Julia E. Liss 
Associate Professor of History 
 Scripps College 

Spring 1999 Hum. 214, x73541
TT 2:45-4:00, Hum. 202 
Office Hrs: MW 2:45-4:00 
 
 

This course will explore the tumultuous period—that decade between the Great War and the Great Depression— when the United States emerged as a modern society. Although World War I did not, in and of itself, transform the U.S., it did crystallize social and cultural changes that had been on-going for a generation. Still, many observers have argued that the 20^th century really began in 1914 or in 1919. The course will be divided into three sections: the shape of modernity; anti-modernism; and the culture of modernism: race, nation, and community. Among the questions we will consider will be: What were the relationships among capitalism, consumerism, leisure and pleasure? How were personal autonomy and the experience and structure of community affected by the organization and bureaucratization of power? How was the ethic of individualism affected by the constraints of a modern, corporate order? How did political and religious fundamentalisms respond to and interact with the expansion of urban society and ethnic and racial pluralism. As these questions suggest, the triumphs, celebrations, divisions and reactionary impulses that accompanied these changes set the patterns for the emergence of our own time. Assignments will include monographs and primary sources such as novels, films, advertisements, and contemporary writings by social observers, critics and social scientists. 

The course will be run as a seminar. This means that each class will focus on a discussion of the readings. Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assignments. Assignments and grading policy are discussed at the end of the syllabus.

The following books are available at Huntley’s Bookstore and are on two-hour reserve at Honnold Library:

Robert and Helen Lynd, Middletown

Lary May, Screening Out the Past

Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream

Paula Fass, The Damned and the Beautiful

Nancy McLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry

Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods

Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return

George Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White

Nella Larsen, Quicksand

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper (recommended)
 
 

Other reserve and recommended readings listed in the syllabus are available on electronic reserve through Honnold Library and accessible from campus computers (go to the Libraries home page to Data bases and Online services, to reserves to electronic reserves. The password is liss177 (one word, name in lower case).

Week I: Introduction: The End of American Innocence and the Myth of the 1920s

Jan. 19: Introduction to the course
 

Jan. 21: Warren G. Harding, "Inaugural Address," (Electronic Reserve—ER)

Week II: Urbanism

Jan. 26: Ann Douglas, "Introduction" to Terrible Honesty (ER)

                    David Hammack, "Developing for Commercial Culture" (ER)

                    [recommended: Dumenil, Modern Temper, ch. 1]
 

Jan. 28: Robert and Helen Lynd, Middletown, Foreword, ch. 1-3, 7, 17-19, 28, 29
 

Week III: Consumerism and Mass Culture I: The Movies

Feb. 2: Lary May, Screening Out the Past, Preface, Intro., ch. 1-5

                    Gerald Mast, ed. The Movies in Our Midst, selections (ER)
 

Feb. 4: May, Screening Out the Past, ch. 6-8, Epilogue

                    Mary Ryan, "Projection of a New Womanhood," (ER)

Film: "The Ten Commandments" (1923) (arrangements tba)
 

Week IV: Consumerism and Mass Culture II: Advertising

Feb. 9: Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, Intro., ch. 1-3, 5

                    Vicki Ruiz, "The Flapper and the Chaperone," (ER)
 

Week V: The New Woman and Youth Culture

Feb. 16: Paula Fass, The Damned and the Beautiful, Intro., Pt. I

                    Lynd and Lynd, Middletown, ch. 10, 11, 14, 16 (recommended)

                    Beatrice Hinkle, "Against the Double Standard," (ER)

                    [recommended: Dumenil, ch. 3]
 

Week VI: Business Culture

Feb. 23: Bruce Barton, Jesus as a Businessman, in Baritz (ER), pp. 237-247

                    Herbert Hoover, "The Constructivist Instinct" in Baritz (ER), pp. 231-237

                    Robert McIlvaine, "Who Was Roaring in the Twenties" (ER)
 

Feb. 25: Paper Due
 

Week VII: The Tribal Twenties

March 2: John Higham, "The Tribal Twenties" (ER)

                    Prohibition, in Baritz (ER), pp. 43-50

                    Immigration Restriction, in Baritz (ER), pp. 50-75

                    [recommended: Dumenil, ch. 5]
 
