History 495/713
Social Justice in the New Nation
Fall 2018
Professor Terry Bouton
Phone: 410-455-2056
Email: bouton[at]umbc.edu
Office: 510 Fine Arts
Office Hours: Tues. and Thurs: 2:45pm-3:45pm; Tues.: 6:15pm-7:00pm and by appointment
(It is always best to email before you plan to come to office hours to ensure that we haven’t already scheduled another student for that time).
Course Webpage: https://terrybouton.wordpress.com/hist-495-713-social-justice-in-the-new-nation-fa-2018/
*I would advise book-marking this page since it has links to all the documents and assignments*
Course Meeting Place: Fine Arts 533
Course Meeting Time: Tues. 7:10pm-9:40pm
Course Description:
This course is seminar that will investigate the broad theme of social justice from the American Revolution to the eve of the Civil War. We will explore how different people conceived of social justice, probe the lived experiences of those who claim to have been denied social justice, and examine movements aimed at reform in the name of social justice. Students will try to understand how and why particular ideas of social justice emerged and how they changed over time. We’ll consider factors such as class, race, gender, ideology, region, politics, and religion. The course will pay particular attention to the advocates of social justice: abolitionists, middle class reformers, slave rebels, Christian evangelicals, the first proponents of women’s rights, insurgent Native Americans, and activists in the early labor movement. The course will investigate how these reformers and reform movements began, identify their strategies for achieving change, and assess the successes and failures of those efforts.
This course is a seminar that will be composed of weekly reading, writing, and in-class discussion. Each week will involve reading a book that touches on social justice in the early-to-mid 19th century. Students will write weekly essays based on the books and then discuss their ideas during in-class discussions.
Learning Objectives:
- Develop skills in critically analyzing historical ideas, arguments, and evidence
- Make strong, clear arguments and support those arguments with effective use of quotes and specific examples from primary and secondary historical sources
- Write cogent, coherent, well organized, and persuasive essays—and gain insights on how to apply good writing techniques to other courses and projects
- Develop an understanding of the various ways different people in the new American republic conceived of social justice and the historical context(s) that gave rise to those beliefs
- Analyze the reformers and reform movements of the period
- Consider the influences and intersections shaping social justice of such factors as: economics, politics, ideology, race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, and geography.
Readings:
The following are available for purchase at the campus bookstore. If you’re shopping for used copies, you may be able to save some money by purchasing from www.amazon.com, http://half.ebay.com/index.jsp or www.bookfinder.com.
1) Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn, ISBN-13: 978-0674004313
2) Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860, (Paperback), ISBN-13: 978-0252014819
3) Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 25th Anniversary ed. Edition, Hill and Wang; 25th Anniversary ed. edition (June 21, 2004), ISBN-10: 0809016354, ISBN-13: 978-0809016358
4) Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity, Yale University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0300050608
5) Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic, University of Pennsylvania Press; Reissue edition (December 9, 2008), ISBN-10: 0812220730, ISBN-13: 978-0812220735
6) Lori D. Ginzberg, Women in Antebellum Reform (The American History Series), Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (January 18, 2000), ISBN-10: 0882959514, ISBN-13: 978-0882959511
7) Stephanie M. H. Camp, Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2004), ISBN-10: 0807855340, ISBN-13: 978-080785534
8) Daniel Rasmussen, American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt Paperback, Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (January 17, 2012), ISBN-10: 0061995223, ISBN-13: 978-006199522
9) Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Paperback), Yale University Press; Reprint edition (February 21, 2017), ISBN-10: 0300227116, ISBN-13: 978-0300227116
10) Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816 (Studies in North American Indian History), Cambridge University Press (August 28, 1999), ISBN-10: 052166943X, ISBN-13: 978-0521669436
11) Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians, Hill & Wang, 1993, ISBN-13: 978-0809015528
Requirements:
The various assignments for the course will produce a possible 300 points. Your total grade for the class will be determined by tallying your scores the following five elements:
Participation: 100 pts.
Discussion Postings: 1,000 pts.
Reflection Posting: 100 pts.
TOTAL GRADE: 1,200 pts.
At the end of the semester:
1,080 – 1,200 points will be an A
960 – 1,079 points will be a B
840 – 959 points will be a C
720 – 839 points will be a D
Below 720 points will be an F
NOTE: Students taking HIST on a Credit/No Credit basis should remember that the university requires that you earn a final grade of at least a C to receive credit for the course. History majors and potential history majors need a C or better for the credits to count toward the major.
