History 220

Spring 2018

Tues. and Thurs. 9:30-10:50WPH 205

Prof. Halttunenemail:

Office: SOS 162Office hours: Tues. and Thurs. 11:00-12:00

MURDER ON TRIAL IN AMERICA

The Rev. Ephraim Avery strangles pregnant millworker Sarah Avery, 1832

This course examines high-profile murders and murder trials in American history from the colonial period to the present, in order to explore the major social, political, and cultural issues illuminated by flashpointmurders and the resulting trials. (The term “flashpoint”refers to a place, event, or time at which trouble, such as anger or violence, flares up.) Cases to be covered include the colonial murder of the Indian John Sassamon that triggered King Philip’s War, the assassination of Lincoln and its impact on Reconstruction, the Sacco and Vanzetti case that reflected and fed national anxieties about immigration and the Red Scare, and the lynching of Emmett Till that galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. While offering a thematic overview of four centuries of American history, this course focuses on the ways that crimes of murder and legal responses to them have both expressedandshaped major crises in the nation’s history.

This course fulfills one of the lower-division requirements for the History major, and provides an introduction to the Law, History, and Culture major.

Learning objectives

Students in History 220 will learn how to understand historical events and processes through the analysis of the raw evidence of the past (primary sources); assess the conflicting interpretations advanced by previous historians (secondary sources); and craft their own interpretations by drawing on both primary and secondary sources. They will improve their abilities to express their own ideas and interpretations effectively through discussion, debate, and written work. Students will also explore the significance of past developments for present-day concerns, while at the same time respecting the pastness of the past, and the critical importance of different contexts and worldviews in shaping historical choices and outcomes.

With reference to the specific subject of History 220, students will come to understand prominent crimes of murder not simply as isolated acts of human violence, but as flashpoints for larger crises faced by Americans across nearly four centuries. They will also learn to analyze the ways that criminal trials and punishments attempted—sometimes successfully, often not—to use the law to resolve those larger crises. They will acquire new understanding of such major issues in American history as race and gender, the nature of democratic authority, industrialization and class conflict, slavery and antislavery, immigration and nativism, and counterculture.

Assigned readings

There is no book order for this course. All reading assignments—a mixture of primary and secondary sources—are available on-line, either on public websites or on Blackboard.

Course requirements

1.Class participation: 20% of final grade. Students should come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings for that week. You will find the reading assignment for each week just below the title for that week’s topic.

2.5-page paper on the Sarah Cornell murder: 20% of final grade.

3.A midterm exam: 20% of final grade.

4.5-page paper on the lynching of Emmett Till: 20% of final grade.

5.5- page final paper: 20% of final grade.

PLEASE NOTE: All written assignments should be emailed to the instructor at . The Cornell and Till papers are due at 9:30 AM on the deadline dates; the final paper is due at 10 AM on May 8. PLEASE SUBMIT THESE ASSIGNMENTS AS WORD DOCATTACHMENTS.

Additional policies

Because deadline extensions are unfair to those students who submit their work on time, they will be granted only for significant anddocumented medical or personal reasons. Late assignments will be penalized as follows: late submissions on the due date will lose 3 points, and each subsequent day of lateness will be penalized by an additional 5 points.

Missed classes will damage a student’s participation grade. Students who request excused absencesin advance (for medical, personal, or other reasons) can make up the absence by completing a brief written assignment within one week of the missed class.

CLASS SCHEDULE

WEEK 1. FLASHPOINT MURDERS AND MAJOR ISSUES IN AMERICAN HISTORY

Tues. Jan. 9Introduction

Thurs. Jan. 11Flashpoint Murders in American History

WEEK 2. INDIANS AND COLONISTS IN EARLY AMERICA

READ

  • William Hubbard, A Narrative of the Trouble with the Indians (Boston, 1677), at pp. 9-74
  • Philip Ranlet, “Another Look at the Causes of King Philip’s War,” New England Quarterly 61:1 (March 1988): 79-100 (pdf on Blackboard)

