WOODROW WILSON S AMERICA THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN UNITED STATES,

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1 WOODROW WILSON S AMERICA THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN UNITED STATES, History 84o, Tuesday, 1-3 pm, Robinson Lower Library ( Course Head Dr. Trygve Throntveit, Robinson 101 Office Hrs: W, 1-3 (by appt. u.history.fas.harvard.edu) throntv@fas.harvard.edu Head Teaching Fellow Holger Drösler Office Hrs: TBA hdroessl@fas.harvard.edu Woodrow Wilson ( ) was a lawyer, scholar, and statesman who experienced, studied, and shaped many defining moments in America's emergence as a unified nation-state and modern industrial society. In this research seminar, Wilson's responses to his changing nation prompt engagement with multiple narratives of epochal events in his lifetime, including: Civil War, Reconstruction, industrialization, immigration, imperialism, segregation, woman suffrage, progressivism, state centralization, scientific advance, religious fundamentalism, modernism, consumerism, and World War I. Readings. The seminar is structured around John Milton Cooper s new biography of the twentyeight president. Each week from weeks 2 through 10 (excluding spring break), we will read a small chunk of the book together. In addition, each student will choose one among several satellite readings on themes important to the period covered some important to Wilson and examined by Cooper, some not. It is each student s responsibility to master the shared reading and the satellite reading so that all can teach each other about this complex period, and introduce one another to a wide range of potential research topics not necessarily apparent from Cooper s book. Assignments. This course is designed to you students to formulate, prepare, and execute a major research project on a specific topic, while familiarizing you with the broader context of the period. Thus the major assignment in this course is the research paper, which accounts for 45% of the grade. This 45% comprises the paper itself (35% of the final grade), two short proposal assignments (totaling 5%), and an in-class presentation of work in progress (5%). Because mastering the literature and finding your project s place in it is crucial to a successful research paper, you will also write three short review essays worth 5%, 5%, and 10% of the final grade. A 500-word primary-source analysis will count toward 10% of your grade, and the remaining 25% will be determined by your discussion and exposition of the shared and satellite readings each week (15%) and your participation in the peer-review workshop in week 12 (10%). Thus: Research Paper (incl. proposals & presentation): 45% * Class Participation (readings & peer review): 25% * Review Essays: 20% * Source Analysis: 10% In short, there are many ways to earn credit in this course, but all are geared toward your producing a high-quality work of original historical scholarship that will be by far the largest factor in your grade. 1

2 REQUIRED TEXTS One text is required for purchase (available at the COOP): John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 2009). The texts on each week s satellite themes are available on the course website. They are listed below, under the appropriate dates. Satellite readings will be divvied up randomly at the previous week s seminar, but feel free to swap readings with other students. SCHEDULE OF COURSE MEETINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS Week 1 (January 24): Introduction Week 2 (January 31): Reconstruction, Redemption, and Expansion Cooper, Prologue and Chs. 1-3 E. Foner, Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, in E. Foner, ed., The New American History, Revised and Expanded Edition (Philadelphia, 1997), R. L. Numbers, The Creationists (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), chapter 1, Creationism in the Age of Darwin and chapter 3, Creationism in the Fundamentalist Controversy, 15-32, G. Bederman, Civilization, the Decline of Middle-Class Manliness, and Ida B. Wells s Antilynching Campaign ( ), Radical History Review 52 (1992), W. L. Williams, United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism, Journal of American History 66.4 (Mar., 1980), Week 3 (February 7): The Higher Education of Industrial America Cooper, Chs. 4-6 Choice 1: J. Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality (Chicago, 1996), chapter 2, Science and Religion Reconceived, R. L. McCormick, The Discovery That Business Corrupts Politics: A Reappraisal of the Origins of Progressivism, American Historical Review 86 (1981), L. Glickman, Inventing the American Standard of Living : Gender, Race and Working- Class Identity, , Labor History 34 (1993), J. Higham, The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s, in J. Weiss, ed., The Origins of Modern Consciousness (Detroit, 1965),

