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The goal of the SHDB assignment is to develop a comprehensive database of the most notable events related to the nineteenth century South. Our edition of the database was developed as part of a pilot effort under the auspices of the National Initiative for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE). A key principle of this tool is that practicing your own skills in discerning historical importance, in working with the raw materials and primary sources used by professional historians, and in contributing as a class team to a real project that will be used by others will empower you to be a more critical user and creator of history. We will use the resulting database in subsequent class exercises and as a resource for our later History Engine projects.
For the SHDB, each person in the class will be assigned a specific set of years. Most participants will be assigned three years, though this will vary depending on the year and final enrollments in the class. You might, for example, be assigned the years 1821, 1849, and 1886. For each year, you will be asked to identify what you think the four to nine most significant events for that year are, relative to the history of South. Each person will ultimately be responsible for contributing between fifteen and eighteen events in total, plus at least one "fun" event and at least one "hometown" event. We are limiting our focus to the South because it will sharpen our understanding of regional differences and differential development, but events that took place outside the South will also be potential candidates for inclusion if they significantly affected the region's history and people. As we discuss the general trends of nineteenth century American history in class, this will help give insights into the ways in which the South joined in the general transformations of the nation, the ways in which the South followed a unique path, and the impact of geographic divisions within the South. (Note that History Engine episodes will not be geographically restricted.)
The first phase of your SHDB assignment will begin with the identification of key events and entry of basic descriptive information for each event (including geographic coordinates) into our events database and mapping tool. Your preliminary list of top events will be due about two weeks into the term. You should plan on developing event titles that are less than eighty characters long and event descriptions that are no more than 150 to 200 words long (or about three sentences). Once the SHDB entries have all been submitted, we will then hold discussions with the whole class about the causal relationships and even dependencies that might exist for specific episodes. (For example, if your year is 1822 and you have identified the Denmark Vesey conspiracy as one of your significant events, one earlier event that causally influenced this episode would be the Missouri Compromise debates of 1819-1821. The participant responsible for 1819 would then likely want to make sure that the Missouri Compromise is included in their own list of events for that year.) For events that cover multiple years, priority of responsibility will be assigned to the person in whose year the event begins. After revising the events lists for each year, your set of events will be finalized and we will move to the next phase.
In the second phase of the assignment participants will use the search by subject tool to analyze the broader trends and geographic patterns revealed in the database. Our chief concern with be with the "geography of decisionmaking:" who decided the region's politics, culture, and economic development? Who controlled its history? When we say "the South," who, what and where does that include? How might these same questions be answered if we applied them to the Northeast, the Midwest, or the West? Much of our work in this phase will be informal and discussion-based, but there will be a portion of the first preliminary exam devoted to these questions as well.
Your contributions will be evaluated on the significance of your event choices, as well as on the efficiency and thoroughness of your research process as evidenced by your topics and sources. While there is not a single "right" list of events for each year (scholars themselves disagree about these rankings) lists should be consistent with the kinds of events that might show up on such lists. Each individual event submission will be judged on the strength of its historical analysis. Effective organization, persuasive causal arguments and plausible statements of significance will be crucial. The sophistication, precision, economy and sublety of your details and the clarity of your prose will all contribute to an entry's historical insight and aesthetic power. General statements and details should be carefully balanced so that your specifics are relevant and do not drown your insights while your generalizations are sufficiently rooted in the texture of the moment and the evidence. There will be a take-home portion of the first preliminary exam based on the SHDB.
In the second half of the term we will work on contributing episode entries to the History Engine database at the University of Virginia. Before reading the details of our assignment you may want to browse through the site's existing contributions and examine their selection of the ten best entries. You will do most of your interactions with the site in the History Engine's For Students section. Your goal will be to contribute five episodes to the site. After investigating and selecting primary documents from the nineteenth century in Furman's collection that seem particularly interesting to you, you will choose the episodes you want to write about. We will spend time in class and with Furman University archives director DebbieLee Landi talking about how to identify possible topics and sources. There is also a helpful discussion of the preliminary research process in the History Engine's student research section.
The course code that you will need to register this term is: FurHST-41_5
As part of our collaborative intersection with the other students on other campuses, we have agreed to assign each student at least one episode from a specific list of months and years. One of your episodes will need to come from either December 1832, May 1856, April 1865, or July 1876. We will assign these so that a minimum of five students in our class will be working in each of these periods.
Assignments will be staged. You will need to keep records of your progress through these stages in a research journal that will need to be updated at least weekly. (1) A preliminary list of the episodes you plan to write about will be due week six. This list will need to include (a) a preliminary title for each episode (b) full citations in correct format (see below) for the primary source(s) you plan to write about, and (c) citations for the secondary works that seem especially relevant. The list should be grouped by episode. (2) The take-home portion of the second preliminary examination will be based on a topic scan of the History Engine. (3) You will complete and submit one of your five entries during week eight as well as serving as a peer reviewer for someone else's episode. (4) You will submit your remaining five episodes to the database during week twelve. These will also be peer-reviewed. Your research journal will also be due at this time.
As you work through the History Engine project you will need to keep a contemporaneous research journal. You will need to use some variety of public journaling/blogging software. My preference is that you use Live Journal (http://www.livejournal.com), but you may use another site if you are already familiar with it. You will need to set up this journal and send me its address no later than week four of the term. This journal should be exclusively devoted to research for this class. You should not use any of your other personal blogs or journals for this purpose.
In general, the journal should include the following elements:
All in both the SHDB and the History Engine will need to be fully footnoted using the standard "Chicago Style historical footnote style. See the Chicago Manual's Chicago Style Quick Guide and the History Engine's "Writing" section and Style Guide for details. Note that you should use the footnote/endnote "humanities N:" note style rather than the bibliographic style for these entries. As much as possible, your entries should be based on primary sources from the period itself such as newspapers, letters, diaries, and contemporary accounts. These should be complemented by references to secondary accounts by professional historians. You are presumed to have read and fully understood both this course's policies and the University's general policies regarding academic integrity.
At the end of the term you will write a short thoughtpiece take-home essay. You will analyze in this essay the most important discoveries that emerged from your encounter with the SHDB and History Engine projects. The goal should be to write the most sophisticated, clever, substantive, personal and historically-aware essay that you can develop within the assigned essay length. There is no one "right" way to organize this essay. An important element of the assignment is the independence and originality that you display in developing your own themes and organizing concepts. All the usual guidelines about how to write good papers that you have learned at Furman or have derived from reading the work of great writers certainly apply to this assignment. See the Suggestions About Organization and Style in the Thoughtpiece Essay for further guidelines.
These essays should be 400-600 words (ish) long. They need to be typed, double (or 1.5 line) spaced, and must have at least a 1 inch margin on all edges. Do not submit a cover sheet or title page, but do put your name and your own essay title at the top of the first page. You will need to submit a print version and e-mail me another copy. The paper will be considered timely if either the paper or the electronic version has been submitted by the day of the final exam. You might consider it your admission ticket to the final.
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Note: The instructor reserves the right to change any provisions, due dates, grading percentages, or any other items without prior notice. All assignments on this schedule are covered under the university's policy on plagiarism and academic integrity. See the syllabus statement for further details. This page was last updated on 9/14/2007.