1) Class Participation (100 points):
The success of this class will require active participation by every student. Effective participation starts with preparation: reading the books, understanding them, and thinking through the issues they raise—before you step into the classroom. Participation also means engaging in the class discussion. This doesn’t mean answering one question and sitting quietly for the rest of class. It means participating throughout the evening and speaking up when you have something to add to the discussion. I understand that some people are shy and feel awkward participating. But you’re going to need to work through your reticence and speak up if you want a good participation grade. I can’t read minds and won’t be able to give you credit for ideas you have while you’re sitting in class that you don’t share with the group.
To facilitate discussion, every week will feature two discussion leaders who will prepare questions about the books, focusing on the
2) Discussion Postings:
Weekly Short Essays (1,000 points: 12 essays, each worth 100 points, I’ll drop the lowest two essays):
Every week you will post an analytical essay (about 5 pages) to the Blackboard discussion board which analyzes the week’s book from the perspective of social justice. I don’t want a “book report” where you parrot back the author’s main points and repeat the book’s narrative. Instead, you should write a critical analysis. I’ll provide a specific set of questions for each book to guide your essays. Nevertheless, the format will remain largely the same. Each week your objective is to discuss how this book helps to illuminate the themes and issues of social justice that we are discussing this semester. I’ll leave room for flexibility. If there are particular issues in the book that grabbed your attention or that relate to your research or interests, you’re free to concentrate the essay on those issues. I’m especially happy if you use the essay to make connections between the book and earlier readings or class discussions. Keep in mind that, when you take such a comparative approach, I expect most of the essay will deal with the current week’s reading, not just rehash previous readings.
The goal is to develop an analytical essay that makes an argument (or series of arguments) and then dramatizes your points with quotes and examples taken from the text. I expect good organization (i.e. paragraphs organized around a single central argument that begin with strong topic sentences that spell out what the paragraph is trying to say). I also expect numerous examples to demonstrate your point. If you do not include specific examples and quotations (with page numbers included), I will assume that you didn’t read the book and relied instead on published book reviews and will grade you accordingly.
The grade for reading discussion will depend on the quality of your posts to the Blackboard Discussion Board, which I will treat as short papers. There will be TWELVE posting assignments throughout the semester, each worth 100 points. Only your best TEN scores will count toward your grade. You MUST read all the books even if you choose not to complete the essays for two of them.
To receive full credit, you must make your posting by 7:00PM on the Monday before class. If you do not finish your posting by class time, DO NOT cut class to submit a posting; simply submit it after class. I will deduct DOUBLE the number of late points for any posting submitted during the time the class meets.
IMPORTANT: I require everyone to save a personal copy of all of their discussion postings on their home computer, thumb drive, cloud service, or whatever other storage device they have. Since Blackboard is occasionally buggy, I HIGHLY suggest that you type out your response with a word processing program and then cut and paste your response into Blackboard. If you have a problem with Blackboard, it is your responsibility to ensure that I receive a copy of your posting by the deadline. DO NOT automatically email me a copy of every posting. ONLY email postings in the event of a Blackboard emergency.
Warning: I consider Blackboard Reading discussion to be one of the most important parts of the course. DO NOT take these assignments lightly. If you put effort into the postings, they are one of the surest ways to boost your grade. If you blow them off, they can kill your grade and result in you failing the course—no matter how well you do on the exams. When I assign final grades at the end of the semester, I always use postings to decide whether to bump up the grades of those on the borderlines. If you have diligently completed your postings, I usually will bump your grade. If you have failed to submit postings or continually submit them late, I WILL NOT BUMP YOUR GRADE even if you are one or two points short of the next grade level.
Getting started on Blackboard: Blackboard is relatively easy to use and will allow you to have access to course materials 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through the Internet. If you have registered for the course, you should automatically be registered on Blackboard. As a UMBC student, you have a personal email account and access to the Internet and through the school’s many on-campus computer labs. You can also access Blackboard off campus through a personal account or from the UMBC dial-up. BEFORE you do anything else, check to see if you are enrolled in the course by going to http://blackboard.umbc.edu. If you have been automatically registered, take some time to explore the Blackboard site for the course. If Blackboard indicates that you are not registered, follow the directions at the main Blackboard site for new users.
