Aug. 26            Introduction and beginning of group research exercises. Discussion of primary and secondary sources. Discussion of historical philosophies and "lessons." Writing assignments next week.  

Sept. 2 LABOR DAY

Sept. 9            R, 1-42; handouts.  Writing from primary sources discussion; group work exercise

Sept. 16 R, pp. 69-87      Library Research Exercise + Analysis of Sources

Assignment: With your partner, find the research source to which you have been assigned. Prepare a 2-3 pp. written report, and come prepared to give an oral report, a "show and tell," to the class. In the written work and oral presentation, you should focus on the following: a) describe the source in general terms for us; b) explain how you used this source to research your assignment; c) devise a hypothetical senior thesis topic and then show how you would use this source to investigate your topic. Note: Give your report succinctly and orally (5-10 minutes would be good); the quality of your oral presentation will be assessed and figured into the class participation grade.

Class discussion of material in Rampolla: come prepared to discuss the process of thinking about historical writing; of preparing good analyses and arguments; and of acquiring and then analyzing primary and secondary sources

Group One: prepare a short (2-3 pp.) analytical response to this question: which came first in American history, slavery or racism? Which was the cause, and which the effect? Make reference to the material in pp. 1–22 of AF, in your answer. Suggest what are the major competing interpretations on this question, and note what other sources you found in the library  and on the Web to help you follow-up on this question. 

Group Two: Come prepared with a 2-3 pp. discussion on the following:  take one assertion from the last 2/3rds of the Declaration of Independence (i.e. from the part no one ever reads, not the famous first paragraph). Analyze the historical sources (or lack thereof) for Thomas Jefferson’s assertions against the King. Research the particular allegation that Jefferson makes, analyze why Jefferson chose to emphasize that particular point, and suggest the degree to which his allegation did or did not have validity within the context of his own time. Show the sources used in your research; at least one of those sources must come from the library, in addition to whatever you find on the internet.

Oct. 7               AF, 177–209                 History from the Bottom Up     
WPA narratives and other slave narratives, on reserve

General Discussion Today: how do we interpret visual and material sources? What are the special opportunities, and the particular difficulties, involved with interpreting these sources?

Oct. 21 Interlude: Historical Writing Practicuum

Assignment: R, 43-68, 88-95; Read Sample Sr. Thesis on Reserve
Assignment: discussion of sample senior thesis on reserve, work on writing exercises

Oct. 28 AF, 99-150        Theory and Evidence III: The Frontier Thesis

Assignment: Read a chapter from a work of the "new" western history (from a list to be given in class, including figures such as Patricia Limerick, Donald Worster, and James Brooks). Come prepared with an informal list of questions, comments, and counter-arguments based on the chapter you have read. SPECIAL GUEST TODAY: MR. FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER! Come prepared to query Mr. Turner based on the material in AF and from your particular historical source.

Nov. 4  Did the Frontier Make America Exceptional?

Assignment: Read Etulain, Did the Frontier Make America Exceptional?, all. Class discussion today led by the infamous "Mrs. H," Barb Headle.         

PAPER DUE TODAY ON ETULAIN

Nov. 11            OM, all             Ordinary Men, War, and Violence

Classtime: General discussion of Ordinary Men and Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Study questions will be distributed in advance. Come prepared with an oral response to at least two of the study questions

Nov. 18           OM + Goldhagen and Primary Documents on reserve
                        Ordinary Men and the Holocaust.  

Classtime: General Discussion of Ordinary Men and critique by Goldhagen

Nov. 25 ***Browning/Goldhagen Paper Due Today***
***No class, individual meetings with all students will be scheduled, to discuss final paper assignment***
***Group assignments will be posted for "Researching Difficult Questions" assignment, to be done in class Dec. 2 and 9. Classtime today can be spent on Dec. 2 assignment.

Dec. 2              R, 96-137  Researching Difficult Questions

Come prepared with your student partner(s) with an oral presentation (with official 5 pp. paper due nextand a paper (5 pp.) based on the research skills and resources" exercise at the end of the syllabus. More instructions will be distributed in class.

