History 312-01

The Early American Republic, 1790-1840

Spring 2007

TTH 12:50-2:20

Prof. Seth Cotlar

Office Phone: 370-6297

E-mail: scotlar@willamette.edu

Office Hours: Monday 2:30-3:30, Friday 1:00-3:00, and by appointment

Course Description: This course examines the social, political, and economic transformations that marked the first fifty years of the new American nation. These years witnessed the emergence of the nation's first formal political parties and a radical democratization of the political system, early industrialization and the rise of wage labor in the North, the expansion and solidification of slavery in the South, the hardening of racial and gender ideologies throughout the nation, and an explosion of reform movements in response to these dramatic new developments. Students will engage with a wide range of secondary and primary sources in order to come to their own understandings of this formative period in American History.

Teaching Method: Discussion with occasional short lectures to provide context.

Attendance Policy: Because the success of seminars depend largely upon the participation of the students, attendance is mandatory. More than two absences (for any reason) will detract severely from one's participation grade.

Plagiarism Policy: Students are expected to do their own work and to provide proper attribution when using someone else’s words or ideas. The instructor will enforce the university’s strict policy regarding academic dishonesty.

Evaluation: Each student will complete the following assignments:

--three essays (20% each)

--6 response papers (20%)

--contributions to class discussion (20%)

Definitions:

-- The response papers should be informal (yet thoughtful) responses to the reading. They should be no less than one single-spaced page. Think of them as your way of setting the agenda for class discussion by letting me know what you think is interesting or important about the reading. Sometimes I will provide a specific prompt for these responses and sometimes it will be up to you to choose your focus. Despite the informal nature of the assignment, these responses should not just be your gut reactions (i.e. "this reading was boring" or "this reading was great"). I want you to mix your labor with these texts, developing one or two significant insights as fully as you can. Your response should open with a succinct statement assessing the central argument(s) of the day’s reading(s) and then go on to ask questions, make connections to other readings for the course, or do anything else which reveals a deep engagement with the readings. Note: responses are due via-e-mail by 10am the morning of class so that I have time to read them before our discussion.

--The essays will be approximately 2000-words (8 double-spaced pages) and will not require any outside research. I will distribute the prompts for the essays at least two weeks before they are due.

-- The health of any seminar depends upon the active participation (both listening and speaking) of each person. I will often send out reading guides a few days before each class. These guides will pose questions that we will take up in our class discussion. Please come to class with a few ideas and relevant page references written down that you can use to respond to these questions. We will also be doing group work frequently in this class, and your participation in those small group discussions will be an important way in which you can contribute to the learning of your fellow students. Finally, there is a class listserv that I will be using primarily for administrative purposes, but which you should feel free to use as a discussion board.

Required Books:

[All books can be purchased at the Willamette Bookstore.]

1) Paul Johnson, The Early American Republic

2) Joyce Appleby, Recollections of the Early Republic

3) Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood

4) Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias

5) Robert V. Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson

Jan. 16—Introduction to course themes

Unit 1: The Constitution and the Emergence of Democratic Politics

Jan. 18—The Constitutional Settlement according to the Federalists

Writing: Response paper from Group A due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic, 129-157 (R)

2) Daniel Walker Howe, “The Political Psychology of The Federalist,” William and Mary Quarterly 44 (1987), 485-509. (Library)

Jan 23—The Constitutional Settlement according to its critics

Writing: Response paper from Group B due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Alfred Young, “Conservatives, the Constitution, and the ‘Spirit of Accommodation,’” in How Democratic is the Constitution, 117-147. (R)

2) Terry Bouton, "A Road Closed: Rural Insurgency in Post-Independence Pennsylvania," Journal of American History 87 (December 2000): 855-887. (Library)

Jan 25—The Federalists’ Reign of the 1790s

Reading: 1) Paul Johnson, The Early American Republic, ix-xii, 3-29.

Jan 30—The Rising Democratic Challenge of the 1790s

Writing: Response paper from Group C due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 40-83. (R)

2) James Banner, To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815 (1969), 53-83. (R)

3) Collection of newspaper articles from the 1790s TBD (Early American Newspaper database—link at http://library.willamette.edu/resources/databases/primary/)

Feb 1 Discussion of newspaper research in groups.