 

March 4: The Red Scare, in Baritz (ER), pp. 75-85

                    Felix Frankfurter, "The Crime of Radicalism," in Baritz, (ER), pp. 108-36

                    Bartolomeo Vanzetti, "The Jury Were Hating Us," in Baritz, (ER), pp. 136-44

March 9: Nancy McLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry, Intro., Pt. I

Week IX: The Scopes Trial and Religious Fundamentalism

March 23: Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods, Intro., ch. 1-5

                    "Repeal of Daylight-Saving Law," (ER)

                    "Daylight Saving in the District of Columbia," (ER)
 
 

March 25: Larson, Summer for the Gods, ch. 6-10

                    Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, "The Monkey Trial," in Baritz (ER), pp. 161-18
 
 

Week X: The Lost Generation: Modernism as a Way of Life

March 30: Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return, Prologue; I: 1,2,4,5; II; V:2-4; VI:1

                    Tyler Stovall, "Bringing the Jazz Age to Paris" (ER)
 
 

April 1: Cowley, Exile’s Return, VII; VIII: 1,2,4; Epilogue
 

Weeks XI & XII: The New Negro and the Harlem Renaissance

April 6: George Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White, Intro., pp. 29-31, ch. 1, 3, pp. 125-135, ch. 6

                    David L. Lewis, ed. The Harlem Renaissance Reader, selections (ER)

                    [recommended: Dumenil, ch. 6]
 

April 8: Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance, ch. 12, Pt. III, Epilogue

April 15: Larsen, Quicksand, ch. 15-end

                    Hazel Carby, "’It Just Be’s dat Way Sometime’"(ER)
 

Week XIII: The Anthropological Sensibility: Anti-Racist Social Science

April 20: Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance, ch. 2

April 22: Boas, Anthropology and Modern Life, selections (ER)

                    Julia E. Liss, "Diasporic Identities," (ER)
 

Week XIV: What’s in a Myth?

April 27: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, ch. 1-5

April 29: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, ch. 6-end

                    Fitzgerald, "History’s Most Expensive Orgy," in Baritz (ER), pp. 413-424

                    [recommended: Dumenil, Epilogue]
 

Week XV: Conclusion and Reports
 

Course Requirements:
 

Paper #1 (due Feb. 25): 20%

Paper #2 and research assignment (sign-ups tba): 20% 

Paper #3 (due Friday, May 14) 30%

Participation, incl. attendance and web-crossing: 30%
 

Paper #1: A 5-7 page paper based on readings for weeks 1-6.

Paper #2: Working with the T.A. for the course (see below), students will locate primary sources related to a week’s reading (sign-ups during second week of the term). Materials will vary according to students’ interests, ingenuity, and availability but may include such things as political cartoons, music, works of art, letters, popular magazines, movies, newspapers, literature, political speeches, oral histories, etc. Part I of the assignment involves working with the T.A. locating a source and putting it on the web site for the course which has been created under the Historical Image Project (HIP). Part 2 involves analyzing the material in conjunction with the reading for the week in a 5-page paper. Students will present their work briefly in class. 

Paper #3: A 10-12 page research paper on a topic of the student’s choosing.
 

Participation: This component of the course includes posting comments and questions on the readings and discussions before each class meeting. Students are allowed to miss one without penalty. If the system is down, and the web site is inaccessible, posting should be emailed to me at Jliss@scrippscol.edu. No posting is due the week when a student has a research posting and paper due. The purpose of this assignment is to aid discussion and increase communication among students outside of class. 
 

The T.A. for this course is Sara Patterson, a graduate student in history at CGU. Her office hour is Tuesday, 4:15-5:15 in the Humanities Faculty Lounge. Her email address is: Sara.Patterson@cgu.edu
 

Web site addresses:
 

Web crossing: <--Click Here, or go to the Scripps home page, to academics, to web crossing, to history, to the folder for this course. There are discussions set up for each class meeting.
 

Course web site: <--Click Here, or go to the Historical Image Project (the web site address is hip.cgu.edu), click on the image and go to faculty projects and then to my name, under Spring 1999.