American History and Society (Historia i społeczeństwo USA) 4219-ZP005
Ćwiczenia (CW) Semestr zimowy 2025/26

Class 1. Introduction and course overview

+ Assignment of presentations

Class 2. New land, new society, new nation

J. de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer: Letter III, What Is an American, pp. 1-7

The American Journey, “Convergence and Conflict 1660s-1763,” pp. 58-64

Additional: Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. W.W. Norton, 1998, Foreword to the first edition.

Class 3. American values: Liberty and equality

Declaration of Independence: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

Declaration of Sentiments: https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm

Martin Luther King Jr, “I Have a Dream” Speech

Additional: The American Journey, “Imperial Breakdown; The Outbreak of War and the Declaration of Independence,” pp. 76-96

Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream Speech” (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47Y6VHc3Ms

Class 4. American values: Individualism and community

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Introduction, chapter 7; Vol. 2, chapters 1-5

The American Journey, vol. 1, ch. 10, The Jacksonian Era, 1824-1845, pp. 163-165

Additional: Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone,” Journal of Democracy 1995.

Additional: “Robert Putnam Knows Why You’re Lonely” (interview), The New York Times, July 13, 2024

Class 5. Slavery and racism as American experience

The “peculiar institution”: Slaves tell their own story, pp. 173-197

Additional: The American Journey, Vol. 1, ch. 13. Slavery and the Old South 1800-1860: 217-231

Class 6. Post-abolition dilemmas

Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery Chapter 14

W. E. B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 3.

Additional: The American Journey, ch. 18 Reconstruction, pp. 316-319, Vol. 2, ch. 19 A New South, subchapter Settling the Race Issue, pp. 332-339.

Additional: The Road to True Freedom

Class 7. American expansionism and imperialism

President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress “On Indian Removal” (1830): https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=25&page=transcript

J. O’Sullivan, Annexation (1845)

Manifest Destiny, continued: William McKinley Defends U.S. Expansionism: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5575/

Additional: The American Journey, Vol. 1 ch. 12, subchapters The Frontier of the Plains Indians, pp. 204-208 and The Mexican Borderlands pp. 208-215, Vol. 2 ch. 24 Creating an Empire, pp. 418-434.

Little Bear, “The Sand Creek Massacre,” 1864, in Ronald H. Bayor (2004) The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America. New York: Columbia University Press, pp.302-303

Class 8. Frontier society

Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, ch. 1:

Old Lady Horse, “The Disappearance of the Buffalo,” 1882, in The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America

Additional: The American Journey, Vol. 2, ch. 21 Transforming the West 1865-1890, pp. 365-378.

Additional: Geronimo, “Geronimo: His Own Story,” 1906, in The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America

Class 9. Nation of immigrants?

Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”.

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, new edition 2010 ch. 3 The Mixed Crowd,

Jacob Riis Photos, https://collections.mcny.org/Explore/Highlights/Jacob%20A.%20Riis/

Additional: The American Journey, Vol. 2, ch. 20 Industry, Immigrants, and Cities 1870-1900, pp. 341-362.

Additional: Photographs of Lewis Hine documenting life and work of immigrants: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/feb/15/lewis-hine-photographs-child-labor-ellis-island

https://allthatsinteresting.com/lewis-hine-child-labor-photographs#1

Class 10. Religion

Max Weber, “Churches and Sects in North America”

Additional: Daniel K. Williams, “Religion and American Politics,” in The Oxford Handbook of American Political History, ed. By Paula Baker and Donald, T. Critchlow, New York: Oxford University Press 2020.

Additional: Mel Piehl, “Perspectives on Religion in Twentieth-Century American History,” in Making the American Century. Essays on the Political Culture of Twentieth Century America, New York: Oxford University Press 2014

Class 11. Economy, work, and consumption

Max Weber, “The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism”

Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth,” http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html

Additional: William R. Leach, “Transformations in a Culture of Consumption”

Class 12. Cities, suburbs, and cars

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, ch. 8

Additional: Kenneth Jackson, Suburban nation interview, The First Measured Century, PBS, 2000: http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/jackson.htm

Class 13. Black strategies in the 1960s

M.L. King, Letter from Birmingham Jail

Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html

Additional: Todd Gitlin, The Sixties, Introduction and Preface

Class 14: Civil Rights and Minorities

Vine Deloria Jr., “This Country Was a Lot Better Off When the Indians Were Running It,” 1970, in The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America

“El Plan Epiritual de Aztlan,” 1969, in The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America

Amy Uyematsu, “The Emergence of Yellow Power in America,” 1969, in The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America

Additional: Timothy J. Meagher, “Racial and ethnic relations in America 1965-2000 (excerpt)”, in in The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America.

Class 15. Feminism as an American social movement

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, “The Problem That Has No Name”

The American Journey, Vol. 2, chap 30

Stephanie Coontz, A Strange Stirring, ch. 9

Additional: Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, selections.

Additional: Ruth Rosen: The World Split Open, selections