History 44
Professor Bannister
Spring 1998
The following provides a basic outline of topics,
required and recommended readings, and class assignments and format.
More detailed listings of primary and secondary works, and guides to
library resources, are contained in supplementary Bibliographies,
copies of which are on the "Classes" fileserver as well as the WWW
(see URLs below) The latter should be consulted throughout the term
in connection with in-class reports, and for the term paper. For
History majors, the term paper fulfills the *starred course
requirement.
The weekly readings are listed under PRIM. and SEC.You are expected
to read all of these, and as many of the others as you wish,
especially in connection with class reports. Both sets of readings
are on GENERAL RESERVE in separate Binders
labelled "Primary" and "Secondary" under
History 44. Books from which one or two chapters are assigned are on
General Reserve. The required reading should be considered a minimum
to be supplemented with some additional reading for the in-class
reports (see below). Recommended readings (REC.) include selected
"classic" studies and some samples of the most recent work in the
period.
Class meetings will typically combine a brief introductory
presentation, a student report on the general readings and/or one or
more brief
reports by members of the class on a special topic as listed. The
formal work of the course consists of (1) three in class reports (3 pp.
single spaced maximum), one of which should be a discussion of the
historiographical issues raised in the required secondary readings
for the week or any one supplementary reading. These reports must be
spaced throughout the term as follows: weeks 1-4, 5-8; and 9-13.; (2)
a term paper (18-20 pp. double spaced maximum), and (3) a final
examination. CLASS ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION ARE IMPORTANT ASPECTS
OF THE COURSE. MORE THAN ONE UNEXCUSED ABSENCE WILL RESULT IN A
LOWERING OF THE GRADE BY ONE LEVEL FOR EACH UNEXCUSED ABSENCE.
Books to Purchase. The following required readings should be purchased by
each member of the class, and have been ordered for the
bookstore.
*John M. Cooper,
The Warrior and the
Priest
*Ellen Fitzpatrick, ed.
Muckraking
*Upton Sinclair. The
Jungle
*Kathy Peiss, Cheap
Amusements
*Ruth Rosen, The Lost
Sisterhood
The two volumes of the "New American Nation Series" for the period
will be useful for students who have little background, and for
general reference: George Mowry, The Era of
Theodore Roosevelt; and Arthur Link,
Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era,
located on the "American History" Honors
reserve shelf . Two recent surveys are John M. Cooper,
Pivotal Decades 1900-1920 (1990) and John Whiteclay Chambers, The tyranny of change : America in the Progressive Era,
1900-1917 (2nd edition), both on General
Reserve. Two excellent bibliographies for the period are John D.
Buenker et al., eds. Progressive
Reform (1980) [Ref. Z1242.8.B84]; and
Louis Filler, ed. , Progressivism and
Muckraking (1976) [Ref. Z7164.S66.F54].
For biography and reference see John D. Buenker and Edward
R.Kantowicz, eds. Historical Dictionary of
the Progressive Era 1890-1930 (Greenwood
Press, 1988) [Reference]. A version of this syllabus with
bibliographies for weekly papers may be accessed on the World Wide
Web with Netscape at Bibliographies
A Note on Organization of the
Syllabus/Course
The syllabus is organized to correspond roughly with successive
stages within the "progressive era," whether conceived in terms of
the "three languages" of progressivism (Rodgers), shifting political
coalitions (Thelen, Buenker), or emerging differences over "life
style" issues that make it difficult or impossible to speak of a
"progressive movement" at all (Filene). Thematically, the three major
sections are: (1) politics and efforts to regulate the economy in
which the language of "antitrust" dominated [weeks 2-4], focusing on
the background and presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow
Wilson; (2) the transformation of the social order, with implications
for "community" among both the middle and working classes [weeks
5-6]; and (3) efforts to impose a middle class order in the name of
"efficiency" and "social control" during the later part of the era,
along with the responses of groups most directly affected (laborers,
African-Americans, immigrants, women) [weeks 6-12]. A final two weeks
considert he impact of World War I on the progressive agenda, and the
legacy for post-1918 liberalism.
