Franklin & Marshall College

AMS 100
Introduction to American Studies
Professor David Schuyler
310 Stager Hall
717-291-4247

Hours: Tuesday, 1:30 - 3:30
Wednesday, 1:30 - 4:00
and by appointment

 

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AMS 100 is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American culture through the use of explanatory models developed in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. This course emphasizes the application of methods of historical analysis and question framing by investigating the interplay of national identity, middle-class culture, race, and gender from the nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries.

Course requirements: As students you will learn from each other, in discussing books and articles, in talking about your writing, just as you will from the instructor. Thus it is essential that students attend all class meetings, and have prepared reading assignments before the class in which they are due in order to participate fully in discussions. Students will take an hour examination on October 3, 2005 (20 percent of final grade), submit two short (4-5 page) papers (each counting 20% of the final grade), and take a final examination at the time scheduled by the registrar (30% of final grade). Class participation (10% of final grade) is very important in the final evaluation of student performance.

Paper topics will be assigned in class, and typed, carefully written, thoughtful essays are due at the beginning of class on Oct. 28 and Nov. 18, 2005. No late papers will be accepted without the prior written approval of the instructor.

 

Course books available for purchase

W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks (1903; New York: Penguin Classics, 1989).
P. T. Barnum, The Life of P. T. Barnum. Written by Himself (1855; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).
Joseph J. Ellis, After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979).
John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978).
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852; New York: Bantam Classics, 1983).
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (1925; New York: Persea Books, 1975).

Copies of these books and all required readings have been placed on reserve at Shadek-Fackenthal Library.

 

Schedule of Meetings and Assignments

Aug. 31 Introduction to the Course and to American Studies

Sept. 2 Creating a New Nation
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785; New York, 1964), query xix.
Joseph J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 3-38.
Architect of the Capitol, Location of the Capital, and History of the U. S. Capitol. Read about the construction of the Capitol to 1830. Read critically and think about the symbolism of the capitol as well as the significance of who built it.
Images of the Nation's Capital.
(rec) Richard Guy Wilson, The Architecture of Thomas Jefferson.

Sept. 5 Virtue, Republicanism, and the Arts
J. J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 41-71.

Sept. 7 The Dynamics of Social Change
J. J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 73-110.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40), vol. 2, Second Book, chap. 13.

Sept. 9 Patriotism and Historical Memory
Gulian C. Verplanck, "Washington's Headquarters," New York Mirror, Dec. 27, 1834, in Lyman Cobb, ed., North American Reader (New York, 1835), pp. 137-46.

Sept. 12 The Idea of an American Literature
J. J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 161-222.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40), vol. 2, First Book, chap. 16.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar" (1837).

Sept. 14 An American Landscape Tradition
James Fenimore Cooper, "English and American Scenery Compared," in A Landscape Book, by American Artists and American Authors (New York, 1868), pp. 1-21.
Washington Irving, "The Catskill Mountains," in A Landscape Book, by American Artists and American Authors (New York, 1868), pp. 22-29.

Sept. 16 The Empire of Nature
Washington Irving, "A Tour on the Prairies" (1835), in Selected Writings of Washington Irving (New York, 1984), pp. 463-97.

Sept. 19 Material Culture: The City as Artifact
Gouverneur Morris, et al., "Remarks of the Commissioners for Laying Out Streets and Roads in the City of New York, Under the Act of April 3, 1807," in Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1866, comp. D. T. Valentine (New York, 1866), pp. 756-63.

Sept. 21 Public Architecture
[Clarence C. Cook], "New-York Daguerrotyped. Group First: Business Streets, Mercantile Blocks, Stores and Banks," and "Public Buildings of New York," Putnam's New Monthly Magazine 1 (1853).

Sept. 23 Domestic Architecture
A. J. Downing, "On the Moral Influence of Good Houses," Horticulturist 2 (Feb. 1848): 345-47.
A. H. Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses (New York, 1850), pp. xix-xx.

Sept. 26 Gender and the Culture of Domesticity
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40), vol. 2, Third Book, chap. VIII, "Influence of Democracy on the Family."
Tocqueville, Democracy,chap. IX, "Education of Young Women in the United States."
Tocqueville, Democracy. chap. X, "The Young Woman in the Character of a Wife."
Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman's Home; Or, Principles of Domestic Economy (New York, 1869).