Dec. 9             R, 69-137   Finish Research reports from Dec. 2, work on footnote/bibliography form    

Dec. 16           FINAL PAPER DUE

---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  -- 

4) Use the Worldcat library link from the UCCS library catalog and figure out how to find this document: "A Century of School Health in Los Angeles." Tell us where that source is, and how we could get hold of it. Then, use the subject headings provided to explore for more generally on the topic of the history of public health in schools, and show us some of your findings. Then, do the same, LIMITED TO CD RECORDINGS, of the gospel blues piano player Arizona Dranes.

5) Use the Dictionary of American Biography (hard copy in library) and tell us as much as you can about Margaret Fuller based on what you find in there, and show us how to use this reference source to point us to more primary and secondary documents on her life.

6) Using America: History and Life, from the UCCS online library catalog, to find as many book reviews as you can of James Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. Read some of these reviews and give us a sense of what this book is about based on your reading of those reviews.

7) Using Historical Abstracts from the UCCS online library catalog, find as many articles and books as you can about the Rape of Nanking (1937).

15) Use the Domesday book, and tell us if you can figure out from it how many people in England in 1086 owned land, or if you are able to determine what percentage of the population would have counted as property owners? Based on the Domesday book, what can you discern about what land ownership actually meant in 11^th century England?

16) Based on what you can find in the Selections from the Records of the Government of India, 1849-1937, tell us as much as you can about the peasant revolt in India in 1857. Pick out one document in particular to show to the class, and analyze that document for us.

17) Do the same as # 17 for the Boxer Rebellion in China, using the following source: British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office.

18) Using the Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism, tell us everything you can about the opium wars in China in the 19^th century. Then, show us how to use the Historical Dictionary to guide us to other good primary or secondary sources on this topic.

19) Find an article from the Journal of American History about contraception and birth control devices in 19^th century America – you may either use a search engine such as the History Cooperative, JSTOR, or America: History and Life, or you may just flip through issues of the journal until you get a good "hit."

20) Search the American Historical Review and see if you can find anything about the impact of the American Civil War on the international cotton economy. You may use search engines at noted in #20 above or just manually search issues of the journal.

21) Use Western Americana: An Annotated Bibliography to the Microfiche Collection of 1012 Books and Documents of the 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th Century, and see what you can find that would serve as two good primary sources for the study of Indian peoples west of the Mississippi in the 19^th century.

22) Using The Jesuit Relations either in hard copy or from the online version, tell us how Paul Le Jeune described the religious beliefs of the Indian peoples that he encountered in present-day Canada in 1634.

23) Interview Professor Carole Woodall of the History Department, and ask her about the processing of doing archival research for her work on urban nightlife in Istanbul, Turkey. Tell the class everything that you learned about the difficulties as well as the excitement of doing archival research in foreign countries. If possible, bring us a sample of a document (or a portion thereof) that Professor Woodall used in her research, and explain to the class where this document came from and how it could be used in research.

24) Email Dr. Ralph Luker (I’ll give you his email), explain that you are taking my class, and ask him to provide you with a sample of the most obscure and interesting document he can think of concerning his research subject, the life and writings of Vernon Johns. Before emailing Ralph, find out as much as you can about the basics of the life of Vernon Johns by consulting a source such as Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch. Tell the class how Ralph would use this document in preparing a biography of Vernon Johns.

25) Using the Digital Colonial Documents for India from the UCCS online library catalog, find the following book: Murray’s Guide to India for 1859. Tell us briefly what that book is about, and show us a particular paragraph or page that would serve you well as a primary source on understanding British conceptions of their empire in the mid-19^th century.

26) Using the Annals of America in the library, find an historical document that discusses immigration to America from the 1880s to the 1920s, and show us how you would use that as a primary source for researching this topic.

Requirement: in addition to whatever internet sources you may use, you must use one or two (or more) traditional library sources; in other words, a quick "googling" or "dogpiling" of your subject is not sufficient. Also, you may NOT use "Wikipedia," the online encyclopedia.

