HST-41: America, 1820-1890

Week Two Schedule:

Personal and Political Perspectives on the Early Republic.


Monday (9/17)


Some Presidential Views and an Introduction to the SHDB and HE.
Go to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where they have messages organized by presidency and year. Read and take notes on one of the messages, according to the first letter of your last name. Among all the things described in the message, what two or three things seem to have been the greatest source of satisfaction to the president, and which two or three seemed to be the greatest cause of concern?

1820 (Monroe) -- RED group (last names beginning with A through F)
1853 (Pierce) -- GREEN group (last names beginning with G through M)
1880 (Hayes) -- BLUE group (last names beginning with N through R)
1890 (Harrison) -- PURPLE group (last names beginning with S through Z)

NOTE: we will be meeting in a computer lab (Language Resource Center) today.


Tuesday (9/18)

Personal Priorities and Values.
Read through the Joseph Price Diary [on the Lower Merion Historical Society website] for the year 1824, all entries for the months of January, April, July, and November.
Please read Solon Robinson's letters "To Western Emigrants," originally published in The Cultivator, (1840-1841). What were the main activities, priorities, and concerns expressed in the Price and Robinson sources? How do these compare with the textbook descriptions and presidential addresses we read previously?

Please read Ayers, Passages, Chapter 9: "Exploded Boundaries, 1815-1829."

Members of the RED group (last names beginning with A through F) will need to post comments to the Course Discussion Board before class.


Wednesday (9/19)

Some Representative Individuals; The Impact of Transportation Systems.
View the map of the Erie Canal and its Branches. Consider the political and social implications of this map. How would the arrival of the canal affect the communities it reached? What about those communities to which the canal system did not go? What political bargains and negotiations might be inferred from the map? .

Members of the GREEN group (last names beginning with G through M) will need to post comments to the Course Discussion Board before class.


Thursday (9/20)

1831
Finish reading Louis Mazur, 1831: Year of Eclipse in preparation for class discussion.

Members of the BLUE group (last names beginning with N through R) will need to post comments to the Course Discussion Board before class.


Friday (9/21)

An SHDB Workshop.
Please review the SHDB project guidelines before class. You should come prepared to enter at least one of your events into the database.

NOTE: we will be meeting in a computer lab (Language Resource Center) today.

Members of the PURPLE group (last names beginning with S through Z) will need to post comments to the Course Discussion Board before class. (You may post comments on the Mazur book or other previous topics, or other related issues.)


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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 9/6/2007.