Cutting across this three-fold organization are several major themes
that are basic to an understanding of the period: (1)
bureaucratization/professionalization; (2) secularization as related
to the disruption of traditional community; and (3) shifting
definitions of gender. Not coincidentally, these themes also
concerned seminal thinkers of the period, both in Europe and in the
United States. Chief among the Europeans were Max Weber
(bureaucratization) Emil Durkheim (secularization) , and Sigmund
Freud (sex and gender). Their theories, in turn, opposed or
supplemented an earlier tradition of class and economic analysis
stemming from the work of Karl Marx and his disciples. The resulting
debates echo through much of the historical literature of
progressivism. Students interested in key writings may wish
especially to consult, Weber, "The Essentials of Bureaucratic
Organization: An Ideal-Type Construction" and Durkheim, "Concerning
the definition of religious phenomena." (For Freud's most direct
contribution to psychohistory see William C. Bullitt and Freud,
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1967).
Although the approach is on competing "languages," conflicting
interests, and shifting coalitions rather than the definition of a
single "progressive mind" or "ethos" (as, for example in Hofstadter,
Crunden), limits exclude certain individuals, movements, and
social/economic developments which were part of America history from
the late 1890s through 1920. "Progressive" is limited to those
individuals who thought of themselves or were thought by others under
this rubric. The primary cast of characters thus includes individuals
from the two generations born from the late 1850s to the late 1880s,
but not their intellectual mentors of the "generation of 1840"
(Lester Ward, O.W. Holmes, William James, e.g.) or a younger group of
radicals and bohemians who caused a stir in several major cities on
the eve of the First Word War. Important cultural developments,
usually considered under the term "modernism," are likewise excluded,
whether in philosophy and social thought (the impact of Nietzsche or
Freud, for example) or art (the New York Armory Show of 1913).
Changes in the international power balance and foreign relations are
also omitted, except for final consideration of the impact of World
War I on the home front. A complete history of the period would
reveal how these individuals, movements, and underlying changes were
underlining the progressive effort to reshape America in the very
years when it appeared to be most successful.
Week 1. The Problem of Progressivism
(January 21)
REQ. Daniel Rodgers, "In Search of Progressivism," Reviews in American History
(1982) [Binder:Secondary]
REC. J.D. Buenker et al., Progressivism (1977)
Buenker, "The Progressive Era: A Search for a Synthesis,"
Mid-America 51
(1969): 175-93 [Binder:Sec.]
Diggins, John "Republicanism and Progressivism," American Quarterly 37 (Fall
1985): 572-98.
Peter Filene, "An Obituary for the Progressive Movement,"
American Quarterly 22
(1970), 20-34
Richard W. Fox, "The Culture of Liberal Protestant
Progressivism," Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 23(winter 1993):
639-660.
Richard Hofstadter, Age of
Reform, chs. 4-6
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: Progressive Era Historiography and Social
Theory. Although this is the first class, I hope everyone will be
able to read and be prepared to discuss the Rodgers article listed
above.
Week 2. Growing Up "Progressive" Roosevelt,
Wilson and the Social/Psychological Roots of Progressivism (January
28)
SEC. Cooper, The Warrior and the
Priest, chs. 1-5
Resti, Arnoldo, "Theordore Roosevelt and the Culture of Masculinity,"
Journal of American History," 81 (1995), 1509-33 [Binder:Secondary]
Ross, Dorothy, "Woodrow Wilson and the Case for Psychohistory,"
Journal of American History 69 (1982), 659-68 [Binder:Secondary]
Chronology 1896-1920 [Binder Secondary]
REC. Glenn Davis, "The Early Years of TR," History of Childhood Q
2 (1974-75),
461-90
Robert Crunden, Ministers of
Reform, ch. 1.
R. Hofstadter, The Age of
Reform, ch 4
Lears, R.J. No Place of
Grace, ch 1
J. Dubbert, "Progressivism and the Masculinity Crisis," in
The American Man
(1980), ed.s. E. & J. Pleck.
David Thelen, "Social Tensions and the Origins of Progressivism,"
Journal
of American History 56 (9169), 323-31
TOPICS FOR REPORTS (see biblio: Roosevelt and Wilson)
Roosevelt (Davis
and Cooper, op. cit. supplemented by selective reading in Morris and
McCullough)
Wilson (Articles
by Ross and Tucker and/or Lewis supplemented by Cooper, op. cit. See
fileserver "Wilson" )
Week 3. Muckraking and the "New Politics"
(February 4)
PRIM.Upton Sinclair, The
Jungle
Fitzpatrick, ed. Muckraking, pp. 1-59,
103-121
SEC. Christopher Wilson, Labor of
Words, chs.1, 5 [General Reserve]
Cooper, Warrior and the
Priest, chs. 6-10
Gould,Lewis L. "Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the Emergence
of the Modern Presidency," Pres. Studies
Q. 19 (w 89): 41-50 [Binder:Secondary]
REC. R. Bannister, Ray Stannard Baker
(1966)
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of
Reform, ch. 5
Sally Griffith, Small Town
News
George Juergens, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Press," Daedalus 111 (1982): 113-33; and
his News from the White House: The
Presidential Press Relationship in the Progressive
Era (1982)
David P. Nord, Newspapers and the New
Politics (1981).