Sept. 28 Life and Labor: The Middle-Class World
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 7-27, 142-76.

Sept. 30 The Public and its Taste in the Antebellum Years
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 214-95.

Oct. 3 Hour Exam

Oct. 5 Republican Technology: Lowell
Herman Melville, "The Tartarus of Maids."

Oct. 7 Technology and American Culture
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Celestial Railroad," Mosses From an Old Manse (1846).

Oct. 10 A Plea for Individualism in a Rapidly-changing World
Henry David Thoreau, "Economy" and "Where I Lived, What I Lived For," from Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (1854). You can also read these two chapters on the Transcendentalists web site.

Oct. 12 Building the Perfect Society: Social Reform
James Buchanan, Advice to Students on Temperance, 1857.
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 1-8.

Oct. 14 Another Quest for Freedom
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 9-13.

Fall Break

Oct. 19 Slavery, Economy, and Race
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 14-19.

Oct. 21 No Class Meeting.
Read H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin,, chaps. 20-27.

Oct. 24 Slavery and the Crisis of Nationality
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 28-35.

Oct. 26 The Civil War and the Promise of Freedom
Screening of The Massachusetts Colored 54th Regiment.
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 36-45.
J. H. Gooding, letter to the New Bedford Mercury, Apr. 18, [1863].

Oct. 28 Lincoln and the Failed Promise of Reconstruction
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863, and Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folks, pp. 3-35.
Abraham Lincoln Online.

Oct. 31 Victorian Culture and City Culture
[E. L. Godkin], "A Word About Museums," Nation 1 (July 27, 1865): 113-14.
[P.T. Barnum], "Mr. Barnum on Museums," Nation 1 (August 10, 1865): 171-72.
N. Harris, Humbug, pp. 3-5, 33-57.

Nov. 2 P. T. Barnum's America
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 296-343.

Nov. 4 The Showman and his Public
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 344-404.

Nov. 7 War, Memory, and a New Architectural Imagery
Charles Eliot Norton, "Something About Monuments," Nation 1 (Aug.3, 1865): 154-56.
Charles Eliot Norton, "The Harvard and Yale Memorial Buildings," Nation 5 (July 11, 1867): 34-35.

Nov. 9 A Century of Progress, 1776-1876
Henry Ward Beecher, "The Advance of a Century," New York Tribune, Extra No. 33, July 4, 1876, in Alan Trachtenberg, ed., Democratic Vistas, 1860-1880 (New York, 1970), pp. 66-82.

Nov. 11 Technological Promise and its Limits
Richard T. Ely, "Pullman: A Social Study," Harper's Monthly 70 (Feb. 1885): 452-66.

Nov. 14 Monuments of American Culture
Kasson, Amusing the Million, pp. 11-28.

Nov. 16 American Renaissance: Chicago's White City of 1893
Please read at least one of the following sites carefully and browse through at least one other:
Paul T. Galvin Library Digital History Collection, World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893,Illinois Institute of Technology.
Chicago Historical Society, World's Columbian Exhibition.
Julie K. Rose, The World's Columbian Exhibition: Idea, Experience, Aftermath, M.A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1996.
Interactive Guide to the World's Columbian Exposition,by Bruce R. Schulman.

Nov. 18 The Underside of the White City
Frederick Douglass, Introduction, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition, ed. Ida B. Wells (1893).
Frederick Douglass,
Hours: Tuesday, 1:30 - 3:30
Wednesday, 1:30 - 4:00
and by appointment

 

---

AMS 100 is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American culture through the use of explanatory models developed in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. This course emphasizes the application of methods of historical analysis and question framing by investigating the interplay of national identity, middle-class culture, race, and gender from the nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries.

Course requirements: As students you will learn from each other, in discussing books and articles, in talking about your writing, just as you will from the instructor. Thus it is essential that students attend all class meetings, and have prepared reading assignments before the class in which they are due in order to participate fully in discussions. Students will take an hour examination on October 3, 2005 (20 percent of final grade), submit two short (4-5 page) papers (each counting 20% of the final grade), and take a final examination at the time scheduled by the registrar (30% of final grade). Class participation (10% of final grade) is very important in the final evaluation of student performance.