Feb 6 Continued discussion of newspaper research in groups.

Feb 8—Jeffersonians in Power

Reading: 1) Johnson, Early American Republic, 31-53

2) Drew McCoy, “The Jeffersonians in Power: Extending the Sphere,” in The Elusive Republic, 185-208 (R)

Unit 2: Representative Men and Women? Individual life stories as a window into the early republic

Feb 13—First Essay Due in Class

Screening of A Midwife’s Tale

Feb 15-- The economic and social transformations of the market revolution in the North

Reading: 1) Johnson, Early American Republic, 55-83

2) Joyce Appleby, Recollections of the Early Republic, ix-xxi

Feb 20—The Autobiographer and the Trickster

Writing: Response paper from Group A due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Excerpts from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (e-mail)

2) Karen Haltunnen, Confidence Men and Painted Ladies (1982), 1-32 (R)

Feb 22—Successful men in the North and the West

Writing: Response paper from Group B due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Ball and Drake memoirs in Appleby, Recollections, 1-67

Feb 27— Successful men in the North and the West (cont’d)

Writing: Response paper from Group C due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Scott Sandage, Born Losers: A History of Failure in America (2005), 22-43. (R)

2) Harding, Jerome, Trimble, and Lorrain memoirs in Appleby, Recollections, 130-144, 159-222, 244-276

March 1—The market revolution and the transformation of Northern women’s lives

Writing: Response paper from Group A due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood, 1-62.

March 6—The Cult of Domesticity

Writing: Response paper from Group B due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood, 63-159

March 8—Sisterhood

Writing: Response paper from Group C due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood, 160-206

2) Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America,” Signs v. 1 no. 1 (Autumn 1975), 1-29. (Library)

March 13— Women’s lives and women’s stories in the era of capitalist transformation

Writing: Response paper from Group A due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Jeanne Boydston, “The Woman Who Wasn’t There: Women’s Market Labor and the Transition to Capitalism in the United States,” Journal of the Early Republic 16.2 (Summer 1996), 183-206. (Library)

2) Tevis, Kellog, and Cooke memoirs in Appleby, Recollections, 68-102, 145-158, 223-243

March 15— Social and economic transformation in the South

Writing: Response paper from Group B due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Johnson, Early American Republic, 85-109

2) Charles Ball memoir in Appleby, Recollections, 103-129

March 20— Alternate interpretations of the America’s democratic society

Writing: Response paper from Group C due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Excerpts from Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (R)

2) Seth Rockman, “The Unfree Origins of American Capitalism,” in The Economy of Early America (2006), 335-361. (R)

March 22—class will not meet. 2000 word paper due by 5pm

SPRING BREAK

April 3--Family, Race, Religion: social transformation in the early republic

Reading: 1) Johnson, Early American Republic, 111-159

2) Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias, 3-47

April 5-- Sex and Salvation in 19^th Century America

Reading: 1) Johnson and Wilentz, Matthias, 49-90

April 10--Sex and Salvation in 19^th Century America (cont’d)

Writing: Response paper from Group A due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Johnson and Wilentz, Matthias, 91-183

April 12—Introducing Andrew Jackson

Writing: Response paper from Group B due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) “Jackson’s Frontier—and Turner’s,” in After the Fact, 70-94. (R)

2) Robert Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson, 1-27

April 17—Jackson’s early career, 1796-1819

Writing: Response paper from Group C due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Remini, 28-128

April 19—Jackson’s entrance onto the national political stage

Writing: Response paper from Group A due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Remini, 129-171

April 24—President Jackson

Writing: Response paper from Group B due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Remini, 172-271

April 26—President Jackson (cont’d)

Writing: Response paper from Group C due via e-mail by 10am.

Reading: 1) Remini, 272-335

May 1—Assessing the legacy of Jackson and his contemporaries

Reading: 1) Johnson, Early American Republic, 161-165

2) Excerpts from David Walker’s Appeal (1829) (R)

3) Excerpts from William Apess, A Son of the Forest (R)

4) Excerpts from the lectures of Fanny Wright (R)

Final paper due Saturday May 5 at 5pm.