3) Reflection Paper (100 pts)
This is an open-ended assignment that asks you to reflect on what you’ve learned about social justice during the course. I don’t want you to rehash the readings. Rather, I’d like you to think broadly about some of the conclusions you’ve drawn about social justice in the antebellum period. That may cover such topics as: competing and/or changing definitions of social justice, the ways that various peoples tried to attain social justice, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of various reform or resistance strategies, and/or drawing conclusions about the possibilities and limits of social justice in the antebellum decades. You need not deal with all of these issues. Alternately, you might want to talk specifically about race, class, gender, or religion or the intersection of (all or some of) these factors as they relate to social justice. You might want to reflect on debates about genuine reform vs social control, about the barriers that race, class, or gender played in sparking social justice reform efforts or exposing prejudices and divisions that undermined them. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how to focus your essay. The only requirement is that you “think big” and try to offer some conclusions that run across the various readings we’ve done and the topics we’ve covered.
Email:
I will send all email messages to your UMBC email account (yourusername@umbc.edu). If you do not usually check this account, have messages forwarded to your preferred email address (such as aol, hotmail, etc.). For help with this procedure, or if you have other questions about UMBC’s Office of Information Technology services visit the OIT helpsite at http://www.umbc.edu/oit/. Helpdesk personnel in the on-campus computer labs can help with most questions. The helpdesk phone number is 410-455-3838.
Random Rules:
1) TURN OFF CELL PHONES, BEEPERS, WATCH ALARMS, or any other device that might disturb the class. I will make examples of those who violate this rule (for example, if your phone rings, I will take the call). 2) On test days, students will not wear hats of any kind. If you come to class wearing a hat, you will be asked to remove it. 3) On test days, if you leave the room for any reason, I will consider your test to be completed. In other words, make your trip to the restroom before the test begins. If you need a drink, bring one; if you have a cold, bring Kleenex.
Academic Integrity:
By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an active participant in UMBC’s scholarly community in which everyone’s academic work and behavior are held to the highest standards of honesty. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and helping others to commit these acts are all forms of academic dishonesty, and they are wrong. Academic misconduct could result in disciplinary action that may include, but is not limited to, suspension or dismissal. To read the full Student Academic Conduct Policy, consult the UMBC Student Handbook, the Faculty Handbook, or the UMBC Policies section of the UMBC Directory. To read the policy online, see: http://www.umbc.edu/integrity/.
I show no mercy toward cheaters. If you are caught cheating on any test or assignment, you will receive a zero for that grade and I will submit your name to the proper disciplinary authority. Rest assured that I will do all I can to see that those disciplinary bodies take the strongest possible action against anyone who cheats. Potential cheaters: you have been warned.
Schedule of Classes and Reading Assignments
Week 1
Tues., Sept.4: Introduction
Discussion: What is social justice? How can we most usefully apply this modern concept to the past? What conceptual and interpretive issues do we need to consider when thinking about social justice historically?
Week 2
Tues., Sept. 11: The Industrial Revolution and Labor Activism
- Reading: Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Sept. 10: What issues of social justice did the industrial Revolution raise in Lynn, MA? How did workers try to attain social justice and how successful were their efforts?
Week 3
Tues., Sept. 18: Women Workers and Labor Activists
- Reading: Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Sept. 17: How does the concept of social justice apply to the experiences of working class women in antebellum New York City? What difference did gender make to women’s efforts to obtain social justice?
Week 4
Tues., Sept. 25: Working Class Religion as Social Justice or Social Control?
- Reading: Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Sept. 24: There has always been a strong connection between religion and social justice reform movements. However, when examining religious reformers of the early 19th century, scholars have debated whether reform efforts were motivated more by an authentic push to right perceived wrongs or a desire to control the populations they were allegedly trying to help. Paul Johnson comes down more on the side of social control in his study of Rochester. Assess Johnson’s take on Rochester’s reform-minded middle class and social justice reform efforts.
Week 5
Tues., Oct. 2: Social Justice and the Second Great Awakening
- Reading: Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Oct. 1: To what extent did the Second Great Awakening involve ideas of social justice? How were those ideals applied across the different denominations that emerged in the early 19th century? How do the efforts at social justice described by Hatch compare with kind of religious reform efforts that Paul Johnson uncovered in Rochester?
Week 6
Tues., Oct. 9: Women and Politics
- Reading: Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Oct. 8: Despite being excluded from formal political participation, many American women found numerous ways to get their voices heard, a kind of informal political power that helped spark a backlash against women’s political power. Assess the power women held. How much political influence did women actually have? How did women use that influence? What old and new barriers kept women’s power informal and contained?