Paper topics will be assigned in class, and typed, carefully written, thoughtful essays are due at the beginning of class on Oct. 28 and Nov. 18, 2005. No late papers will be accepted without the prior written approval of the instructor.

 

Course books available for purchase

W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks (1903; New York: Penguin Classics, 1989).
P. T. Barnum, The Life of P. T. Barnum. Written by Himself (1855; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).
Joseph J. Ellis, After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979).
John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978).
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852; New York: Bantam Classics, 1983).
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (1925; New York: Persea Books, 1975).

Copies of these books and all required readings have been placed on reserve at Shadek-Fackenthal Library.

 

Schedule of Meetings and Assignments

Aug. 31 Introduction to the Course and to American Studies

Sept. 2 Creating a New Nation
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785; New York, 1964), query xix.
Joseph J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 3-38.
Architect of the Capitol, Location of the Capital, and History of the U. S. Capitol. Read about the construction of the Capitol to 1830. Read critically and think about the symbolism of the capitol as well as the significance of who built it.
Images of the Nation's Capital.
(rec) Richard Guy Wilson, The Architecture of Thomas Jefferson.

Sept. 5 Virtue, Republicanism, and the Arts
J. J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 41-71.

Sept. 7 The Dynamics of Social Change
J. J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 73-110.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40), vol. 2, Second Book, chap. 13.

Sept. 9 Patriotism and Historical Memory
Gulian C. Verplanck, "Washington's Headquarters," New York Mirror, Dec. 27, 1834, in Lyman Cobb, ed., North American Reader (New York, 1835), pp. 137-46.

Sept. 12 The Idea of an American Literature
J. J. Ellis, After the Revolution, pp. 161-222.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40), vol. 2, First Book, chap. 16.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar" (1837).

Sept. 14 An American Landscape Tradition
James Fenimore Cooper, "English and American Scenery Compared," in A Landscape Book, by American Artists and American Authors (New York, 1868), pp. 1-21.
Washington Irving, "The Catskill Mountains," in A Landscape Book, by American Artists and American Authors (New York, 1868), pp. 22-29.

Sept. 16 The Empire of Nature
Washington Irving, "A Tour on the Prairies" (1835), in Selected Writings of Washington Irving (New York, 1984), pp. 463-97.

Sept. 19 Material Culture: The City as Artifact
Gouverneur Morris, et al., "Remarks of the Commissioners for Laying Out Streets and Roads in the City of New York, Under the Act of April 3, 1807," in Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1866, comp. D. T. Valentine (New York, 1866), pp. 756-63.

Sept. 21 Public Architecture
[Clarence C. Cook], "New-York Daguerrotyped. Group First: Business Streets, Mercantile Blocks, Stores and Banks," and "Public Buildings of New York," Putnam's New Monthly Magazine 1 (1853).

Sept. 23 Domestic Architecture
A. J. Downing, "On the Moral Influence of Good Houses," Horticulturist 2 (Feb. 1848): 345-47.
A. H. Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses (New York, 1850), pp. xix-xx.

Sept. 26 Gender and the Culture of Domesticity
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40), vol. 2, Third Book, chap. VIII, "Influence of Democracy on the Family."
Tocqueville, Democracy,chap. IX, "Education of Young Women in the United States."
Tocqueville, Democracy. chap. X, "The Young Woman in the Character of a Wife."
Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman's Home; Or, Principles of Domestic Economy (New York, 1869).

Sept. 28 Life and Labor: The Middle-Class World
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 7-27, 142-76.

Sept. 30 The Public and its Taste in the Antebellum Years
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 214-95.

Oct. 3 Hour Exam

Oct. 5 Republican Technology: Lowell
Herman Melville, "The Tartarus of Maids."

Oct. 7 Technology and American Culture
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Celestial Railroad," Mosses From an Old Manse (1846).

Oct. 10 A Plea for Individualism in a Rapidly-changing World
Henry David Thoreau, "Economy" and "Where I Lived, What I Lived For," from Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (1854). You can also read these two chapters on the Transcendentalists web site.

