Empire: Race, Nationality, and Gender Reprised

Mar. 16: John McClymer, Visualizing White Supremacy — We will divvy up the questions on the site.


Interior of the dance hall, Rhodes on the Pawtuket, Rhode Island, c. 1910

Mar. 18: In "What Sadie Knew" I conclude:

Working girls grew up relatively untouched by the principal voices supporting older values, unless they belonged to a highly articulated ethnic community where those values continued to define upward mobility. If they were more or less on their own, as many were, they developed their own codes of behavior based upon their economic situations, the judgments of their peers, and inducements provided by the mushrooming amusement industry. If they were integrated into a parish or synagogue community, they mediated the contest between a new license to pursue pleasure and efforts to rein in licentious behavior. In both cases they were social and cultural pioneers.

Submit one hour before class notes that address the following issues:

Student report on "Hester Street"

Mar. 23: Review of Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits, 1865-1905 due — a review is NOT a book report. You should:

Reviews should be approximately 1000 words in length. If you have any questions about what I am asking you to do, please send me an email or stop by my office (FO 112).

The Shirtwaist Strike and the Triangle Fire

Mar. 25: The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand — we will divide up the Leupp, Scott, and Van Kleek accounts of the strike. Submit one hour before class notes discussing the following issues:

Mar. 30: The Fire — the fire; the immediate impact and reactions; the trial; the Factory Investigation Commission. Submit one hour before class notes addressing the questions on the workshop site.

Easter Recess

"Over There": The Great War and the Transformation of America and the World


"Gassed" by John Singer Sargent (1918) — for a larger version, click on image. Princeton Professor Theodore Rabb commented about "Gassed":

"Under a sky whose color is reminiscent of the gas, a line of blindfolded soldiers staggers toward the tent on the right. . . .Yet it is the central tableau of nine sightless men, still carrying their gear and their guns, that rivets our attention. They are being helped along by two orderlies, one of whom warns of a small step, and in response the third soldier, in a gesture that marks this as a moment frozen in time, lifts his foot to exaggerated height to avoid tripping. . . .no other work of art conveys more powerfully both the fury and fortitude of World War I."

Apr. 6: With this class we start seriously to explore topics for the final projects. I have assembled a wealth of resources that we will look into over the next several weeks. George M. Cohan's triumphant "Over There" expressed the initial enthusiasm the American entry into the Great War engendered. [For more vintage recordings of the War, visit Songs of the First World War.] "Gassed" by the American artist John Singer Sargent, previously best known for his portraits of the rich and titled, suggested something of the reality of war on the western front. [For more art produced during the war, visit "Art of the First World War."] British poet Wilfred Owen gave voice to the disillusionment the war provoked throughout Europe and the United States. His title is a quotation from the Roman poet Horace. Educated Englishmen and Americans studied his works along with Vergil's Aenid, Cicero's Orations, and Caesar's account of his Gallic Wars. The complete line, quoted at the end of the poem, means: It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in.
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

-- Wilfred Owen (1917)

Owen's gas victim was one of an immense number of killed and wounded. As Marshall Stalin commented during WWII, one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. Owen himself died in November, 1918 just a day or two before the Armistice ended the slaughter.

To see where millions died on the western front, consult the interactive map at The Great War and the War Times Journal summaries. To see where even more millions died on the eastern front, consult the War Times Journal summary. We will divide into two groups, one for the eastern front and one for the western. Chose specific events, such as battles, that strike you as defining the experience of the war on that front. Submit your notes one hour before class.

On the Western Front
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

On the Eastern Front
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Apr. 8: John F. McClymer, "The KKK in the 1920s" — read up to "The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments: Writing Americanism into the Constitution" + "Blacks and Vaudeville" Part One, Part Two on YouTube. Submit notes one hour before class addressing the following issues:

Apr. 13: John F. McClymer, "Revues and Other Vanities: The Commodification of Fantasy in the 1920s" — We will break into two groups; group one will read up to Censoring "the semi-bacchante of Main Street" + Bert Williams in "Natural-Born Gambler" on YouTube. Submit notes one hour before class addressing the following issues:

Group two will read through the rest of the essay + Nicholas Brothers in "Jumpin' Jive" from the movie "Stormy Weather" (according to Fred Astaire, this was the best dance act ever done in a movie). Submit notes one hour before class addressing the following issues:

Student report on "Whoopee!"

Scenes from the Bonus March of 1932

Apr. 15: Slideshow on the Bonus March of 1932 with Bing Crosby singing "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" — the song was inspired by the Bonus March of 1932 (YouTube video from unknown documentary) during which thousands of WWI veterans marched to Washington and then camped out demanding the immediate payment of the bonus promised them in 1945 + John F. McClymer, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?": The Great Depression and the New Deal — Introduction + one group will prepare reports on "A Human Face"

a second group will prepare reports on "A New Deal"

Student report on "Sullivan's Travels"

Apr. 20: WWII: Exploring Sources — select two sources to explore and submit notes that:

Student report on "Guadalcanal Diary"

Apr. 22: The Cold War — select two sources to explore and submit notes that:

Truman Library and Museum: The Korean War


On June 8, 1972 a South Vietnamese aircraft accidentally dropped napalm on the village of Trang Bang. Nine year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc stripped off her burning clothes and ran out of the village. She was airlifted to a hospital and made a full recovery. No one who saw the photograph in 1972 will ever forget it. There is an outstanding site devoted to "The Wars for Vietnam," created by Professor Robert Brigham at Vassar.

Student report on "The Manchurian Candidate"

Apr. 27: "Acids of Modernity" + course evaluations

Student report on "Bad Santa"

Apr. 29: Final Projects: Culture Wars, 1950s to the present; you may find some inspiration by starting with a YouTube slide show set to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." The goal is to find a way of contextualizing whatever topic you choose. This means that you might:

  1. See your topic, say the Greensboro Sit-in, as a continuation of the struggle Ida B. Wells and others waged against Lynch Law and other racist practices
  2. See your topic as a response to the "American Dilemma," to use Gunnar Myrdahl's telling phrase, that is, the contradiction between racist practices and American principles
  3. See your topic as the demands of a much oppressed but culturally vital group of Americans that their worth be acknowledged

Or you may do something altogether different. The common challenge is to ground latter-day events and developments in larger historical patterns. Here are some topics to play with:

May 10: Final Projects due