Explore diplomacy, warfare, and peaceful interactions and race relations between American inhabitants, Native Americans, slaves, and Britons from roughly 1815-1861.

Explain how your work challenges the historiography of the Early Republic

Support you as you analyse the primary sources and synthesise the historiography necessary to write your dissertation

Learning Outcomes

Read eighteenth- and nineteenth-century letters, handwriting, and military documents.

Interpret primary sources in class discussions, during meetings with me, and in your essays.

Communicate effectively in class discussions.

Identify different types of history, such as military, social and cultural history.

Synthesize secondary source literature in informal class discussions, during meetings with me, and in your essays.

Assess and critique the validity of arguments that previous historians have made about said sources.

Find and integrate evidence from online databases to support the arguments you make using printed primary and secondary source materials.

Reflect on the use of databases for writing about the history of the early republic.

Demonstrate an engagement with the literature and wider reading of it that reaches beyond that normally displayed in the second year.

Construct an easy-to-follow essay containing an introduction, thesis statement, counterargument, and conclusion.

Employ a convincing scholarly tone in your essays that strikes a balance between primary source analysis and synthesis of the secondary literature.

Accurately and clearly choose evidence from your readings to support the arguments you make for your ‘gobbets’ exam.

Produce a comprehensive overview of the secondary literature on a chosen research topic.

Display effective time management, not least in adhering to a timetable for the research and writing of a not insubstantial piece of historical investigation.

Learning Activities

Preparatory reading before each seminar.

Independent exploration of the weekly database.

Participation in group and seminar discussion.

Preparation for and leading of seminar discussion.

Independent reading of the sources provided and of related secondary works.

Independent research on additional source materials.

Essay-writing.

Revision.

How Classes Will Run

This class has no lectures, though there may be moments during which I provide some necessary background on the readings. Each week we will have two, two-hour seminars. I will lead the first seminar, which will focus on an interrelated set of secondary source readings. The second seminar of the week will run a bit differently than some of the other seminars you have encountered during your time at Southampton. During the first half hour of the second seminar, you will not hear me speak. Instead, student seminar leaders will choose to run the class in whatever way they wish—unconventional seminar formats are encouraged! During the second half hour, student seminar leaders will be responsible for taking classmates on a tour through that week’s assigned online database in order to explore various repositories of sources related to early American history. In the second half of the seminar I will jump in to make sure that everyone takes away what they’re meant to take away from the readings.

During the second seminar I will be a partial observer rather than a participant because I expect you, as third years, to take charge of your own learning. During the weeks when you are a discussion leader, you have two responsibilities before the start of class: emailing classmates with a list of discussion questions, and exploring the weekly database in depth.

Each week, in addition to our primary and secondary source readings, we will be exploring a digital database of primary sources. Before class meets, even if you are not the discussion leader, you will be expected to spend at least five minutes opening the week’s website, looking around, and experimenting with keyword searches. Based on the week’s primary and secondary source readings, you should try to formulate a research question to ask the database, and to figure out how you’d start to answer it if you had to write a paper responding to the question. The point of this exercise is to give you practice setting your own questions (which you need to do for the essays, as well as the dissertation next semester), and to figure out which sources may be useful for your dissertations. NOTE: You should have access to every database necessary for this class, but in some cases you may need to be logged in with your VPN for access.

Discussion Leaders’ Responsibilities

Seminar Questions

During the week when you are a discussion leader it is your responsibility, by 2 p.m. on Sunday, to use Blackboard to send an email to me and all of your classmates, with a list of potential discussion questions for the second seminar. You are then welcome to drop into my office hours (see the front of this handbook for details; if you are coming during office hours then you do not need to make an appointment) to discuss your strategy for leading class discussion—this is not a requirement, but you are very welcome to do so. Remember: you will be responsible for leading and maintaining class discussion for the first half hour of the second seminar of the week.

Database Tour

In addition to leading class discussion during the second seminar of the week, discussion leaders will be responsible for

A) Giving their classmates a digital ‘tour’ through the week’s database, and explaining how it works.

B) Presenting the research question they have come up with.

C) Showing what search terms, pages, and sections of the website they looked at to begin to answer their question. Questions to address might include

i. What search parameters did you use? Did you use a basic search or an advanced search?

ii. How did you narrow down (or widen) your search?

iii. What did you find that surprised you?

D) Presenting preliminary answers to their research question.

Your Preparation

This module focuses on a large period of time, but as your first and second year classes have emphasized, the study of history is less about providing a comprehensive overview of everything that has ever happened, and more a selective study of interrelated arguments and interpretations. You should not approach this module hoping to learn everything there is to know about the early republic, but you should expect to emerge from the class feeling like a historian-in-the-making who is capable of tackling the dissertation.

