"You’ll never learn where it’s at until you learn where it’s from." -- Coleman Hawkins

"The one duty we have to history is to rewrite it."  -- Oscar Wilde

This course offers a survey of pre-1900 United States history from an economic perspective. We will study the development of economic institutions, markets, and industries, as well as economic interpretations of historical phenomena such as the American Revolution, slavery, the Civil War, immigration, and the robber-baron era. We will employ basic microeconomic and macroeconomic tools in analyzing and seeking explanations of historical events and outcomes. The coverage runs from the pre-colonial era to the turn of the twentieth century.

Office hours: Tu 10-12, Th 2-4, and by appointment

Prerequisites

ECO 101 (introductory microeconomics) and ECO 200 (introductory macroeconomics); also, ENG 102 (Composition II) or ENG 204 (Writing About Literature) or passage of exemption examination.

Required texts

• Atack, Jeremy, & Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History. 2^nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994.
• Dighe, Ranjit, ed. The Historian’s Wizard of Oz: Reading L. Frank Baum’s Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
• Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. 4^th ed. Boston: Bedford Books, 1999. (You might own this already.)
• Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
• Strunk, William Jr. & E.B. White. The Elements of Style. 4^th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.
• Eco 326 course reading packet, available at the College Store and Kraftees. (The required reading for each week will often include one article or book chapter from a source other than your textbooks. The reading packet contains all of the required outside readings.)

This site, which is also accessible through my home page, is worth checking periodically. It will include any future updates to this syllabus, a complete list of course materials on reserve at the library, and links to related sites.

The College Writing Center

... is a strongly recommended resource for anyone who finds the writing component of this course to be a struggle. The tutors at the College Writing Center can offer valuable help in writing and revising your papers. The Center is located in room 203 of Swetman Hall and is reachable by phone at x5758.

Assignments and grading

Since this course is an expository writing class, written assignments will constitute the bulk of your grade. On every written assignment, content and writing will count equally toward your grade. The single largest component of your course grade will be a term paper (minimum of 10 pages). You will write two drafts of this paper, so when you turn in your final draft on the last day of class, it will be a polished product. (Do note that the final draft will be held to a higher standard than the first draft — turning in an unrevised first draft as your final draft will earn you a lower grade.) Along the way you will complete a short assignment or two that relate to the term paper.

Your term paper can be on any important topic in pre-1900 American economic history, provided that you clear it with me first. The article by Robert Whaples (see Week 3's reading) is an excellent place to look for a topic, since it lists forty propositions in economic history on which there is at least some disagreement among economic historians.

Prep papers: You will write five short (2 - 3 pages) preparation papers, containing summaries and your responses to the assigned readings for the week. The due date for each week’s prep paper is at the start of that week’s class. A prep paper should include summaries and responses to all of the assigned readings for the week at hand, and should demonstrate that you have grasped the main idea of each reading. The ideal ratio for a prep paper would be about two-thirds summary and one-third questions or comments for class discussion. These papers should be written as coherent short papers in paragraph form — summary does not mean "outline" or "rough notes."

Since this class is meant to include a lot of discussion, class participation will also enter into your final grade. You may turn in up to three additional prep papers (though no more than one in any given week) for up to ten points of extra credit.

The course will also have a midterm and a final exam. The weighting of the different items will be as follows:
 

Crime does not pay!

Students who are caught cheating on the term paper or on either of the exams will automatically fail this course and, possibly, will have their misdeeds reported to the college authorities. Students who are caught cheating on a prep paper or another item will receive a zero for the item in question, as well as zeroes for two other, equivalently weighted items (e.g., two other prep papers; think of it as a "treble damages" policy).

