We refer to our programme and ascertain that the tableau in order is "Susannah in the Bath." The same brawny female, who has already appeared as Venus, Psyche, and the Greek Slave, is now seated as Susannah in the Bath, with her face and frontage to the audience. A light gauze drapery is held in her right hand and falls in a kind of demi-curtain before her knees – otherwise, she is in puribus naturalibus. Behind her are the "elders," stooping and leaning over each other, trying to get a good sight. Susannah, seated upon the "revolving pedestal of Canova," commences her circumgyrations; and when she has got nearly once round, one of the elders … drops his plug of tobacco on the ground – which startles the fair Susannah, who raises her hand, still holding the little curtain, to her head. The consequences may be imagined.

                                                                        - Moral Reformer -- George Foster, New York By Gaslight, 1850

 

Dear Master

I received your last letter & have carefully considered its contents. & I hope to write more sattisfactory than I have done heretofore. The white people who have stayed on the plantation are always opposed to my writing you. & always want to see my letters and that has been the reason why my letters has been short but there is no white person here at present.

Slave -- Lucy Skipwith, letter dated 15 August 1863

 

    These two documents may seem rather strange. In the first, we have an example of the mid-19^th century literature of middle-class reform, an example which seems to be on the brink of what can only be called pornography. In the second, we have a letter written by a female slave to her master. Both documents allow us to enter a conversation with social historians. For according to many of these historians, neither document should exist. Social historians of the antebellum era tell us that middle-class individuals were prudish, repressed and respectable. Social historians of slavery tell us that slaves were primarily victims, and that white masters denied their slaves access to literacy. Both documents, in other words, allow us to question historians, to complicate their subjects and their interpretations. This is precisely what we will be doing in this class.

    This lecture, discussion, reading and writing course will focus on key themes within the social history of the United States from circa 1765 to circa 1865. Social history has been broadly defined as "history from the bottom up." It is the study of people’s daily lives at the plane of lived experience, the study, that is, not of great men and great events, but of average people and common folk. So during this semester, we should be prepared to meet a host of people that have typically been left aside by event-based histories of noteworthy individuals. These people will include women who "did nothing" according to commonly accepted standards of historical importance; Indians, laborers and African-Americans (both slave and free) who did not behave as victims; and individuals who aspired to middle-class status but who also had to live in a growing market economy filled with temptations, yearnings, and pleasures. Along the way we will attempt to make these subjects speak, to ourselves and to other historians. We will also attempt to puzzle out the ways they fit into, and complicate, assumptions about class, race, gender, power relations, and America’s supposed commitment to the competitive social relations generated by the Industrial Revolution.

Attendance: Because discussion will be a central element of this course, and because your absence from class will have an adverse effect on its level of energy, regular attendance is mandatory and will be factored into your grade. If you do miss a class, you will still be responsible for that day’s material, reading assignment, and notes, even if the absence is "excused." If you disappear for an extended length of time (if you miss three or more classes in a row), you should consider yourself "out of the class," and you should not expect to be allowed back in. If you have missed more than four classes, but are still passing with a grade of C, you should not be surprised if you fail the class in your final grade. In other words: if you think you can pass the class without coming to class, you may be right in terms of your graded work; but you will be wrong in terms of your actual grade.

Readings in Order of Appearance (Available at the CSUS Bookstore):

• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale [Required]
• Mary Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class [Required]
• Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class [Required]
• Brian Roberts, American Alchemy: The California Gold Rush and Middle Class Culture [Required]
• John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South [Required]
• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl [Required / Suggested primary source]

Graded Work: To receive a passing grade in this class, you must complete a sequence of 3 essays. The first 2 essays will be on the first three assigned readings. These must be at least 4 pages long, typed and double spaced, with no larger than 12 point font and one inch margins. The third and final paper must be 8 pages long, and will integrate course readings, lecture notes, and at least one primary source into an overall analysis of the market revolution and its effects on social life between circa 1765 and 1865.

