American History Paper 2

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History 101: American Social and Policial History, 1865-2014

Final Exam, Part II: Take-home essay (70 points)

Due to BLACKBOARD Thursday, December 11, 5:30 PM

Guidelines:

1. This is an open-book essay. You can and should use course readings and your notes to formulate your answer. Course readings, not Wikipedia or your roommate, should be your go-to resource.

You do not need to do any outside research. In fact, if you do, there’s a good chance it means that you haven’t referenced or relied on course readings and lectures enough and that you will earn a lower, not a higher mark.

If you’ve read and attended lecture, you should have plenty of evidence to write a well-formulated essay of 750-1000 words (roughly 3-4 pages, double-spaced). Instructors will not read more than four pages so please keep your essay to this length. Please note: This is an open-book exam, so cite sources properly. Any quotation of more than five words should be enclosed in quotation marks with the page number indicated. If you borrow any ideas of another author, even in your own words, you must cite them by indicating the source and the page number. Failure to abide by these rules is plagiarism and will result in your earning no points from this assignment.

2. You are welcome to use your instructor, teaching assistant, or the writing center to brainstorm for your essay.

3. Your essay should be a polished piece of writing. Ideally, you should set aside roughly 2 hours per page (6 hours) to brainstorm, write, and revise your essay.

4. You will submit your essay on blackboard as an RTF or word attachment. See the Getting Started folder for directions on how to submit.

Questions:

Answer ONE of the three following questions in a typed essay of 750-1000 words (double-spaced, 1-inch margins). You must use the sources suggested in the questions. 

Option One.

Although often conceived of as two separate developments, historians have recently paid much greater attention to the connections between the Cold War and the civil rights movement. In what ways did Cold War policy and diplomacy shape the civil rights movement, and vice versa? How much was the fate of the civil rights movement tied up in the Cold War? Did the Cold War advance or limit civil rights activism? Use lecture notes, Give me Liberty!, the 1960 Presidential debate transcript, and the article by Heather Stur in your essay.

Option Two

Among the most important has been the development in politics in the past 75 years is the emergence of a revived conservative movement in the United States. What have been the most important consistencies and changes in the claims of the conservative movement, the tactics for its expression, and its influence on domestic and foreign policy of the United States from the 1930s to the present? Draw upon lecture notes, Give Me Liberty! (especially the most relevant primary documents in the text), the 1936 speech by Alf Landon, and the 1960 Presidential Debate transcript.

Option Three

Consumerism is a central part of American life. On the balance, has it done more in the twentieth and early twenty-first century to unite or to divide Americans from one another? Using lecture notes, Give Me Liberty!, and at least two of the following, construct your argument: pages from the 1920s Sears Catalog, letters from citizens to President Roosevelt, 1960 Presidential Transcript, Best Years of Our Lives.