US History II

Friday’s topic is the dispossession of American native peoples and their fierce resistance to these policies, especially Plains Indians in the late 19th century.

Reading: CH 16 pp. 494-505 (once again posted on Blackboard as a PDF, hopefully for the last time – everyone should have a 5th edition by this weekend; if not, please let me know via email).

Due: SkillBuilder #2. If you are still without the reader, check here for alternative documents. Consult the syllabus or the SkillBuilders tab (above) for guidelines, and here’s the advice handout in case you need it again. If you need help with Chicago Style footnotes, use the links in the left sidebar.

Online quiz: on Friday morning, an online open-book 12-point quiz will open up in “Quizzes” on Blackboard. You will have ONE WEEK to take the quiz up to 3 times, with 30 minutes per attempt. The questions and/or the possible answers may be randomized for each new attempt. The quiz questions all come from Chapter 19, which is the chapter in this unit we are *not* reading for class. The quiz will be open from Friday Feb 1st at 9:00 am to Friday Feb 8 at 9:00 am. Quiz grades are relatively low-stakes, but are required- I do not drop any of the quizzes.

(Image: Chaiwa – Tewa woman, photographed by Edward Curtis, courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Use these links to navigate to the resource you picked up on the assignment sheet and use today’s class time to study the resource online. If you chose a book, there’s a stack in the front of the room you can select from. Remember to leave about 5-10 minutes at the end to compose a comment to this post sharing your findings and insights from this workshop with the rest of the class. Your submitted comment is my record of your attendance and participation in today’s workshop.

(These are in alphabetical order)

Buffalo Bill Historical Center
Chinese in California, 1850-1925 (Library of Congress American Memory)
Chronicling America Historical Newspapers
Colorado Historical Newspapers Collection
Custer Battlefield Museum
Daniel Freeman’s Homestead Application, 1862
Denver Public Library photographs (Library of Congress American Memory)
Digital Archives of Sioux County Nebraska
Edward Curtis’s North American Indian (Library of Congress American Memory)
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
Little Bighorn National Monument
“Mythbusters” from students in HI 207 American West Course, Fall 2009
“No Renters Here” – Homesteading a Sod House
Plains Indian Ledger Art
Rawhide
Stagecoach (directed by John Ford, 1939)
Texas Border Photographs (Library of Congress American Memory)
Texas Ranch House
Texas State Historical Association – Handbook of Texas Online
Utah and Western Migration (Library of Congress American Memory)
Worcester State Library – Articles and Databases
Wyoming Newspaper Project

This week we’re reading and working with the material in Chapter 16 of both the textbook and the reader.

General News: The new correct books are now in stock at the bookstore! To exchange, you’ll need to bring BOTH parts of the bundle you bought there, along with your receipt, and you can get the new set (same reader + 5th edition of the textbook) for a mere $4.51 more. You can’t just bring the textbook and swap it out for the new one, you need to return the entire bundle and get a new bundle in its place.

Also: in class I handed out the updated syllabus page 6, with all the due dates, readings, and topics for the whole semester, based on your votes. I’ve linked to it in the sidebar in case you need another copy at some point during the term. I also handed out a page of advice about the SkillBuilder assignments.

Monday 1/28 – Reading = ACH Ch 16 p. 475 – 484

Wednesday 1/30 – Reading ACH Ch 16 p. 484 – 494. Workshop Day on the “Wild West” – please bring your laptops to class.

Friday 2/1 – SkillBuilder #2 due – if you don’t yet have the reader, please use one of these alternative documents. Reading = ACH Ch 16 p. 494 – 505. Also on this day, an online quiz will open up in Blackboard on Chapter 19 (which we are not covering in class). It will be open until Friday, Feb 8 at 9:00 am and during that time you can take it up to three times. Please remember to take it!

Thanks to all who submitted SkillBuilder #1 today either in paper or via email. If you sent it by email you will get it back by email, by Tuesday of next week. Make sure you got an email confirmation that I received it, otherwise – I didn’t get your paper. Papers submitted in hard copy during class will likely be returned on Monday. Remember you have another one due on Friday, February 1 and for those who don’t yet have the reader I will expand the alternative/online source options over the weekend.

You might want to fill in the rest of the note page that we began in class today as you complete and review the readings from Chapter 15 (if you missed class, here’s the notes page).

The voting is in! The most popular chapters were 16, 23, 24 and 28. On Monday I’ll distribute an updated syllabus page with all the details about what to read and where our deeper focus will lie in each of the course’s four units. During Unit 1, we’ll be using Chapters 16 and 17 most. For Monday please read Henretta ACH Ch 16 p. 474-484. Those pages are posted as a PDF on Blackboard if you are still awaiting a 5th edition of the textbook.

Take the Quiz Online! Also, I’ve put up a short quiz on Blackboard that should be available now until Monday at noon. You can take it up to three times (15 minutes per attempt) and I’d recommend that you try it more than once so you get a feel for how the online quizzes and re-takes work on Blackboard. Your score will show up in My Grades (so I can check the automatic score reporting functions) but will not count towards your grade.

PS – Got 11 minutes? Listen to this podcast from NPR’s Planet Money on how (and when) we got the dollar bill. It may surprise you. In your reading for Monday, Henretta mentions on p. 478 that the Republicans, now firmly back in power in Congress and the White House after the end of Reconstruction, developed a national banking system – but there’s much more to the story. The clip’s too long to play in class but it’s worth a listen.

(a Civil War-era 2 dollar note from a New York Bank)

I’ve posted some links to online primary sources suitable for use in the first SkillBuilder, in case you don’t yet have the documents reader – just click on the SkillBuilder1 tab above. Hopefully that will get us started while we’re all waiting for the replacement texts to arrive.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our investigation groups in class today! Here’s what to do before we next meet on Wednesday, 1/23.

1) Read the syllabus. You got a paper version in class, or click in the left sidebar for a full-color PDF or online flipbook version.

2) Read Chapter 15 pages 446 to 466 in Henretta, America: A Concise History 5th edition. Your books should look like this:

If you have the 4th edition of the Henretta text instead, then read pages 437-456. If your book is still shrink-wrapped, you might want to leave it that way for easier return to the bookstore. I have contacted them to let them know their mistake and to ask how we can resolve it, and I will let you know their answer as soon as I find out what the options are.

If you do not have the textbook yet, I’ve made a PDF of the first reading assignment and put it on Blackboard, so check there.

3) Take this poll to see what topics we’ll look at in greater detail this semester.

4) If you have the Documents book, you can begin on your first SkillBuilder assignment which is due Friday, Jan 25. This assignment is explained in the syllabus on p. 4 or under the “SkillBuilders” tab above.

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s two sections of US History II US Since 1877 (HI 112) in the Spring 2013 semester at Worcester State University. Section 01 meets MWF at 8:30 am and Section 11 (and Honors H1) meets MWF at 9:30 am, both in Sullivan Room 104.

The textbooks for this course are:

James A. Henretta, America: A Concise History VOLUME 2, 5th edition (Bedford St. Martins 2012) ISBN 978-0-312-64329-4

Kevin J. Fernlund, Documents for America’s History VOLUME 2, 7th edition (Bedford St. Martins 2013) ISBN 978-0-312-64863-3

From this website, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended history and writing resources on the web.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and you should either bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Google Reader). Please check it often or make sure that you subscribe to its updates to stay on top of our coursework. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post not tagged “Spr13.”

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on Friday, January 18th, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu