| Writing assignment #4, 4 pages, due at the end of the final exam period, no later than 7:30 p.m., Thursday, December 16, to be submitted via Canvas | |
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• Lecture notes and primary source documents on the course website from Weeks 9 through 15 (i.e., material referring to or dated from the 1840s and 1850s). • External website: The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War In particular: The Eve of War: Letters & Diaries — you should explore a range of letters (there are hundreds to choose among) from BOTH Augusta County, Virginia, in the South and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in the North, for comparison’s sake. We might contextualize the 1840s and 1850s as an era of imperial ambition, national expansion, sectional tension, and ultimately civil war in the United States. Various Americans certainly did notice monumental change and rising tension in the nation and world around them, but nobody in the 1840s or 1850s knew that a full-blown civil war would ultimately happen, since they were living their lives in the uncertainties of the present, not in any inevitability of the future — just like we are living in the uncertainties of our own present day, without knowing how it may all turn out, either sooner or later. The three previous assignments concerned the status of human difference, of the future, and of equality in American culture: three absolutely crucial factors to consider whenever pondering the past or the present. This fourth and final assignment spotlights the perspective and role of ordinary people in history. Please juxtapose primary source documents from weeks 9 through 15 of the course (covering the 1840s and 1850s), against some personal letters written by ordinary people in two nearby counties, one Northern and one Southern, in the years before the outbreak of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861. That civil war would become one of the most cataclysmic events in all American history, but you shall be investigating the daily lives and the political crises surrounding various Americans in the 1840s and 1850s leading up to that crisis. When you read the letters, you will understand less than people in the past did because you will not understand some of their unexplained private references. At the same time you will understand more than they did because you know the context as well as the outcome that they could not see or predict. So, as you compare the private letters to the public documents, be alert to two aspects of ordinary life (one example might be family illness) which perhaps leached from the personal and family letters into public life, and two elements of political crisis (an example might be the slavery controversy) which perhaps leached from public life into the letters. Pay special attention to how people — whether they were public writers or private correspondents — understood what they imagined to be the most important concerns of the time: were they small daily concerns, or monumental political ones? Were public writers entirely focused on politics? Were private correspondents entirely focused on daily life? (No, in both cases — you’ll find that history was more complicated than that, just as your lives are presumably more complicated than that.) So, the central question for you to explain is: In the 1840s and 1850s up to the outbreak of civil war in 1861, to what degree were ordinary Americans imagined by public writers and private correspondents to be involved in historical change? A lot, or a little? Please note that you should be very specific when alluding to social groups. If you use the phrase “Americans” or “ordinary people,” the immediate question will be which ones? Elite white men? Enslaved black women? I have framed the question broadly, but you must answer it specifically. As always you will have to make decisions about what constituted mainstream American culture versus marginalized dissent. I would recommend constructing a grid to organize and assess your evidence, with “daily life” in one column and “political crisis” in the other. Everything you put under each of those columns should be attached to a specific social group — including whether you are writing about a Northerner or Southerner. Then you can weigh your evidence in order to commit to a clear thesis. There is, as usual, no single right or wrong answer to this question. Rather, you will be evaluated on your ability to develop a forceful yet nuanced thesis in response to the question, to select main themes to organize your analysis, and to provide specific evidence from your lecture notes, the course primary source documents, and especially “The Valley of the Shadow” website to substantiate your argument and analysis throughout the paper. Be sure to footnote the precise source of any quotations, derivative ideas, or uncommon facts. You should quote from primary documents produced by people in the past — this is the most persuasive evidence for any historical interpretation. If you glean ideas from a secondary source (such as your lecture notes), use your own words and simply footnote where you found inspiration for a specific idea. See the course syllabus for a link to H105 paper writing guidelines. Sample endnotes: |