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    Professor Vider Office Hours

    Mondays, 2:15–4:00 p.m. · Old Library 242

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    Syllabus

    Download syllabus here

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  • Assignments

  • Week 1 · Introduction / Readjustment

    MON
    8/31
    Introduction
    What stories – and whose stories – matter in understanding and analyzing the past and its meanings for the present and future?
    SLIDES [PDF]
    HANDOUT [PDF]

    NO READINGS FOR FIRST CLASS

    Each day's readings will usually be divided into primary sources (archival sources written at the time we are studying) and secondary sources (articles by scholars looking back at the time we are studying). Please be sure to read these in advance of the class session.

     
    WED
    9/2
    Readjustment and Citizenship After World War II
    How did the G.I. Bill remake the roles and responsibilities of the federal government and the meanings of citizenship?
    SLIDES [PDF]

    Primary Sources

    • Beatrice Berg, “When GI Girls Return,” New York Times, April 22, 1945 [PDF]

    Secondary Sources

    • Robert F. Jefferson, “‘Enabled Courage’: Race, Disability, and Black World War II Veterans in Postwar America,” The Historian 65, no. 5 (2003): 1102–1124. [PDF]

    Optional

    • Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, eds., The American Yawp, Chapter 23, “The Great Depression” and Chapter 24, “World War II” (Stanford University Press, 2019), 190–256. [Chapter 23 PDF and Chapter 24 PDF]
    • Suzanne Mettler, Introduction and Chapter 1, Soldiers to Citizens: The G. I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford University Press, 2005), 1–23. [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1. In our primary (archival) source, reporter Beatrice Berg reports on perceptions and expectations of women veterans. While women were not drafted, thousands of women volunteered for women’s auxiliary units of the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard—known as the WACs (Women’s Army Corps), WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and SPARS. Based on Berg’s article, what were some of the anxieties that circulated around women volunteers and the end of the war? And to what degree do Berg’s interview subjects allay those fears?

    2. For the secondary (scholarly) source: Robert Jefferson looks at the experiences of Black and disabled veterans seeking veterans’ benefits after World War II. In what specific ways did racism and stigma against people with mental and physical disabilities shape who was deemed deserving of government assistance—and in what ways did racism shape perceptions of disability?

    3. For the optional secondary source: The excerpt from Suzanne Mettler’s Soldiers to Citizens discusses the origins and impact of the G.I. Bill, also known as the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act.” As Mettler notes, while veterans had received pensions and insurance benefits following previous wars, the G.I. Bill provided a much wider array of benefits for veterans—including low-interest loans to purchase a home or start a business, as well as support for college education and vocational training. Based on the excerpt, how did the G.I. Bill reflect changing ideas about the relationship between the U.S. government and its citizens?

  • Week 2 · Cold War, Red Scare

    MON
    9/7
    No class (Labor Day)
     
    WED
    9/9
    Communist Containment and the 1950s Red Scare 
    How did fear of Communism shape American policy, at home and abroad?
    SLIDES [PDF]

    Primary Sources

    • Excerpt from President Harry S. Truman's Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, March 12, 1947 (Truman Doctrine speech) [LINK]
    • Joseph McCarthy speech delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia, 1950 [PDF] 

    Secondary Sources

    • Nick French, "The Red Scare Deformed the New Deal by Purging Its Radical Civil Servants," Jacobin, January 17, 2023. [PDF]

    Optional

    • Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, eds., The American Yawp, Chapter 25, "The Cold War" (Stanford University Press, 2019), 256-287. [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1. In 1947, U.S. President Truman pushed to provide economic aid and military support to the Greek government in their civil war against a Communist uprising after British forces (in Greece since World War II) withdrew from the country. Truman's speech became known as the "Truman Doctrine" and guided the U.S. policy of Communist/Soviet containment. Based on the excerpt from the speech, what are the binaries or oppositions through which Truman defines Communism versus the U.S.? And how does Truman frame the legacy of World War II to justify U.S. military investment in Europe? 

    2. Joseph McCarthy's "Enemies Within" speech articulated much of the logic of the 1950s Red Scare--efforts within the U.S. government to uncover and expel Soviet/Communist spies and sympathizers. What does McCarthy seem to believe is at stake in uncovering Communist sympathizers? And rhetorically, what kinds of arguments, parallels, and language does he use to instill anxiety and support among his listeners? 