• The Criteria for grading these papers will be based on 1) your ability to create a conversation between readings, 2) your ability to enter this conversation by bringing in examples from the texts and lectures to question, complicate, and compliment the interpretations of the historians you will read.
• If a questioning style of reading and learning makes you uncomfortable, or if you prefer to accept "history" as an unquestioned set of facts and information to be summarized, you should probably not take this class.
• For each essay you will be given an assignment sheet, discussing the format, requirements, and goals of the assignment, and providing key questions as entry points to help you get started.
• Papers will be graded according to the traditional A-F standard. Your final grade will be based on attendance, participation, and written work.

Week 1: Orienteering

August 29: Introductions: Course Requirements and Syllabus

Aug. 31: Social Realities versus Cultural Myths: The Standard Paradigm of the Field

Week 2: Multiculturalism as Historical Constant

September 5: Gender, Class, Race: The Trinity of Social History in Colonial Context

Sept. 7: The Revolutionary Context: Mobs, Merchants and the Colonial Balance of Power

Reading: Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale

Week 3: Some "trivia about domestic chores and pastimes…"

Sept. 12: The Early Republic’s Traditional Social Context: the Household Economy

Sept. 14: Discussion: Making Visible the History of Women: Martha Ballard’s Life and Diary

Reading: Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale

Week 4: The Market Revolution

Sept. 19: The Context of the Market Revolution: Canals, Revivals, Factories

Sept. 21: Jacksonian America: The New Commerce and the Rise of the Self Made Man

Reading: Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class

Week 5: Repressed People: The Rise of the Middle Class

Sept 26: Rise of the Middle Class: The Evidence from Manners and Ideology

Sept. 28: Discussion: The New Geography of Class and Gender: Where is Martha Ballard?

Reading: Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class

Week 6: Back to Social Reality: The Working Class

October 3: Labor in the New Republic: Sailors, Apprentices, Shoemakers

Oct. 5: Origins of the American Worker: The Lowell Mill Girl to Larry Locke

Reading: Wilentz, Chants Democratic

First Papers Due – On Ulrich and Ryan

Week 7: Labor and the Rise of Working Class Culture

Oct. 10: The Working Class B’hoy: From Mike Walsh to Walt Whitman

Oct. 12: Discussion: What is the meaning of "working class?"

Reading: Wilentz, Chants Democratic

Week 8: Antebellum Society and Its Discontents

Oct. 17: Work, Leisure, Status, and Success in Antebellum America

Oct. 19: Career Opportunities: Urban and Western Migrations

Reading, Me, American Alchemy

Week 9: Rethinking the Process of Class Formation

Oct. 24: The Gold Rush: The Middle Class "Gets Down" With the Common Folk

Oct. 26: Discussion: Class, Gender and Power in Industrializing America

Reading: The book that I wrote, American Alchemy

Week 10: The Market Revolution and the Problem of Race

Oct. 31: Settlement, Expansion, Conquest and the Myth of the Vanishing Indian

November 2: Uplift, Removal and Survival: Indian Adjustment and Resistance

Week 11: The African American Experience North and South

Nov. 7: The Social Origins of Slavery in America

Nov. 9: Slaves and Southern Society: Runaways, Revolts, Families and Paranoia

Reading: Blassingame, The Slave Community

Week 12: Slavery and the Social Origins of Blackness

Nov. 14: The Abolitionist Dynamic: The African American as Slave, Victim, and "Happy Darkie"

Nov. 16: Social Longings for Authenticity / Discussion: Where is the Middle Class?

Reading: Blassingame, The Slave Community

Week 13: Moving Beyond the Boundaries of Social History

Nov. 21: Free African Americans: From Frederick Douglass to Sojourner Truth

Week 14: Revolution, Reform, and the Sectional Crisis

Nov. 28: Race Riot: The Social Origins of the Civil War

Nov. 30: The End of the Market Revolution: The Civil War

Reading: Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Week 14: The Civil War and The Triumph of Victorian Order

Dec. 5: Conclusions: The Social Foundations of American Capitalism

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