AS/History 3640: Winter Syllabus
The United States: Emergence of a Modern Society, 1865-1950
Jason Reid
2122 Vari Hall
Office hours: Friday, 11:30-12:30
E-mail: jasonreid4@hotmail.com
Course Website: http://www.arts.yorku.ca/hist/jayreid/
Lecture Schedule – Winter Term
January 7th: African-Americans and Popular Culture
First 25 – Seminar
Last 25 – Reading Summary
: Melvin Patrick Ely, “The Great Black Migration Into America’s Living
Room”, in The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy, 64-96 (reserve).
January 14th: The Culture of Suffrage
In-Class Assignment
: Margaret Finnegan, “From Sunflower Badges to Kewpie Dolls: Woman
Suffrage Commodities and the Embrace of Consumer Capitalism”, in Selling
Suffrage, 111-138 (reserve).
January 21st: The Flowering of American Literature
Last 25 – Seminar
First 25 – Reading Summary
: Ernest Hemingway, ‘Soldier’s Home’
http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/hemingway.html#3
: Langston Hughes, ‘Night Funeral in Harlem’
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C07010E74
: Countee Cullen, ‘From the Dark Tower’
http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/cullen.html#darktower
January 28th: The Rise of the Cinema
In-Class Assignment
: Jonathan Auerbach, “McKinley at Home: How Early American Cinema
Made News” American Quarterly, vol. 51, #4 (1999), 797-832 (course website)
RESEARCH PROPOSAL DUE!
February 4th: A Love of Everything New – The 1920s
First 25 – Seminar
Last 25 – Reading Summary
: Alain Locke, ‘Harlem’ (1925)
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/LocHarlF.html
: Pictorial Review, ‘To Bob Or Not To Bob?’
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5117/
February 11th: Resisting Modernity, pt. II – Nativism and the Klan
Film – ‘Birth of a Nation’ (dir. D.W. Griffith)
February 18th: Reading Week (no classes)
February 25th: The Rise of Radio
In-Class Assignment
: Derek W. Vaillant, “Sounds of Whiteness: Local Radio, Racial
Formation, and Public Culture in Chicago, 1921–1935” American Quarterly, v. 54,
#1, March 2002, 25-66 (course website)
March 4th: African-American Music – Jazz and the Blues
Film – ‘Jazz’, episode 1: ‘Gumbo’ (dir. Ken Burns)
March 11th: Early Rumblings of Youth – The American Teenager
Last 25 – Seminar
First 25 – Reading Summary
: Bennett Berger, “Teenagers are an American Invention”, New York
Times Magazine, June 13, 1965 (reserve).
: Fred and Grace Hechinger, “Sex: Little Old Technicians” in Teenage
Tyranny, 47-68 (reserve).
March 18th: Resisting Modernity, pt. III: The Scopes Monkey Trial and the
Rise of Fundamentalism
Guest Lecturer – Todd Webb
Film – ‘Inherit the Wind’ (dir. Stanley Kramer)
March 25th: No Class (Good Friday)
April 1st: America at War
In-Class Assignment
: Douglas H. Daniels, “Los Angeles Zoot: Race "Riot," the Pachuco, and
Black Music Culture” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 82, No. 2. (Spring,
1997), 201-220 (website)
April 4th: The Culture of the Cold War
Film – ‘Dr. Strangelove’ (dir. Stanley Kubrick)
FINAL ESSAY DUE!
Good luck on the exam…