    3. Nick French's essay in Jacobin (drawing on work by historian Landon R.Y. Storrs) argues that the 1950s Red Scare (and an earlier Red Scare in the 1930s) has had a lasting impact in how Americans remember the impact of socialism on American policy since the New Deal. In what ways, does French argue, did the Red Scare reshape representations and perceptions of the U.S. government, and why might it matter for our understanding of the Red Scare and U.S. policy in the 1950s? 

    4. The American Yawp chapter is optional but if you do read it: what strikes you as one or two of the most significant shifts in U.S. policy, foreign and/or domestic, during the Cold War? The Cold War has traditionally been conceptualized as "cold" because the U.S. and the Soviet Union never came into direct military combat—the U.S. did, however, build up its military and invest in a series of proxy wars to "contain" Communism. More broadly, how does the concept of the "proxy"—focusing on a substitute or third party--demonstrate the underlying thinking and anxiety of U.S. policy on Communism during the 1950s and 60s? 

  • Week 3 · Gender, Sexuality, and Race in the 1950s

    MON
    9/14
    Gender, Sexuality, and the Family in the Age of Anxiety
    How did the anxieties of the Cold War translate into everyday life and shape postwar norms of gender,  sexuality, and the home?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • “Duck and Cover," dir. Anthony Rizzo, Archer Productions, 1951. [LINK]
    • Excerpt from Betty Friedan, Chapter 1, The Feminine Mystique (W.W. Norton, 1963) [PDF]

    Secondary Sources

    • Elaine Tyler May, Chapter 1, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (Basic Books, 2008), 16-36. [PDF]

    Optional

    • John D’Emilio, “The Homosexual Menace” in Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University (Routledge, 1992). [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1. The educational film, "Duck and Cover" reflected a culture of nuclear drills that were common in schools, but also provides a window into what was understood as normal American life in the 1950s. Based on the film, what (and who) was "normal" in the 1950s? And how might the film have shaped young people's understanding of the Cold War and nuclear threat? (We'll discuss Duck and Cover at some length in class)

    2. Historian Elaine Tyler May's Homeward Bound extended the principle of "containment" to the home -- arguing that, in the 1950s, domestic spaces and practices "contained" anxieties about unstable gender and sexual norms. What, according to May, were the psychological stakes of the breadwinner/homemaker household -- and what kinds of sources does she draw on to make this argument? 

    3. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique challenged the vision of the happy American home and the happy American housewife by highlighting women's dissatisfaction. What does Friedan see as the underlying root of this dissatisfaction, and what is the implied solution? How might Elaine Tyler May interpret Friedan?

    4. And the optional reading: Historian John D'Emilio examines the "Lavender Scare" that played out alongside the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, as the government investigated gay men and lesbians in the State Department. Why were gay men and lesbians perceived to be a threat? And how did this sense of threat reflect underlying anxieties about gender, sexuality, and the family?
     
    WED
    9/16
    Civil Rights Activism in the 1950s
    What were the strategies and goals of the African American civil rights movement after World War II?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Rosa Parks, Conversation at Highlander Folk School, March 4, 1956. [PDF]

    Secondary Sources

    • Francesca Polletta, Chapter 2, “It was Like a Fever,” in It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2006), 32-52. [PDF]

    Optional

    • Michael Walzer, “The Young: A Cup of Coffee and a Seat,” Dissent, Spring 1960 [PDF]
    • Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, eds., The American Yawp, Chapter 26, “The Affluent Society” (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 288-313. [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1. The conversation with Rosa Parks took place at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee—an incubator of civil rights activism throughout the 1950s and 60s. Interviewer and school founder Myles Horton is principally focused on motivation and timing —why and why now? In her own telling, what were Parks's key motivations at the moment she refused to move? And why did other people in Montgomery rally behind her then? 

    2. In our secondary source, sociologist Francesca Polletta challenges some of the popular narratives about protest movements—that is, the narrative of spontaneity—that activists like Rosa Parks and the Greensboro students spontaneously took action. How does Polletta work to re-narrate the histories of these actions? And what's at stake — why is the narrative of spontaneity attractive, and what do we gain by complicating it?

    3. Optional primary source: From the liberal magazine Dissent, Michael Walzer reflects on how and why the tactic of the sit-in took off -- starting in Greensboro, North Carolina, but spreading quickly to other cities. How does Walzer, and the young African Americans he interviews, account for the growth of this protest movement, and its new tactics?

    4. Optional secondary source: The chapter from American Yawp ("The Affluent Society") provides a useful overview of the 1950s civil rights movement and its roots in earlier activism. One key tension here is the use of law and policy to challenge discriminatory practices. To what degree did legal challenges through the courts work to address or end discriminatory practices? What other forms of activism did civil rights activists draw on, and what were their impacts?  