Tues. Jan. 16Indians and Colonists in Early New England

Thurs. Jan. 18The Death of John Sassamon and King Philip’s War

WEEK 3. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF PATRIARCHY

READ

  • Stephen Mix Mitchell, A Narrative of the Life of William Beadle (pdf on Blackboard)
  • Daniel A. Cohen, “Homicidal Compulsion and the Conditions of Freedom: The Social and Psychological Origins of Familicide in America’s Early Republic,” Journal of Social History 28:4 (Summer 1995): 725-764 (pdf on Blackboard)

Tues. Jan. 23William Beadle, Family-Killer

Thurs. Jan. 25.Revolutionary America and the Problem of Patriarchy

WEEK 4. RELIGION, GENDER, AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION I

READ

  • Catherine Williams, Fall River: An Authentic Narrative (1834), pp. v-112, at
  • William G. McLoughlin, “Untangling the Tiverton Tragedy: The Social Meaning of the Terrible Haystack Murder of 1833,” Journal of American Culture 7:4 (Winter 1984): 75-84 (pdf on Blackboard)

Tues. Jan. 30Sarah Cornell and Industrialization in New England

Thurs. Feb. 1Methodists and the Second Great Awakening

WEEK 5. RELIGION, GENDER, AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION II

READ

  • Richard Hildreth, A Report of the Trial of the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery, Before the Supreme Judicial Court of Rhode Island (Boston, 1833) (143 pp.) at nell%20Ephraim%20Avery&f=false

Tues. Feb. 6Mill-owners, Methodists, and the Trial of Rev. Ephraim Avery

Thurs. Feb. 8DISCUSSION OF THE SARAH CORNELL MURDER

WEEK 6. SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY

READ the following selections from the “Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855) website at

  • Douglas Linder, “Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855), introductory essay WITH EMBEDDED LINKS (Celia website)
  • “Chronology” (Celia website)
  • “Celia’s Story” (Celia website)
  • “Trial Testimony” (Celia website: CLICK ON ALL LINKS to access)
  • ALSO READ Wilma King, “’Mad’ Enough to Kill: Enslaved Women, Murder, and Southern Courts,” The Journal of African American History 92:1 (Winter 2007): 37-56 (pdf on Blackboard)

Tues. Feb. 13Celia, A Slave

Thurs. Feb. 15DISCUSSION OF CELIA’S MURDER TRIAL

WEEK 7. THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION AND RECONSTRUCTION

Tues. Feb. 20John Wilkes Booth, American Brutus

Thurs. Feb. 22The Trial of the Lincoln Conspirators

PAPER DUE ON SARAH CORNELL MURDER. Please email it as a WORD DOC ATTACHMENT to no later than 9:30 AM.

Write a 5-page paper on the following: Based on your close reading of Hildreth’s Report on the Trial of the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery, what sorts of tensions and fault lines in New England society were revealed or opened by the Sarah Cornell murder? PLEASE SUBMIT THIS ASSIGNMENT AS A WORD DOC ATTACHMENT.

WEEK 8. MIDTERM EXAM

Tues. Feb. 27EXAM-PREP DISCUSSION OF FLASHPOINT MURDERS

Thurs. March 1IN-CLASS MIDTERM EXAMINATION

WEEK 9. RACIAL VIOLENCE IN THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDERLANDS

READ the following selections from the “Shadows at Dawn” website (“SAD”) at

(If this link doesn’t work, you can find the site by Googling “Shadows at Dawn Jacoby.”)

  • “The Event” (SAD website)
  • “The Trial” (SAD website)
  • “The Peoples” (read the Introduction AND each section on the four peoples) (SAD website)
  • “The Places” (SAD website)
  • “The Treaty” (SAD website)
  • “The Documents: Newspaper Articles (1871).” Just to be clear: Your primary-source readings for this week consist of ALL newspaper articles on the website. You will find them listed under “Document Index” on the main page for “The Documents.” Clicking on “Newspaper Articles” will take you to a brief overview of newspaper coverage (left-hand column), and a list of 22 newspaper articles (right-hand column). Click on EACH article to read it.