1) About how many Africans were transported to North America during the era of the slave trade? What are some of the major estimates for this, and why are there so many differing numbers? Of the total number of Africans transported to the New World, about what percentage came to the North American mainland? What percentage to the Caribbean? What percentage to Brazil and South America? What percentage died en route? Which was larger: the slave trade to the New World, or the Islamic slave trade from East Africa to the Mediterranean and Arabic world?

2) How many (if any) African Americans served in the Confederate Army, and why did they serve, if indeed any served at all? 

3) I have been assigned to write a short biography of the life of the German author and historian David Friedrich Strauss, author of The Life of Jesus (1840) and other notable works. How do I quickly find a complete bibliography of the published works of Strauss? What is the quickest way I can get my hands on his published works? Why is he significant?

4) I am fascinated by early European missionary accounts of the Native Americans, including both writings and drawings. What are some sources that I could use to find out how both Protestant and Catholic settlers in the "New World" conceptualized their relationships with the native peoples already here? Conversely, what is the best way I can find out about what the natives thought of the European colonists and settlers? How can we know what was in the minds of the natives, given that they left few written documents for us to peruse?

5) "Why is that you white people developed much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" (hint: quote from Jared Diamond)

6) Was there a "Renaissance" for women?

7) How and why did a 1^st century "cult of Jesus" become "Christianity"?

8) I’m interested in the policies of British imperial rule in the first half of the twentieth century leading to the independence movements of the 1940s and 1950s. Give me the two best primary sources (or set of primary sources) I could use to begin researching on that topic, and tell me whether I can find them here or would have to order them elsewhere. Xerox a document from one of those sources and write a short analysis of that document (similar to what you would do in a senior thesis class). Describe the document, explain who wrote it and why, who might have read it, whether the document had any historical significance, and the document’s implications or ramifications might have been. 

9) We may find misogynists throughout the Middle Ages (indeed, throughout history), but how influential have they been?  For example, look the following chapter headings from an academic treatise. Did anybody care what a few Dominican friars said about women in a long Latin treatise?
  
Chapter VI: Concerning Witches who copulate with Devils. Why is it that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions?
Chapter XII: How Witch Midwives commit most Horrid Crimes when they either Kill children or Offer them to Devils in most Accursed Wise."

10) It is difficult to know when King Cnut of England visited Rome: was it in 1027 or 1031? Our sources disagree. Which is the correct date and what are the conflicting sources?

11) I am interested in some social and political events leading to the Civil War. I have read about the Wilmot Proviso, and want to go about researching that. Where do I start? How would I find out about congressional debate on the Wilmot Proviso? Where are some of the best primary documents both in the library and online?

14) During my History 152 class on American history during and after the American Revolution and during the early years of the United States, I awoke from my slumbers and heard something vaguely about Martha Ballard, but I was still too sleepy to write anything down. Now I’m supposed to write a research paper on her. Uh–oh. Who is she, and why should I care? 

15) I’m interested in the "history of history"—that is, how and why people have thought about history in a given period. For example, how did the ancient Greeks and/or Romans think about history? What, in their minds, was history? Was it important to study history? Why or why not? What are some of the most important sources, printed and online, that I can use to investigate this question? 

16) It’s now considered "common knowledge" that smoking is extremely dangerous to one’s health, that is causes lung cancer and other serious diseases. When did this become "common knowledge"? What is the threshold one should use to judge that something is widely known enough to be "common knowledge"?

17) Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian? Does it matter? What are some of the most important sources I can use to investigate that question? 

18) How did Iraq become "Iraq"? As an historian, given your analysis of the history of the creation of the state of Iraq, how would you advise Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to act now to forge a democratic nation in Iraq? To what degree would you consider it possible to avoid a civil war (save by imposing a dictatorship that would suppress dissent, a la Saddam Hussein) between contending ethnic and religious factions? Is the study of history even a help in this regard, or is it best to ignore advice from the "reality–based community" and instead impose your own reality?

19) What was the origin of the "Ghost Dances" of nineteenth-century North American Native Americans? What are the most important printed sources, primary and secondary, to help me investigate that subject?