Michael Schudsen, Discovering the
News, chs. 2-3
TOPICS FOR REPORTS:
*the class will begin with an overview of national issues and public
policy 1901-1918, with reference to problems concerning the careers
of T.R. and Wilson, providing background and framework for weeks
3-4.
Muckraking,
Objectivity, and the Professionalization of
Journalism (Schudsen with reference to Wilson, Labor of Words, and careers of
Baker or Ida Tarbell, and McClure's Magazine). See
Bibliographies Muckrakers,
Biog/Autobiography esp. Baker,
American Chronicle , chs. 11, 18-22 and Muckraking.
The Muckrakers (any one)
(a) Lincoln Steffens
and Urban Reform (see Bibliog.
Politics/Cities especially titles by Weinstein and Hays, Steffens,
Shame of the Cities and DiGaetano, Alan., "Urban political reform: did it kill
the machine? , "Journal of Urban History v. 18 (Nov. '91) p.
37-67
(b) David Graham Phillips and the Psycho-social Roots of Muckraking.
See Phillips, Treason of the Senate
and Bibliography Biog/Autobiography
(c) Upton Sinclair and the "Truth" of the Jungle. See Louise Wade,
The Problem with Classroom Use of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle,"
American Studies 32 (Fall 1991), 79-101 [see me for copy] .Also bibliography
Meat Inspection.
Week 4. "Corporatism," Welfare, and the
Creation of the "Modern" American State (February 11)
PRIM. Sherman Act (1890), and Clayton Act (1913) [handout and WWW]
Tarbell, in Fitzpatrick,
Muckraking, pp. 60-80
SEC. Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest,
ch. 11-16.
E. Hawley, "The Discovery and Study of 'Corporate Liberalism,'"
Business History Review 52
(1978), 309-20 [Binder: Secondary]
Skocpol, Theda, " State Formation and Social Policy in the United
States," in Social Policy in the United
States (1995), pp. 11-36 [Binder
Secondary]
REC. R. Hofstadter, Age of
Reform, review pp. 215-56.
Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of
Conservatism (1963), esp. pp. 287-305
William Letwin, Law and Economic
Policy
Ruiz, George W., "The Ideological Convergence of Theodore Roosevelt
and Woodrow Wilson," Pres. Studies
Q. 19 (w 89): 159-77 [xerox drawer:
APH]
Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American
State , esp. chs. 1, pp. 165-76, ch. 8,
Epilogue
J. Weinstein, The Corporate
Ideal, chs. 1, 3
Zunz, Olivier, Making America corporate,
1870-1920(1990)
TOPICS FOR REPORTS: (see biblio.Antitrust, and under topics)
Regulating
Industry (any one)
(a) antitrust: the battle against Standard Oil
(b) Railroads (esp. thesis of Albro Martin with relation to
Skowronek)
(c) Banking and the Creation of The Federal Reserve System
Women and Creation of the American Welfare
State (see Bibliography: Women.Reform)
Week 5. Universities, Professions, Suburbs:
the New Middle Class (February 18)
SEC. Gordon, Lynn D. "The Gibson girl goes to college"American Quarterly v. 39 (Summer
'87) p. 211-30
Margaret Marsh, "Suburban Men and Masculine Domesticity 1870-1915,"
American Quarterly 40 (1988): 165-86.[Binder: Secondary]
Wayne Hobson, "Professionals, Progressives, and Bureaucratization,"
Historian
39 (1977),
639-58 [Binder: Secondary]
REC.Lynn D. Gordon, Gender and Higher
Education in the Progressive Era (1990)
Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass frontier :
the suburbanization of the United States (New York 1985), chs. 5-8 [HT384.U5 J33 1985
Marsh, Margaret S., Suburban
lives ( New Brunswick, NJ , 1990).
