HIST 495A/710: Democracy in Early America
Professor Terry Bouton
Phone: 410-455-2056
E-MAIL: bouton@umbc.edu
Office: 722 Administration Bldg.
Office Hours: Mon./Wed. 12-1 and by appointment
Course Description:
This course focuses on the changing definitions of democracy in America from the period of the American Revolution through the 1830s and 1840s. The semester will be spent investigating the central question: How democratic was the government and society created by the American Revolution? To answer that question, students will interrogate the concept of “democracy” and try to understand what it meant to different groups of Americans in the context of the Revolution and the decades that followed. We will examine how different groups of people experienced democracy and how those experiences differed by race, class, gender, and region. This investigation will take us into many different contexts as we explore how people understood and experienced democracy in terms of politics, work, economy, religion, home, and culture. The course will examine how people tried to have their voices heard and the struggles some groups waged to define democracy in a particular way or to gain rights enjoyed by others. We will try to decipher the ironies of democracy in early America: how some people defined democracy in ways that excluded or subjugated others; how those who proclaimed themselves as being “democratic” sometimes resorted to undemocratic methods. Finally, we will use early American democracy as a case study to try to answer some larger theoretical questions: What is democracy? How are democratic institutions created? What happens to democracy in a hierarchical society? What is the relationship between democracy and capitalism? What are democratic social movements, how do they form, and why are they so difficult to sustain?
Course Format:
This will be an intensive reading and discussion course. Each week we will read a different book or alternatively a set of articles centered on a particular aspect of democracy in the Revolutionary/Early National period. You are expected to come to class each week having done the reading and prepared to participate in discussion. Your grade will be determined by the quantity and quality of your participation in these weekly discussions as well as your performance on a series of writing assignments asking you to compare and contrast the books and articles we read.
Readings:
The following books are available for purchase at the campus bookstore:
1) Gordon S. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution
2) Reeve Huston, Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York
3) Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850
4) Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America
5) Kathryn Kish Sklar, Women’s Rights Emerges Within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870
6) Douglas R. Egerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802
7) Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816
8) Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
9) Jon F. Sensbach, A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840
Requirements:
The various tests and assignments for the course will produce a possible 500 points. Your total grade for the class will be determined by tallying your scores the following five elements:
PARTICIPATION: 200 pts. (40% of your total grade)
PAPER #1: 75 pts. (15% of your total grade)
PAPER #2: 75 pts. (15% of your total grade)
PAPER #3: 75 pts. (15% of your total grade)
PAPER #4: 75 pts. (15% of your total grade)
TOTAL GRADE: 500 pts.
At the end of the semester: 450-500 points will be an A
400-449 points will be a B
350-399 points will be a C
300-349 points will be a D
Below 300 points will be an F
Papers:
The first three papers will ask you to use a set of the readings (books and articles) to address a particular question about democracy in the Revolutionary/Early National period. Paper #4 will allow you reflect on the course as a whole and draw some conclusions about some of the larger theoretical questions concerning democracy. Each paper should be about five double spaced pages in length and use specific examples from the readings to make an argument. You do not need to use any additional outside sources or research.
Reading and Discussion Schedule
Week 1:
Mon., Jan. 28: Introduction: What is Democracy?
Part 1: Capitalism, Class, and Democracy
Week 2:
Mon., Feb.. 4: Gordon S. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution
(undergrads read pgs. 228-369)
Week 3:
Mon., Feb. 11: Articles TBA
Week 4:
Mon.., Feb. 18: Reeve Huston, Land and Freedom
Week 5:
Mon., Feb. 25: Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic, 1-216
Week 6:
Mon., Mar. 4: Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic, 217-396
PAPER #1 DUE by Friday @ 12:00PM
Part 2: Gender, Race, and Democracy
Week 7:
Mon., Mar. 11: Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic
Week 8:
Mon., Mar. 18: Articles TBA
Week 9:
SPRING BREAK! NO CLASS THIS WEEK!
Week 10:
Mon., Apr. 1: Kathryn Kish Sklar, Women’s Rights Emerges Within the Antislavery Movement
Week 11:
Mon., Apr. 8: Douglas R. Egerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion
Week 12:
Mon., Apr. 15: Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things
Week 13:
Mon., Apr. 22: Articles TBA
PAPER #2 DUE by Friday @ 12:00PM
Part 3: Religion and Democracy
Week 14:
Mon. Apr. 29: Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
Week 15:
Mon., May 6: Jon F. Sensbach, A Separate Canaan
Week 16:
Mon., May 13: Articles TBA
PAPER #3 DUE by Tuesday 5:00PM
PAPER #4 is DUE by Tuesday, May 21
Terry Bouton 