Week 7
Tues., Oct. 16: Middle Class Women and Social Reform
- Reading: Lori D. Ginzberg, Women in Antebellum Reform
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Oct. 15: Due to family wealth, leisure, and education, middle class women were able to wield more influence than ordinary women (in the 19th century “middle class” meant wealthy folk, just not the old elite). They typically directed this influence at trying to remedy the era’s various social problems. This book offers a chance to take a deeper look into several questions regarding social justice in the era: What were the possibilities and limits of women’s reform efforts? Did women’s reform efforts appear more like genuine attempts to solve social problems or did they seem more like efforts at social control?
Week 8
Tues., Oct. 23: Everyday Slave Resistance
- Reading: Stephanie M. H. Camp, Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Oct. 22: Compared to white middle class women, enslaved women held almost no power and yet they found ways to resist their enslavement. Assess these forms of resistance. How effective were they? What other options did enslaved women have?
Week 9
Tues., Oct. 30: Slave Rebellion
- Reading: Daniel Rasmussen, American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Oct. 29: Slave revolts were comparatively uncommon in the United States, with most slaves using the kinds of “weapons of the weak” to resist slavery (like we read about last week) rather than rising up collectively to violently oppose their enslavement. This book traces one of the largest slave revolts in American history, offering us a window into the promises and pitfalls of open revolt as a way for slaves to obtain social justice. What were the possibilities and limits of slave revolts as a strategy for changing the institution of slavery or ending it altogether?
Week 10
Tues., Nov. 6: Abolition: The American Revolution and Early Republic
- Reading: Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition, Chapters 1-9
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Nov. 5: This book covers much diverse ground and dovetails nicely with a lot of what we have already read about slavery, 19th century reform movements, and the gendered issues relating to both slavery and reform. To that end, I’m leaving the writing prompt more open ended than usual, merely requiring you to engage with material from different chapters of The Slave’s Cause when devising your argument. Other than that you can take the essay in any direction that interests you. You might want to offer a general assessment of abolition during the “first wave,” focusing on the movement’s tactics and/or its strengths and weaknesses. You might want to assess the question we have debated about whether reformers seemed more interested in solving problems or social control. You might want to explore the role that race or gender (or both) played in rise of abolitionism.
Week 11
Tues., Nov. 13: Assessing Abolitionism on its Own Terms
- Reading: Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition, Chapters 10-Epilogue
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Nov. 12: Although abolitionists helped stir the sectional conflict over slavery that led to the Civil War the ended the institution, it’s worth asking whether this movement was a success on its own terms. That is, how did abolitionists envision slavery ending and how successful were their strategies and tactics they used from the 1820s to the Civil War? Which strategies were most effective? Why? Which were least effective? Why?
Week 12
Tues., Nov. 20: The “Plan of Civilization” and Indian Resistance
- Reading: Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Nov. 19: Assess the strategies the Creek Indians used to counter the “new order” imposed by the United States and its Creek allies who tried to transform Creek society from within. What could or should the Creek have done differently?
Week 13
Tues., Nov. 27: Individual Conferences
Week 14
Tues., Dec. 4: Indian Removal and Social Justice
- Reading: Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Dec. 3: Assess Indian Removal in terms of social justice. Why did the proponents of Native American rights and Indian resistance fail? Could they have done anything differently to have improved the end result?
Week 15
Tues., Dec. 11: Final Reflection Discussion
Post Discussion to Blackboard by 7:00PM on Mon., Dec. 10: This is an open-ended assignment that asks you to reflect on what you’ve learned about social justice during the course. I don’t want you to rehash the readings. Rather, I’d like you to think broadly about some of the conclusions you’ve drawn about social justice in the antebellum period. That may cover such topics as: competing and/or changing definitions of social justice, the ways that various peoples tried to attain social justice, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of various reform or resistance strategies, and/or drawing conclusions about the possibilities and limits of social justice in the antebellum decades. You need not deal with all of these issues. Alternately, you might want to talk specifically about race, class, gender, or religion or the intersection of (all or some of) these factors as they relate to social justice. You might want to reflect on debates about genuine reform vs social control, about the barriers that race, class, or gender played in sparking social justice reform efforts or exposing prejudices and divisions that undermined them. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how to focus your essay. The only requirement is that you “think big” and try to offer some conclusions that run across the various readings we’ve done and the topics we’ve covered.
Terry Bouton 