Tues. March 6The Camp Grant Massacre, 1871

Thurs. March 8DISCUSSION: CAMP GRANT IN THE AMERICAN PRESS

SPRING BREAK MARCH 12-16

WEEK 10. IMMIGRATION AND THE RED SCARE

READ the following selections from “The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, 1921” website

  • Douglas Linder, “The Sacco-Vanzetti Case: An Account” (S and V website)
  • “Chronology” (S and V website)
  • “The Red Scare” (S and V website)
  • “Excerpts from Trial Transcript” (S and V website)
  • “Statements at Sentencing” (S and V website)

Tues. March 20Sacco and Vanzetti: The Backdrop

Thurs. March 22Sacco and Vanzetti: The Aftermath

WEEK 11. “UN-AMERICANISM” DURING WORLD WAR II

READ

  • “Report of the Citizens' Committee for the Defense of Mexican-American Youth” (1942), at
  • People v. Zammora, at
  • Eduardo Obregon Pagan, “Los Angeles Geopolitics and the Zoot Suit Riot, 1943,” at Social Science History 24:1 (Spring 2000): 223-256 (pdf on Blackboard).

Tues. March 27Murder at Sleepy Lagoon

Thurs. March 29The Zoot Suit Riots and World War II Los Angeles

WEEK 12. LYNCHING AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT I

READ the following selections from the “Emmett Till Murder Trial, 1955” website at

  • Douglas Linder, “The Emmett Till Murder Trial: An Account” (Till website)
  • “Chronology” (Till website)
  • “Accounts of Grocery Store Incident” (Till website)
  • “Accounts of Abduction” (Till website)
  • “Sheriff: ‘Not Till’s Body’” (Till website)
  • “Trial Testimony” (CLICK ON EACH LINK) (Till website)

Tues. April 3Segregation and the Lynching of Emmett Till

Thurs. April 5The Trial of Bryant and Milam

WEEK 13. LYNCHING AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT II

READ further selections from the “Emmett Till Murder Trial” website:

  • “Bryant and Milam’s 1956 Confession” (Till website)
  • William Faulkner, “On Fear: The South in Labor” (pdf on Blackboard)
  • “FBI Report on Till Murder” (2006:note this date) (Till website)
  • “Emmett Till in Song” (Till website)

Tues. April 10Emmett Till and the Civil Rights Movement

Thurs. April 12DISCUSSION OF THE EMMETT TILL LYNCHING

WEEK 14. NIGHTMARE OF THE COUNTERCULTURE?

READ the following selections from the “The Trial of Charles Manson, 1970-71,” at

  • Douglas Linder, “The Trial of Charles Manson” (Manson website)
  • “Chronology” (Manson website)
  • “The Defendants” (Manson website)
  • “Manson’s Statements and Doodle” (Manson website)
  • “Trial Transcript Excerpts” (Manson website)
  • Joan Didion, “The White Album” (pdf on Blackboard)
  • “Charles Manson Was Not a Product of the Counterculture,” at

Tues. April 17“Helter-Skelter”: The Manson Family and the Counterculture

Thurs. April 19DISCUSSION OF THE MANSON MURDERS

WEEK 15. MURDER AND THE UNFINISHED CIVIL WAR

Tues. April 24Dylann Roof and the Charleston Church Shooting, 2015

PAPER DUE ON EMMETT TILL LYNCHING. Please email it as a WORD DOC ATTACHMENT to no later than 9:30 AM.

Write a 5-page paper exploring the relationship between race and sex in the ideology of white supremacy as illuminated by the murder of Emmett Till and the trial of his killers. PLEASE SUBMIT THIS ASSIGNMENT AS A WORD DOC ATTACHMENT.

Thurs. April 26Conclusion

FINAL PROJECT DUE ON TUESDAY, MAY 8 AT 10 AM

Write a 5-page essay on the historical usefulness of the concept of “flashpoint murder.” In your essay, compare and contrasttwo of the murders studied in this course NOT INCLUDING the murders of Sarah Cornell or Emmett Till. The best essays will use the two case studies to make a broaderargument for the historical value of studying flashpoint murders. Please email your essay to no later than 10 AM. PLEASE SUBMIT THIS ASSIGNMENT AS A WORD DOC ATTACHMENT.

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Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Website and contact information for DSP: (213) 740-0776 (Phone), (213) 740-6948 (TDD only), (213) 740-8216 (FAX) .

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