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Peopling the Past

(7) Tues 2/9 Social History of the City
Reading: GML 16 (556-568) “The Second Industrial Revolution” and PS = Sunshine and Shadow in New York; City Slave Girls; Riis, How the Other Half Lives excerpt
In-class links: Riis photos, Tenement Museum, Immigration Explorer

(8) Thurs 2/11 …and the Country
Reading: GML 16 (568-579) “The Transformation of the West”

Posted in Spring 2010.


A Core Document

(5) Tues 2/2 Constitutional Change and Crisis
Reading: Primary Source (PS) documents on Norton StudySpace from Ch 15 = Amendments 13, 14 and 15; Sherman’s Field Order 15 (1865); Johnson’s Veto Message; Civil Rights Bill

(6) Thurs 2/4 Interpretation Matters
Reading: PS = Primary documents from the Colfax Massacre [PDF]
Just for fun: the GBC

Posted in Spring 2010.


Deconstructing Reconstruction

(3) Tues 1/26 Reconstruction
Reading: Foner, Give Me Liberty (GML) Ch 15 (520-544) “The Meaning of Freedom” and “The Making of Radical Reconstruction”

(4) Thurs 1/28 Unreconstruction
Reading: GML 15 (544-555) “Radical Reconstruction in the South” and “The Overthrow of Reconstruction”
Mini-Lab #2 (Objects) is due in class

Posted in Spring 2010.


The Lure of Old Stuff

(1) Tues 1/19 Course Intro
Reading: none assigned; Mini-Lab #1 (Digital History) handed out in class
Homework: explore http://chicagohistory.org/wetwithblood/ using the worksheet, and then use its questions to write a mini-lab report, due in the next class

(2) Thurs 1/21 – The Death of Lincoln and the Birth of Modern America
Mini-Lab #1 is due in class

Posted in Spring 2010.


Welcome to HI 112-07

This is the blog for Dr. Tona Hangen’s section of HI 112, Spring 2010. The course content is posted here as well as on Blackboard. Please bookmark this blog’s web address or add it to your RSS feed (such as Google Reader or Bloglines). If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, here’s a quick overview. There is also a Google calendar in the sidebar, with all of the course due dates already on it. If you use Google calendar to organize yourself, you can add this one to your own by clicking on the [+ Google calendar] button.

Also, as you look over the website, you’ll notice tiny boxes next to some of the links; if you hover over those icons, you’ll see a preview of the link’s destination. Those are called “Snapshots” and they let you know where you will be headed if you click on that link.

Why all the technological bells and whistles? For a couple of reasons. First, some of the course readings and materials are from online sources, and I want you to become familiar with how to navigate, search, use, and cite digital history resources. Second, it provides an open-source platform for course materials in case Blackboard or the campus server ever goes down (which occasionally happens), making our course materials available from any internet-enabled computer. Third, it models how professional historians and scholars are working in the real world: we Twitter, we network online, we conduct research over computer connections, we blog, we write software, we digitize historical sources, and we invent new ways to take advantage of technology in the study of the past.

Please note: I also taught this course in the Fall of 2009, and I’ve left the old posts up for the benefit of my former students. Any post from between September and December 2009, or that starts with “Fall 09” or which is tagged “Fall 2009” doesn’t apply to you, and you can just ignore them.

Posted in Cyberhistory, Spring 2010.


Posted in Fall 2009.


Fall 09 Week Fifteen: Towards Postwar America

37. Mon 12/7 Braceros, Zoot Suit Riots, and Double-V

Reading: GML Ch 22 (818-832) “The American Dilemma” AND Bailey/Farber, “The Double V Campaign in WW2 Hawaii” [pdf]

More on the Zoot Suit Riots:
Style Warfare
PBS American Experience, Zoot Suit Riots

38. Wed 12/9 Demobilizing and the Postwar World

Reading: GML Ch 22 (815-818, 832-837) “Visions of Postwar Freedom” and “The End of the War” and preview/print & skim McEnaney, “Nightmares on Elm Street: Demobilizing in Chicago, 1945-1953” [pdf] – we will use this IN CLASS on Wednesday.

Due in class: Little Paper #6 (Oral Histories from WW2)

Exam #3 will be on 12/14 at 8:30 amStudy Guide here [pdf]

Posted in Fall 2009, Week by Week.


Fall 09 Week Fourteen: The “Greatest Generation’s War”

34. Mon 11/30 Entering the War; FDR’s Four Freedoms

Reading: GML Ch 22 (796-807) “Fighting World War II”

35. Wed 12/2 Life in Wartime

Reading: GML Ch 22 (807-815) “The Home Front” AND view 2 short films posted on the Internet Archive:
It’s Everybody’s War” and “The Town” (both from 1945)

Due in class: Little Paper #5 (Listening In)

Update: if you want to listen to the FULL recording of the War of the Worlds (or any other Mercury Theater of the Air performance), they are all digitized online here. The Radio Lab podcast is not a primary source & cannot be used as one of your paper’s sources.

36. Fri 12/4 Japanese Internment

Reading: Goldstein-Shirley, “Enemies in Their Own Land” [pdf]

See also the Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive, JARDA

Posted in Fall 2009, Week by Week.


Fall 09 Week Thirteen: American Pop Culture of the 1930s

33. Mon 11/23 Radio Days

Reading: (actually, listening) – this will take you 1-2 hours

RadioLab podcast about the War of the Worlds broadcast from 30 Oct 1938
and
1 radio program from the 1930s of your choice. Some places to look:

RadioLovers.com at http://radiolovers.com/

OTR.Net at http://www.otr.net/

A Day in Radio (Sept 21, 1939) at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s2/Radio/day/radio.html

Wed – Fri 11/25 and 11/27 Thanksgiving Break

Posted in Fall 2009, Week by Week.


Fall 09 Week Twelve: The Depression and the New Deal

30. Mon 11/16 The Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, 1929-1932

Reading: GML Ch 20 (748-755) “The Great Depression”
PS = Photographs in the Library of Congress, 1935-1945 – Look at several, to get a sense of the visual world of the 1930s

31. Wed 11/18 The First New Deal, 1932-1935

Reading: GML Ch 21 (756-772) “The First New Deal” and “Grassroots Revolt”
PS = New Deal Network – investigate, and be prepared to discuss, at least 2 of the resources on this website.

Due in class: Little Paper #4 (Culture of the 1920s)

32. Fri 11/20 Second New Deal, the Court Fight, and the Election of 1936
Reading: GML CH 21 (772-795) “Second New Deal,” “Reckoning with Liberty,” “Limits of Change” and “New Conception of America”
PS = Voices of Freedom on p. 822-823 of the Foner book
Link: Huey Long

Posted in Fall 2009, Week by Week.