Oscar Handlin Conference on Thursday, March 8

Please note that there will be a one-day conference on Thursday, March 8, from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm, on the life and work of Oscar Handlin, one of the founders of the modern study of immigration history. Handlin earned his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College in 1934, going on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1940. Handlin died just last year at the age of ninety-five. He donated his papers to the Brooklyn College Library.

Most of the conference will take place in the Tanger Auditorium in the library. You are welcome to attend, and can read about more details about the sessions here.

Chapter 5 Questions: The American Revolution

Here are this week’s questions on Chapter Five written by your classmate, Peter Sacca:

1. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense helped to unify the colonists in the fight against Great Britain. If Paine had never written  Common Sense, would the colonists have rallied to the cause of rebellion in the same way?

2.  Instead of General Howe working his way up the Hudson into Albany to meet John Burgoyne like he was supposed to, instead he and his forces went and captured Philadelphia. What was the overall impact of Howe’s decision?

3. For the most part, most people would agree that the Articles of Confederation were a failure. But I believe that the Articles of Confederation were a much needed failure in order to create a much better government. What do you feel about the Articles of Confederation and its problems?

4. In need of money to pay war debts, states had to tax even their poorest citizens. The taxes angered the people, especially poor farmers. Did Daniel Shays have the right idea in rebelling? Or was there an alternate way of him getting he and his follower’s point across?

Chapter 4 Questions: The Empire in Transition

Below please find this week’s web questions, written by your classmate, Erik Akselband.

Close-up of an Indian from The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West (1770)

1.  What are some factors that led the Albany Plan to not being approved? Why were the British colonies of North America not able to cooperate with each other, especially when it came down to creating anything like a general government? Considering the fact that a war was going on, how was it that the colonies could not even establish a common defense?

2. After the French and Indian War was over, the size of British debt had expanded massively, in part because of the defense of the colonies.  Colonists contributed little toward the war, and even sold supplies to the French. After all this, what is your opinion of London taking firmer control of the colonies in the years after 1763?

3. Going back to previous chapters, why do you think that all colonies sent delegates to Philadelphia for the first Continental Congress, except for Georgia?

4. Why do you think it took so long for the colonies of America to finally work together, and especially to work against the British?  What specific events led to the colonies finally doing so?  Do you think that the colonies would have worked together if certain events had not happened?

5. What might have happened had Lord North’s decision to allow the colonies to vote on Parliament’s proposed taxes came earlier then it did?  Do you feel that the colonies eventually would have received representation in the Parliament?

Chapter 3 Questions: “Society and Culture in Provincial America”

John Wollaston, "Portrait of a Girl" (1760s)

Below please find this week’s web questions, written by your classmate, Christopher Furnari:

1) I found the differences between the northern and southern colonies very interesting. Why do you think that the North was able to create a more diverse and prosperous economy–with more commerce and manufacturing–than in the South? Was it due to Northerners’ more stable social order, or the fact that they were forced to expand beyond agriculture due to poor farm land ?

2) Why do you think that wealthy southern planters tried to make themselves into an elite class of gentlemen that imitated the English aristocracy? Did behaving in this manner help to control the population (especially the slaves)?

3) I think that the northern colonies were already more on the road to a rebellious nature than those in the South as they set up their colonies for the most part with more freedom for the people and less direct control from the crown. Do you feel that the seeds of the revolution can be traced back this early?

4) Who had a bigger impact on shaping the culture and society of the colonies: the growing urban merchant class or the wealthy Southern planters?

 

Please post a comment in response to at least one of these questions by sometime Wednesday night, so that I have a chance to read them before class.

Chapter 2 Questions: “Tranplantations and Borderlands”

 Below please find this week’s discussion questions written by your classmate, James Phinex. Please respond to at least one of these questions using the “Leave a Comment” function on this page by Wednesday night. Your comment should follow the guidelines here.

Map of Jamestown and its surroundings in 1612 by Captain John Smith

1. Why did the promoters of the Jamestown stick with their enterprise even though the initial years were so hard? Why not move to another region with more fertile soil for agricultural prosperity and a lesser degree of native contact to reduce hostilities?
2. When the Puritans settled in New England, how was their attitude toward religious practice similar to that of the King of England, from whom they had fled? Do you see any hypocrisy here?
3. How did the Europeans’ belief that they were superior to the natives reflect in their interactions with the natives? Why didn’t the natives initially band together and put a stop toward a European presence in North America? Did their culture or their hunger for European goods, such as weaponry, lead to their downfall?
4. I found interesting the increasing problem with natives as European settlement expanded. I am just wondering: Why did these companies that chartered these expeditions not send more soldiers or maybe mercenaries to protect both people and goods?
5. The issue of slavery has been a controversial topic since the beginning of the American story. As early as 1619 Africans were brought to Jamestown. Many historians agree that these particular Africans were brought as indentured servants rather than slaves. I am just curious to know, how did indentured servitude transform into the brutal and harsh institution of slavery? What does this say about the development of racial stereotypes and the effects these stereotypes have on the relations of whites and Africans?

The Original Stamp Act

Just an FYI: the original handwritten copy of the Stamp Act passed by Parliament—a document that many credit as being the primary trigger for the American Revolution and which we will be discussing in detail in our upcoming classes—is on display at the New-York Historical Society on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. You can read about the exhibition here.

Jan. 31: What Do You Want to Learn in this Course?

Joseph Brant by Gilbert Stuart, London, 1786

Welcome! I hope you all had an enjoyable winter break. I wanted to let you know about a few items before we meet on Tuesday, January 31, at 8:00 am in Whitehead 517.

1) Please download a PDF of the course syllabus here and review it before the first class. We will go over it together, but it would be good to look it over beforehand.

2) There are three books required for this class, which will be available at the Brooklyn College bookstore shortly (you can also click on each title to be taken to the Amazon page for each):

• Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People, Volume I: To 1877, Sixth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.
• Douglass, Frederick and David W. Blight, ed. Narrative of the Life Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, with Related Documents, Second Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.
• Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long, Bitter Trail. New York: Hill & Wang, 1993.

3) Lastly, you also have a very brief assignment for the first class. (No worries–it doesn’t require any reading!) Using the “Leave a Comment” function above, name one issue, theme, or event in American history (up through the Civil War) that you hope to learn more about in this course. Explain why you find this issue/theme/event important, troublesome, or hard to understand. Everyone in the course is required to provide an answer of at least a paragraph. Ideally, you should follow the guidelines for posting on the course website which you find here, or on pages three and four of the syllabus.