Course outline and schedule
 

Week	Date	Topics
1	Sept. 4	What Is Economic History? What to read: Course syllabus (every word!) Atack & Passell, "Introduction: What’s New About the ‘New View’ of Economic History?" (9 pp.) Loewen, "Introduction: Something Has Gone Very Wrong" (7 pp.) Hacker, "How to use this book" (pp. vii-xiv; 8 pp.) NOTE: About one-third of this first class will be devoted to a diagnostic writing test. NOTE: Your first prep paper should not be on this week’s readings. Your first prep paper should be on Week 2’s readings, and it is due at the start of class on Sept. 11.
2	Sept. 11	The Writing of Economics Strunk & White, The Elements of Style Hacker, Section E ("Effective Sentences"; pp. 96-122) and G5 and G6 ("Sentence fragments," "Run-on sentences"; pp. 203-14) NOTE: This week’s prep paper (on the readings by Strunk & White and Hacker) is mandatory and due at the beginning of this week’s class. THURS., SEPT. 12 LAST DAY YOU CAN ADD THIS COURSE
3	Sept. 18	Setting the Stage: Debates in American Economic History; Native American Economic History Robert Whaples, "Where Is There Consensus Among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions," Journal of Economic History 55:139-54 (1995). Barrington, Linda, pp.1-10 of "Editor’s Introduction: Native Americans and U.S. Economic History," from The Other Side of the Frontier: Economic Explorations into Native American History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. Loewen, Chapter 3 ("The Truth About the First Thanksgiving"; 23 pp.)
4	Sept. 25	Colonists and Indians Atack & Passell, Chapter 2 ("The Colonial Economy"; 26 pp.) Loewen, Chapter 4 ("Red Eyes"; 39 pp.) TUES., SEPT. 24: LAST DAY YOU CAN DROP THIS COURSE WED., SEPT. 25: TERM-PAPER TOPIC DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS
5	Oct. 2	You Say You Want a Revolution McCusker, John J., & Russell R. Menard, pp. 351-57 of "Economic Growth, Revolution, and the Consequences of Independence," Chapter 17 of The Economy of British America, 1607-1789. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Morgan, Edmund S., pp. 58-61 of The Birth of the Republic, 1763-1789. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956. Atack & Passell, Chapter 3 ("The American Revolution: Some Causes and Consequences"; 25 pp.)
6	Oct. 9	After the Revolution (continuation of unfinished material from Week 5) TERM-PAPER PROSPECTUS (WITH ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY) DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS
7	Oct. 16	Canals, Railroads, and the Nineteenth-Century Transportation Revolution Atack & Passell,  Chapters 6 ("The Transportation Revolution and Domestic Commerce") and 16 ("Railroads and Nineteenth-Century American Economic Growth and Development"; total of 60 pp.)
8	Oct. 23	Women, Early Industrialization, and the Economy Atack & Passell, pp. 175-85 of Chapter 7 ("The Beginnings of Industrialization") Kessler-Harris, Alice, "Industrial Wage Earners and the Domestic Ideology," Chapter 3 of Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. (38 pp.) Atack & Passell, pp. 531-35 of Chapter 19 ("The Market for Labor in Historical Perspective")
9	Oct. 30	(We covered no new material in this class.  There was some last-minute review for the midterm, some handing back and discussion of papers, and that was it.) MIDTERM EXAM FRI., NOV. 1: LAST DAY OF COURSE WITHDRAWAL PERIOD
10	Nov. 6	The Political Economy of Slavery Atack & Passell, Chapter 11 ("Slavery and Southern Development"; 25 pp.) Atack & Passell, Chapter 12 ("How the Southern Slave System Worked"; 27 pp.) FIRST DRAFT OF TERM PAPER DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS
11	Nov. 13	Economic Aspects of the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and "Redemption" NOTE WELL:  This fascinating unit was originally two units, for two different weeks.  Obviously this is about double the reading for a normal week.  If you are writing a prep paper for this week, you can write it about either of the pairs of readings below.  You could even mix and match, if you prefer, provided that you cover at least one Atack & Passell chapter and at least one Loewen chapter.  If you'd like to write about all four chapters, your best bet is probably to write two prep papers. Atack & Passell, Chapter 13 ("The Economics of the Civil War"; 20 pp.) Loewen, Chapter 6 ("John Brown and Abraham Lincoln: The Invisibility of Antiracism in American History Textbooks"; 29 pp.) Atack & Passell, Chapter 14 ("The South After the Civil War"; 25 pp.) Loewen, Chapter 5 ("‘Gone with the Wind’: The Invisibility of Racism in American History Textbooks"; 34 pp.)
12	Nov. 20	Welcome to the Jungle: Northern Industry and Immigration in the Gilded Age Atack & Passell, pp. 229-45 of Chapter 8 ("Population Growth and Redistribution") and all of Chapter 17 ("The Changing Structure of American Industry") Dinnerstein, Leonard, & David M. Reimers, "A Wave of Immigrants, 1789-1890s," Chapter 2 of Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration. Fourth edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999 (31 pp.).
13 WED.-FRI., NOV. 27-29 — NO CLASSES — THANKSGIVING BREAK
14	Dec. 4	The Farmers’ Revolt and the Battle of the Standards, Part I Dighe, Chapters 1, 2, and 3 ("Introduction: The Colors of Money"; "‘If I Only Had a Brain’: A Primer on Gold, Silver, and the American Monetary System"; "‘Populism Will Put Them to Sleep’: A Short History of the Populist Movement of the 1890s"; total of 40 pp.)
15	Dec. 11	The Farmers’ Revolt and the Battle of the Standards, Part II Dighe, Chapter 4 ("L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, With Annotations"; 90 pp.) FINAL DRAFT OF TERM PAPER DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS

WED., DEC. 18, 6:00-8:00: FINAL EXAM (COMPREHENSIVE)

Further reading

Carnes, Mark C., ed. Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies (1996). Watching the movies will never be the same: several dozen distinguished historians discuss the historical accuracy (or lack thereof) of more than seventy historically-minded movies, from Gone With the Wind to The Grapes of Wrath to JFK to Apocalypse Now.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present(1995). This bestseller is one of the most gripping, and radical, American history books you might ever encounter.  It's also the book that Matt Damon’s title character in Good Will Hunting said will "knock you on your ass," and the book about which Tony Soprano's title character on the HBO series said, "This kid finally reads a book, and it turns out to be bull----."  Judge for yourself.