3 Week 4 (February 14): The Election of 1912 PRIMARY SOURCE ANALYSIS (500 wds.) DUE (Find a primary source relating both to this week s selection from Cooper and to the satellite reading you choose. Make a historical argument about its meaning and significance based on close reading of the source itself and careful consideration of its historical context. Consult the History 84o online research guide and the History 84o instructors for help finding a source.) Cooper, Chs. 7-9 S. M. Milkis, Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy (Lawrence, Kan., 2009), chapter 2, Roosevelt, Progressive Democracy, and the Progressive Movement, L. L. Gould, Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics (Lawrence, Kan., 2008), chapter 3, Roosevelt versus Taft in 1912, D. A. Corbin, Betrayal in the West Virginia Coal Fields: Eugene V. Debs and the Socialist Party of America, , Journal of American History 64 (1978), J. Freeman, The Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912 (2003), IN CLASS SHORT-FILM SCREEING: The Old Way and the New (1912; 8 mins.) [Screen credit: Archival film material from the collections of the Library of Congress] Week 5 (February 21): The New Freedom REVIEW ESSAY # 1 (2-3 pp.) DUE (Critically analyze Cooper s treatment of a particular event or theme from this week s chapter selections in light of the arguments and evidence presented in the satellite reading you choose.) Cooper, Chs T. Throntveit, Common Counsel : Woodrow Wilson s Pragmatic Progressivism, , in J. M. Cooper, Jr., Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson: Progressivism, Internationalism, War, and Peace (Washington and Baltimore: The Wilson Center Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), D. T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), chapter 6, The Wage Earners Risks, G. Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996), chapter 6, Diplomatic Women, T. J. Jackson Lears, From Salvation to Self-Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture, , in R. Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, eds., The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, (New York, 1983),

4 Week 6 (February 28): Dilemmas of Justice at Home and Abroad PRELIMINARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS (3; 1 paragraph each) DUE Cooper, Chs M. P. Guterl, The New Race Consciousness: Race, Nation, and Empire in American Culture, , Journal of World History 10 (Fall, 1999), L. Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), chapter 11, Providing Benevolent Supervision: Dollar Diplomacy, and chapter 12, Continuing to Help in the Most Practical Way Possible, M. Sosna, The South in the Saddle: Racial Politics during the Wilson Years, Wisconsin Magazine of History 54 (1970), C. Lunardini and T. J. Knock, Woodrow Wilson and Woman Suffrage: A New Look, Political Science Quarterly 95 ( ), TBA: WEEK 6 MOVIE SCREENING: The Birth of a Nation [The Clansman] (1915), dir. by D.W. Griffith Week 7 (March 6): Conflict REVIEW ESSAY # 2 (4-5 pp.) DUE (After studying your satellite reading, seek out and familiarize yourself with another major work on the theme. Compare and contrast its argument with that of your satellite reading as well as Cooper s treatment of the same theme, and evaluate all three works individually and as a group. What are the successes and shortcomings of each? What can we learn about the topic by putting these works in dialogue that we would not learn by analyzing them separately?) Cooper, Chs T. J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (1992; Princeton, N.J., 1995), chapter 6, Raising a New Flag: The League and the Coalition of 1916 and chapter 7, All the Texts of the Rights of Man : Manifestoes for Peace and War, R. Schaffer, America in the Great War: The Rise of the War Welfare State (New York, 1994), chapters 3-5 (pp ) E. McKillen, Ethnicity, Class, and Wilsonian Internationalism Reconsidered: The Mexican-American and Irish-American Immigrant Left and U.S. Foreign Relations, , Diplomatic History 25 (Fall, 2001), S. A. Reich, Black Texans and the Fight for Citizenship, , Journal of American History 82 (1996), MARCH 10-12: ONE-ON-ONE MEETINGS WITH DR. THRONTVEIT 4

5 Week 8 (March 13): SPRING RECESS Week 9 (March 20): Unfated Ironies FINAL RESEARCH QUESTION (1 paragraph) DUE Cooper, Chs T. Throntveit, The Fable of the Fourteen Points: Woodrow Wilson and National Self- Determination, Diplomatic History 35 (June, 2011), L. McGirr, The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Global History, Journal of American History 93 (2007), M. M. Ngai, The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law: A Reexamination of the Immigration Act of 1924, Journal of American History 86 (1999), Nancy McLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York, 1994), chapter 2, Where Money Rules and Morals Rot : The Vise of Modernity, Week 10 (March 27): Conclusions REVIEW ESSAY # 3 (5-7 pp.) DUE (Find three major books or two books and two articles on your research topic to read and analyze comparatively. These count as your satellite readings for the week.) Cooper, Chs Selected by student. TBA: WEEK 10 MOVIE SCREENING: Wilson (1944), dir. by Henry King Week 11 (April 3): NO CLASS PAPER DRAFT (15-pp. min.) DUE **FRIDAY APRIL 9**, 5 PM (1 copy to Robinson 101; copies to peer-review partners, cc. Dr. Throntveit) Week 12 (April 10): Peer-Review Workshop PEER-REVIEW ASSIGNMENTS DUE (1 copy of each to the author, one to Dr. Throntveit) Weeks (April 17, 24): Works in Progress STUDENT PRESENTATIONS Week 15: Spring Reading Period (Thurs. April 26 Thurs. May 3) FINAL PAPER DUE **THURS. MAY 3**, 5 PM 5