Morantz, R.M., "Feminism, Professionalism, and Germs,"
American Quarterly 34
(1982), 459-78
TOPICS FOR REPORTS:
Universities,
Pragmatism and Gender (Gordon)
Professionalization: sources and consequences with
reference to any one of the following: medicine (Morantz, Markowitz)
, law, engineering [see fileserver]
Suburbanization (see biblio. Suburbs, esp. titles by Marsh, Jackson)
Week 6. Community, Consumerism, and Leisure
(February 25)
PRIM. Jane Addams, The
Spirit of Youth, chs. 1,4 [Binder: Primary]
SEC. Kathy Peiss, Cheap
Amusements (1986)
Gorman, Paul R.,"Healthy recreation versus "exploiting pleasure" in
the progressive era, "in Left intellectuals
& popular culture in twentieth-century
(1996) [Binder.Secondary]
Steven Gelber, "Working at Playing: The Culture of the Workplace and
the Rise of Baseball," J. Social
History (1983), 3-22
[Binder:Secondary]
REC.
Lewis A. Erenberg, Stepping Out: New York
Night Life and the Transformation of American Culture 1890-1930
(Westport, CT, 1981)
Allen Guttmann, A Whole New Ball
Game, chs. 5-6
Kasson, John, Amusing the
Million
Lary May, Screening Out the Past: The Birth
of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry (1980).
Rosenzweig, Roy, Eight Hours for What We
will
TOPICS FOR REPORTS:
Working Class
Entertainment (esp. titles by Peiss, Kasson, and Rosenzweig. .See
Bibliog. Leisure
The
Movies (see
Bibliography Movies esp. title by May)
Rise of Organized
Sports (see Bibliogs. Boxing,
Baseball, Football, or Sports. Paper on one sport)
Week 7. From "Humanitarianism to "Social
Control" (March 4))
PRIM Jane
Addams, "The Subjective Necessity for Social
Settlements" [Binder: Primary]
Edward A. Ross, Social
Control [Binder: Primary]
SEC. Dominck V Cavallo, "Sexual Politics and Social reform: Jane
Addams from Childhood to Hull House," New
Directions in Psychohistory [Binder,
Sec.]
Sklar, Kathryn K. "Hull House in the 1890s," Signs 10 (1985): 658-77
[Binder:Secondary ]
REC. Lawrence Cremin, The Transformation of
the School
Joel Spring, "Education and Progressivism," History of Education Quarterly
10 (1970),
53-71
Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from
Evil, [on Prohibition]
Reilly, Philip R. The Surgical Solution, A
History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United
States (1991) .
TOPICS FOR REPORTS:
Social Settlements and Social
Workers (see biblio. Social
settlements)
"Progressive "Education
Drinking and Prohibition. See bibliography Prohibition
Eugenics
Spring Break
Week 8. Race and Social Control: Jim Crow
and the Black Response (March 18)
PRIM.B.T. Washington, "The Atlanta Exposition Address," [Binder:
Primary]
DuBois, "Of B.T.W. and Others," Souls of
Black Folk [Binder: Primary]
R.S. Baker, Following the Color
Line, ch. 8. [Binder: Primary]
SEC. Robert L. Factor, "Booker T. Washington and the Transformation
of the Black Belt Negro," Building the
Organization Society, ed. J. Israel
[Binder: Secondary]
REC. S.P. Fullinwider,The Mind and Mood of
Black America (1969), ch. 3.
E.S. Redkey, Black Exodus:...Back to
Africa, 1890-1910
C.F. Kellogg, NAACP:1909-20 (1967)
TOPICS FOR REPORTS: (see biblio. African-Americans )
B.T.W. : Stability or
Subversion?
DuBois and the "Talented
Tenth"
Racial Conflict and the Rise of The
NAACP
Jim Crow and the Federal Government
Week 9. Immigration and Restriction (March
25)
PRIM. Dillingham Commission Report Excerpt [Binder: Primary]
Photos by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine [WWW]
SEC. Yaszek, Lisa,"Them damn pictures": Americanization and the comic
strip in the Progressive Era," Journal of
American Studies 28 (Apr. '94) p.
23-38
O. Handlin, "Old Immigrants and New," Race
and Nationality in American Life [Binder:
Secondary]
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of
Man, ch. [Binder, sec.]
REC. Alan M. Krout, The Huddled
Masses...1880-1921 (1982)
Thomas Kessner, The Golden Door...NYC
1880-1915 (1977)
Kamin, "Psychology and the Immigrant," in The Science and Politics of IQ,
ch. 2
TOPICS FOR REPORTS: (see biblio. Immigration)
How "New " was the "New Immigration" ?