Oct. 12 Building the Perfect Society: Social Reform
James Buchanan, Advice to Students on Temperance, 1857.
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 1-8.

Oct. 14 Another Quest for Freedom
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 9-13.

Fall Break

Oct. 19 Slavery, Economy, and Race
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 14-19.

Oct. 21 No Class Meeting.
Read H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin,, chaps. 20-27.

Oct. 24 Slavery and the Crisis of Nationality
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 28-35.

Oct. 26 The Civil War and the Promise of Freedom
Screening of The Massachusetts Colored 54th Regiment.
H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, chaps. 36-45.
J. H. Gooding, letter to the New Bedford Mercury, Apr. 18, [1863].

Oct. 28 Lincoln and the Failed Promise of Reconstruction
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863, and Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folks, pp. 3-35.
Abraham Lincoln Online.

Oct. 31 Victorian Culture and City Culture
[E. L. Godkin], "A Word About Museums," Nation 1 (July 27, 1865): 113-14.
[P.T. Barnum], "Mr. Barnum on Museums," Nation 1 (August 10, 1865): 171-72.
N. Harris, Humbug, pp. 3-5, 33-57.

Nov. 2 P. T. Barnum's America
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 296-343.

Nov. 4 The Showman and his Public
P. T. Barnum, Life of Barnum, pp. 344-404.

Nov. 7 War, Memory, and a New Architectural Imagery
Charles Eliot Norton, "Something About Monuments," Nation 1 (Aug.3, 1865): 154-56.
Charles Eliot Norton, "The Harvard and Yale Memorial Buildings," Nation 5 (July 11, 1867): 34-35.

Nov. 9 A Century of Progress, 1776-1876
Henry Ward Beecher, "The Advance of a Century," New York Tribune, Extra No. 33, July 4, 1876, in Alan Trachtenberg, ed., Democratic Vistas, 1860-1880 (New York, 1970), pp. 66-82.

Nov. 11 Technological Promise and its Limits
Richard T. Ely, "Pullman: A Social Study," Harper's Monthly 70 (Feb. 1885): 452-66.

Nov. 14 Monuments of American Culture
Kasson, Amusing the Million, pp. 11-28.

Nov. 16 American Renaissance: Chicago's White City of 1893
Please read at least one of the following sites carefully and browse through at least one other:
Paul T. Galvin Library Digital History Collection, World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893,Illinois Institute of Technology.
Chicago Historical Society, World's Columbian Exhibition.
Julie K. Rose, The World's Columbian Exhibition: Idea, Experience, Aftermath, M.A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1996.
Interactive Guide to the World's Columbian Exposition,by Bruce R. Schulman.

Nov. 18 The Underside of the White City
Frederick Douglass, Introduction, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition, ed. Ida B. Wells (1893).
Frederick Douglass, Up From Slavery (1901), chap. xiv.

Dec. 5 The Color Line and the Enduring Dilemma of Race
W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folks, pp. 154-216.

Dec. 7 Old Problems, New Toys
John Kasson, Amusing the Million, pp. 29-85.

Dec. 9 A New America Takes Shape
John Kasson, Amusing the Million, pp. 86-112.

 

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F&M College /American Studies/ quot;>Address by Hon. Frederick Douglass, delivered in the Metropolitan A.M.E. church, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, January 9th, 1894, on the lessons of the hour: In which he discusses the various aspects of the so-called, but mis-called, negro problem, American Memory Collection, Library of Congress.

 

Nov. 21 The New Immigration
Screening of Journey to America.
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers, pp. 1-88.

Thanksgiving Break

Nov. 28 Horatio Alger Doesn't Live Here Any More
A. Yezierska, Bread Givers, pp. 89-184.

Nov. 30 Old World Becomes New
A. Yezierska, Bread Givers, pp. 185-297.

Dec. 2 The Veil of Race
W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks, pp. 36-62, 74-132.
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901), chap. xiv.

Dec. 5 The Color Line and the Enduring Dilemma of Race
W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folks, pp. 154-216.

Dec. 7 Old Problems, New Toys
John Kasson, Amusing the Million, pp. 29-85.

Dec. 9 A New America Takes Shape
John Kasson, Amusing the Million, pp. 86-112.

 

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F&M College /American Studies/