America in the Sixties
Dr. Alan Petigny// 273-3393/apetigny@history.ufl.edu
Pugh Hall: Room 120/Office: Room 230 Keene-Flint Hall
Class Hours: Tuesday (10:40 – 11:30) and Thursday (10:40 – 12:35)
Office Hours: To Be Announced
Course Readings Website: http://ufhistorysocialmovements.squarespace.com/
Username: history
Password: petigny
Course Introduction
This course provides a broad survey of U.S. history during the long decade of the 1960s. The core
readings in this course are designed to familiarize students with some of the leading issues pertaining to
the social, political and diplomatic history of the United States from mid-1950s to early 1970s. They are
also designed to allow students to work on their analytical and writing skills by focusing on two book
reviews. Final grades will be determined by several factors: class participation (which will include
weekly summaries of the readings), pop quizzes, two long book reviews, and both a midterm and a final
exam. Students will be allowed to miss one quiz (or drop the lowest grade of one quiz).
Required Readings:
The required books consist of Mark Lytle’s America’s Uncivil Wars and Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic (both
available at the University bookstore). All of the weekly readings will be available via the course readings
website (see the website address, along with the username and password, at the top of the page).
Grades will be decided along the following lines:
1) First Book Review
:15 percent
2) Second Book Review
:15 percent
3) Class Participation
:10 percent
4) Quizzes
:20 percent
5) Midterm
:20 percent
6) Final Exam
:20 percent
**(Please note that class participation includes weekly writing assignments and weekly discussion)
Needless to say, plagiarism will not be tolerated as it constitutes academic theft. For any questions
regarding the University of Florida’s policy on academic honesty, please consult the following website:
http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/. Should you require any accommodations as the result of a
disability, please let me know as soon as possible. For any questions regarding UF’s policy on disability
accommodations, please consult the following website: http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drc/.
On a final note, the date of specific assignments, as well as some of the online readings are subject to
modest revisions. The use of computers—even for note taking—is not allowed in this class. Excessive
absences and tardiness will also result in lowering of a student’s final grade. Be sure to arrive to class on
time, and please remember to turn off your cell phone.
Week I:
Week 1: Introduction

August 23, 2012
Week II:
August 28 &
August 30
Introduction
Week 2: The Modern Civil Rights Movement

Godfrey Hodgson, “The Ideology of the Liberal
Consensus” from America In Our Time

Handout: The Southern Manifesto
 James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations, “Race”
Week III:
Week 3: Civil Rights Part 2
September 4 &
September 6

Week IV:
Martin Luther King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Week 16: War on Poverty & The Great Society
September 11 &
September 13

“Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism” form James T.
Patterson’s Grand Expectations

“Lyndon B. Johnson, “The Great Society” from A History of
Our Time
Week V:
Week 5: Women in the Postwar Period
September 18 &
September 20

Alan Petigny, The Permissive Society, “Women.”

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, “The Happy
Housewife Heroine,” pages 33-68.

Handout: “No More Miss America!”
.
Week VI
Week 6: Women Part 2

September 25 &
September 27
The Eruption of Difference” in Alice Echols’ Daring to Be
Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975
 Due: Optional paper on the Inaugural
Issue of Ms. Magazine
Week 7: Berkeley Free Speech Movement
Week VII
October 2 &
October 4

Milton Viorst, Fire in the Streets, “Igniting Berkeley”

Michael Rossman, “The Wedding Within the War,” from Takin’
It to The Streets
 Midterm Exam
Week VIII
October 9 &
October 11
Week 8: The New Left

Peter Collier, “Something Happened to Me Yesterday” from
Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Destructive Generation

Milton Viorst, Fire in the Streets, “Manifesto Writing, 1962”

Excerpt from “The Port Huron Statement”
Week IX
October 16 &
October 18
Week 9: Vietnam

James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations, “Escalation in
Vietnam.”

Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point, “The Making of a of a
Decision: Vietnam 1967-1968”

Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,
“Fade-out,” pages 409-419.

A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America edited
by William Chafe and Harvard Sitkoff, “John Kerry:
Vietnam Veterans Against the War,” page 324-328.
Week X
Oct. 23 & 25
Week 10: Vietnam Part 2

Excerpt from Richard Nixon’s No More Vietnams

Excerpt from Lyndon Johnson’s The Vantage Point

Spiro Agnew, “Imprudence in the Streets” from William
Chafe and Harvard Sitkoff’s A History of Our Time

Handout: The Hard Hat Riot (from The New York Times)
Week XI
October 30 &
Nov 1
Week XII
Nov 6 & Nov 8
Week 12: The Rise of Conservatism

Excerpt of Senator Barry Goldwater’s Acceptance Speech
(1964) (from Steven M. Gillon’s The American Paradox

Edward Berkowitz, Something Happened: A Political and
Cultural Overview of the Seventies, “The Me Decade and the
Turn to the Right,” pages 158-177.
Week XIII
Nov 13 &
Nov 15
Week XIV
Nov 20
(No Class on
Nov. 22 due to
Tanksgiving)
Week 11: Backlash
Week 13: Sexual Revolution

David Halberstam’s The Fifties, Chapter 20 (Dealing with
Alfred Kinsey)

James Jones, “Dr. Yes,” The New Yorker (September 1,
1997).
Week 14: Black Militancy

The Kerner Commission on Race in America in From
Timbuktu To Katrina

Stokely Carmichael On Black Liberation in From
Timbuktu to Katrina

Handout: “Position Paper of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee (1966)
Due: Radical Chic Book Review

Week 15: Chicano Power
“The “Road to Political Empowerment” from Chicano! The
History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement
Week XV
Nov 27 & Nov
29

Brian D. Behnken, “We Want Justice: Police Murder,
Mexican American Community Response, and the Chicao
Movement,” from Dan Berger, editor, The Hidden 1970s:
Histories of Radicalism, pages 195 -213.

Handout: Corky Gonzales, “I Am Joaquin”
Week 16: The Sexual Revolution
Week XVI
Dec 4 & 6

Excerpted from Richard Hofstadter, Great Issues in American
History, pages 472-474. Abraham Ribicoff Senate Speech
On De Facto Segregation

The Best American History Essays: 2006, Matthew D.
Lassiter, “The Suburban Origins of Color-Blind
Conservatism: Middle-Class Consciousness in the
Charlotte Bus Crisis.”
 Paper Due: America’s Uncivil Wars
Exam

Final Exam: Tuesday Dec 11 from 5:30 pm – 7:30
p.m.