(focus on any one or two groups with
reference to the Handlin article on Dillingham Commission)
Immigration Restriction (see biblio. Immigration)
Images of Immigants: Riis vs.
Hine
Week 10. Labor: Socialism and Scientific
Management (April 1)
PRIM. Baker, "Right to Work," in Fitzpatrick, ed. Muckraking , pp. 81-102
SEC. Daniel Nelson, "Scientific Management and Labor 1880-1915,"
Business History Review 48
(1974) [Binder: Secondary]
John P. Diggins, The Rise and Fall of the
American Left, Preface, chs. 1-4 [Gen.
Res.]
David Brody, "The American Worker in the Progressive Age," in
Workers in Industrial
America (1980), pp. 3-47 [Binder Sec. and
Gen Res.]
REC. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly
Capital (1974), chs.4, 5
Mary Jo Buehl, Women and
Socialism
John J. Cumbler, Working Class Community in
Industrial America 1880-1920
S. Haber, Efficiency and
Uplift (1964)
D. Montgomery, Worker's
Control
D. Nelson, Managers and
Workers (1975)
B. Ramirez, When Workers
Fight (1978)
TOPICS FOR REPORTS: (see biblio. Workers and Socialism)
Labor Unions and Politics
"Scientific Management" and Worker
Control
Socialism and Syndicalism
Women, Labor, and Socialism
Week 11. Sex, Reproduction, and the Family
(April 8)
SEC Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood,
Introd. chs 1-3, 8, Epilogue
Chauncey, George, "From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality, in
Passion and Power, ed. K. Peiss
May, Elaine, "The Pressure to Provide: Class, Consumerism, and
Divorce in Urban America 1880-1920, Journal
of Social History 12 (w. 78): 180-93.
[Binder: Secondary]
REC. Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's
Rights, chs. 5-10
Barbara Hobson, Uneasy Virtue: The Politics
of Prostitution (1987)
George Chauncey, Gay New York ...1890-1940
(1994), chs. 1-4
Mark Haller, Eugenics
Mark Connelly, The Response to
Prostitution (1980)
James Reed, From Private Vice to Public
Virtue (1978)
O'Neill, "Divorce in the Progressive Era, " American Quarterly, 18 (summer
1965): 703-17. Also book by same title
TOPICS FOR REPORTS
Prostitution
Birth Control/Abortion
Eugenics
Divorce
Homosexuality
Thanksgiving
Week 12. Feminism and the Woman's Movement
(April 15)
PRIM. C.P. Gilman, Women and
Economics [Binder: Primary]
SEC. McGerr, Michael "Political Style and Women's Power 1830-1930,"
Journal of American History 77 (Dec. 1990): 864-85 [Binder:Sec]
Cott, "What's in a Name?"[on social feminism], Journal of American History 76
(1989): 809-29 [Binder: Sec.]
Berkin, C."Charlotte P. Gilman," in Portraits of American Women ,
ed. Barker-Benfield and C. Clinton [Binder: Sec]
REC.Carl Degler, At Odds, chs. 14-15
Sara Evans, Born for Liberty
, ch. 7
William O'Neill, Everyone Was
Brave (1969), chs. 1-5
Nancy Cott, Grounding of Modern
Feminism, chs. 1-2
Aileen Kraditor, Ideas of the Woman's
Suffrage Movement (1965)
TOPICS FOR REPORTS:
"Social Feminism"
(see esp. Cott in JAH).
Suffragism (see biblio. Women)
Radical Feminism: C.P.
Gilman
Week 13. Progressives and World War I.
(April 22)
REQ. *Cooper, Warrior and the
Priest, chs. 17-21
. A. Link, "What Happened to Progressivism in the 1920s?",
American Historical Review 64
(1959)
REC. Carol Gruber, Mars and
Minerva
David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World
War and American Society (1980)
John W. Thompson, Reformers and War:
American Progressive Publicists and World War I (1987)
John F. McClymer, War and Welfare: Social
Engineering in America 1890-1925 (1980)
TOPICS FOR REPORTS
World War I and Progressivism (any aspect:
see Kennedy, Over Here)
Week 14.A Progressive Revival? (April
29)
Review and discussion of recent use of term "progressivism" in light
of materials in the course. Readings to be announced.
(no papers: general discussion and review)
Term Papers must be turned in by the time of the final
examination.
