Voting in 1867Harper’s Weekly We’re about finished with the semester, and my students are now writing either on how much the Civil War and Reconstruction changed life for African Americans or on the influence of slavery on US society in the decades before the war. I use these assignments for a number of reasons, but…
As one of my students just put it, “Throughout American history there have been some themes have occurred.” Indeed. The final assignment that brought out this wonderful sentence was to assess whether or not the United States is more or less religious now that it has been in the past. The results have been fascinating.…
“The Scholars Speak”: Civil War and Reconstruction Today’s scholar is Professor Amy Murrell Taylor, professor of history at the University of Albany. She is the author of the marvelous book The Divided Family in Civil War America (2005) and a co-editor (with Michael Perman) of Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction. 1. Ever…
According to The Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s e-zine that Newsweek bought, becoming a history major is the 12th worst choice a student can make. Of course, that’s based on this criteria: Unemployment, recent grad: 10.2 percentUnemployment, experienced grad: 5.8 percentEarnings, recent grad: $32,000Earnings, experienced grad: $54,000Projected growth, 2010-2020: +18 percentRelated occupation: Historian All that said,…
Here is Jennifer Graber’s response to the student comments on her work that considered antebellum prisons and how to teach antebellum America. Similar to Matt’s response, I’m interested that students picked up on something – the connection to slavery – that was not the focus on my book. I find this instructive in terms of…
Followers of the blog may have read about my attempts to incorporate an “uncoverage” approach to my course in American religious history. Rather than bull through the material in typical survey style, I’ve structured the course in five chronologically progressing sections, with each section geared toward answering a single question. The idea was to get…
Matthew Bowman Responds to Student Comments Offer extra credit and they shall come! My students were offered some extra credit to read Matthew Bowman‘s blog entry on teaching Mormonism in the US history survey course and incorporate their thoughts on Joseph Smith’s writings on plural marriage in 1842 (and apologies to all for the…
Primary Sources on Transatlantic Feminisms“And the war came.” Thank goodness for Abraham Lincoln, his short sentences, and even his passive voice. There is so much to teach even from this little bit in his Second Inaugural. In class, we’re pressing ever closer to the Civil War (or whatever we choose to call it). One of…
Trimester of the Semester As my students handed in their second essays (either on what made the United States a “nation” from 1760 to 1830 or on what was the biggest weakness in the new nation-state), I reflected with my students on entering the “trimester of the semester.” My wife has just entered her third…
The Scholars Speak – Anthony Kaye on Teaching Slavery Today’s edition of The Scholars Speak comes from Anthony Kaye who teaches history at Penn State University. He is the author of Joining Plaecs: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South, a fascinating examination of how slaves made space in the Natchez District of southwest Mississippi and…