Think of this class as a more advanced version of your second year classes. It is vital that you organise your time efficiently in order to keep up with the higher level of reading expected in year three. In the first seminar of each week you will note that at least one reading will be an older reading, whilst others will be more recent (within the last 5-10 years). This choice is intentional, and is meant to give you a sense of how historiography has changed over time so that you are better equipped to write your first essay. This choice does mean that required reading is required. If you find yourself struggling to do it all please come see me in office hours so that we can discuss reading strategies. Do also keep in mind, however, that the module description for this class states that you will have 256 hours of private study time per semester. This means that you should aim to average a minimum of 21 hours a week for reading, writing and preparation in order to get the most out of your time on the module, and to ensure that you don’t struggle to achieve the module aims and objectives. Because there are no lectures, it is crucial that everyone reads around the topic and comes prepared to contribute to class discussion.

Assessment

Oral presentation, worth 0%, to take place in class during the week you lead seminar discussion.
1,000 word reflective essay worth 20%, due Thursday, 25 February at 4 p.m.
4,000 word source-based essay worth 40%, due Thursday, 17 March at 4 p.m.
Oral presentation on your dissertation, worth 0%, to take place in class during our dissertation workshop on 19 April.
Final exam worth 40%, taken during the exam period from 16 May to 5 June.

Detailed discussion of these different assessments is available at the end of this handbook.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a form of cheating that involves copying or paraphrasing someone else’s work without attribution, and you face serious consequences if you are caught doing it. In order to successfully avoid plagiarism, you will need to know how to properly reference your work and cite sources. For further guidance, see the History Undergraduate Student Handbook.

Attendance

Attendance at all sessions is compulsory and a register will be taken.

If you have to miss a lecture or seminar for a good reason, such as a job interview, let me know in advance if at all possible, and find out the necessary preparation for the following week. If you miss a class through illness, please let me know why as soon as you are able.
Keep in mind that the knowledge you need for the exam at the end of the second half of this module is acquired cumulatively through the entire year. Students who miss sessions will likely struggle to do well on the exam.
If you have missed two classes without offering an adequate explanation for your absence, I will contact you; if you miss three classes, the coordinator will contact your personal tutor. Multiple absences from seminars is likely to result in the failure of the module. Absence from seminars will be recorded on your file and may be invoked at the final examination meeting as an element in the adjudication of your final degree result. Poor attendance is also likely to be mentioned in any reference you may subsequently ask me to write for you.

Recommended Texts

I have ordered the following books from October Books:

Mark Cheathem, Andrew Jackson, Southerner, (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2013) 9780807162316 (recommended)

Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000) 978-0-393-32099-2 (recommended)

Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 0199892490 (recommended)

As I said last semester, when you’re feeling out of your depth I’d remind you that your first port of call should be The American Yawp, a crowd-sourced textbook providing an overview on all time periods in American history. It is available online at < Each chapter contains a useful bibliography for additional research. In your essays, I would expect you to draw on these additional works rather than on The American Yawp for the majority of your citations.

Many of the readings from the syllabus are drawn from Early American Studies, the Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of Southern History and the William and Mary Quarterly. I have left off many readings in the American Historical Review, Journal of American History, and Slavery & Abolition to encourage you to conduct your own exploratory research.

The following additional books may prove useful background for the module:

Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

William M. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, Vol. 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)

Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Module Programme in Brief

Week 1, Beginning 25 January: Frances Trollope

Week 2, Beginning 1 February: John Ross

Week 3, Beginning 8 February: Henry Clay

Week 4, Beginning 15 February: William Apess

Week 5, Beginning 22 February: Matthias the Prophet

Essay 1 Due Thursday

Week 6, Beginning 29 February: Helen Jewett

Week 7, Beginning 7 March: David Crockett

Week 8, Beginning 14 March: Fellow Travellers on the Oregon Trail

Essay 2 Due Thursday

NB: No seminar on Wednesday, BUT come to Hamilton event

Week 9, Beginning 18 April: Andrew Jackson

Dissertation Workshop seminar 1

Week 10, Beginning 25 April: Fanny Kemble

Week 11, Beginning 2 May: Frederick Douglass

Week 12, Beginning 9 May: Revision

The Programme in Detail

Week 1, Beginning 25 January: Frances Trollope

Session 1: Background reading on part 2 of the Special Subject

Required Reading

The American Yawp, ch. 7-13. Available online: < NB: You’re not expected to read all chapters; students will read only one chapter, which they will tackle in pairs.

Session 2: America from the Outside In

Required Reading

Francis Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, ed. John Lauritz Larson (St. James, New York: Brandywine Press), viii-xxi, 18-25, 31-6, 63-6, 108-22, 205-10. (Blackboard)

Seminar Leaders: Class