HIS 261: Twentieth-Century U.S.
Fall 2001
Professor McClymer
Description:
At left is the single most requested item in the vast holdings of the National
Archives which contain, among other national treasures, originals of the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
President Nixon and Elvis Presley met at the
singer's request. He had volunteered to work in the administration's anti-drug
crusade. The president, looking for a way to reach out to young people, readily
agreed. He appointed Presley a "deputy" in the anti-drug war. This
office, which had no duties and carried no salary, did come with a badge and
a certificate. Presley was, at the time, addicted to a variety of uppers,
downers, and other medications. Unhappy with the popularity of the Beatles
and with the idea that rock music had left him behind, "the King"
sought to express his unhappiness with "acid rock," psychedelic
rock, and, one assumes, tie-dyed tee shirts. His own outfit was black velvet.
The president wore a dark suit.
How are we to explain the photo's enormous popularity? Perhaps we find it so fascinating because of the incongruity of Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley meeting at all, much less at a White House ceremony making Presley an official drug warrior. Perhaps it speaks to our sense of irony. Here were among the strangest of all the strange bedfellows politics brought together. Or perhaps it simply confirms the wide applicability of the old Grateful Dead lyric: "What a long, strange trip it's been!"
This course seeks to explore that trip from the outbreak of World War I to the present. It will examine the U.S.'s rise to global power. It will also examine the emergence of an American culture and its global impact. And it will examine the contested nature of "Americanism" from efforts in the 1920s to establish a definition of "100% American" with diminished roles for peoples of color, of southern and eastern European backgrounds, of Catholic or Jewish religious faith, as well as for women to present-day struggles.
Prerequisites: None. The course will be taught in conjunction with HIS 394: Seminar on Culture Wars of the 1920s. This does not mean that students must take both. Students in HIS 394 MUST take this course or have taken it or its equivalent. However, any and all students are welcome to take HIS 261 without also taking the seminar.
Format: The course will combine lectures and discussion with an emphasis upon the latter.
Requirements: Students will give regular oral reports upon course materials. They will also write several brief essays upon topics of their own choosing and a final report, also upon a topic of their choosing. Students may work upon the final reports individually or in teams of not more than three. There will be no exams or quizzes.
Materials:
Jonathan Schell, The Time of Illusion (Random House, 1976)
We will also use a number of web-based resources including:
Knoles and McClymer, "American
History and Culture on the Web" (1920s)
Doug Linder, et al., Famous American Trials: Sacco
and Vanzetti, The
Black Sox, Tennessee
vs. John Scopes, The
Sweet Trials
Scott Alexander, The Red Hot Jazz Archive
J. Bradford DeLong, Slouching
Toward Utopia? An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
Thomas Thurston, et al., The
New Deal Network
Doug Linder, et al., Famous American Trials: The
Scottsboro Trials
Duke University Library, Ad*Access
National Archives, Powers
of Persuasion: WWII Posters
Gene Dannen, Atomic
Bomb: Decision (Hiroshima-Nagasaki)
Steve Schoenherr, Cold
War Notes
Washington Post, Watergate
+ the tapes
from Cal, Berkeley