  • Week 4 · The Great Society

    MON
    9/21
    No class
     
    WED
    9/23
    The Great Society and its Limits
    How did Johnson’s Great Society build on the model of the New Deal and the G.I. Bill – and the goals of the civil rights movement? 
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Lyndon Johnson, excerpt from “Special Message to the Congress Proposing a Nationwide War on the Sources of Poverty,” March 16, 1964. [PDF]
    • Excerpt from Dolores Huerta, speech at National Farm Workers Association march and rally in Sacramento, April 10, 1966. [LINK]
    • With No One to Help Us (1967), director unknown, produced by Office of Economic Opportunity [21 minutes] [PANOPTO VERSION WITH CAPTIONS] [LINK]

    Optional

    • Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, eds., The American Yawp, Chapter 27, “The Sixties” (Stanford University Press, 2019), 314-342. [PDF]
    • Ana Elizabeth Rosas, “Love as Mirror and Pathway: The Undocumented Emotive Configuration of Mexican Immigration,” in A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: US Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965, ed. Maddalena Marinari, Madeline Y. Hsu, and María Cristina Garcia (University of Illinois Press, 2019), 255-272. [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1.  Johnson's "War on Poverty" speech, still in his first year of office following Kennedy's assassination, laid the groundwork for his "Great Society" programs, including a federal food stamp program, Medicare and Medicaid, and greater investment in education (as discussed in the optional American Yawp chapter). In what ways does Johnson's proposal build on and/or remake the model of government and citizenship we saw in the formulation of the New Deal and the G.I. Bill? And how does Johnson frame the problem of poverty--what does he see as the roots and effects, and what kinds of language does he draw on to make his case?

    2. The little-known film "With No One to Help Us" follows a group of working-class women organizing a grocery buyer's club in Newark, NJ to combat price-gouging. One of the key confrontations of the film is with the head of  United Community Corporation, which administers federal welfare benefits locally. What does the film suggest about the ways Johnson's War on Poverty actually played out, who led and shaped it, and the ways ordinary people navigated new welfare systems? For more background on the film, I also recommend Whit Strub's article here. 

    3. Chicana activist Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 with César Chávez, leading a series of major strikes among farm workers. Where does Huerta place the blame and responsibility for the challenges faced by farm workers? 

  • Week 5 · The Counterculture and the New Left

    MON
    9/28
    Beats to Hippies: The Rise of Counterculture in the 1950s and 1960s
    How did counterculture radicals mobilize the politics of culture and self-expression? 
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1955) [LINK] or listen to a 1959 recording [AUDIO]
    • “The Post-Competitive, Comparative Game of a Free City,” [PDF / HTML] from The Digger Papers (1968)

    Secondary Sources

    • Stephen Petrus, “Rumblings of Discontent: American Popular Culture and Its Response to the Beat Generation, 1957-1960,” Studies in Popular Culture 20, no. 1 (1997): 1–17 [PDF]

    Optional

    • Blake Slonecker, “The Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History (2017). [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1. Allen Ginsberg wrote "Howl" in 1955 -- reflecting on post-war society at large as well as, more specifically, his time in a state mental hospital with another poet, Carl Solomon. The poem both celebrates nonconformity and criticizes the evils of American culture -- embodied in the demon "Moloch." What themes of celebration and/or critique stand out to you in "Howl" -- and what specific lines or phrases demonstrate that celebration and/or critique?

    2. In what ways do you see Ginsberg's poem responding to the culture and politics of the United States after World War II, as we've discussed over the first few weeks of the class? What do you think was so controversial about the poem that led the government to put his publisher on trial for obscenity?

    3. Stephen Petrus's essay traces how the Beats were discussed in popular media, and how Beat writers, like Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, responded. How were the Beats represented to a broader American public, in magazines like Life? What was threatening and/or compelling about the Beats -- and what about them was also so easy to parody?

    4.  The Diggers's outline for a "Free City" offer a utopian vision of a post-consumerist/post-capitalist society. What seem to be the underlying beliefs or goals of this new vision? 

    5. Optional secondary source: Blake Slonecker traces the emergence of the "hippie" counterculture in the 1960s -- what are some of the key themes, goals, or ideals of this new counterculture? How would you connect or compare the hippies to the earlier generation of Beats?
     
    WED
    9/30
    The New Left, American Empire, and the Antiwar Movement 
    What was the New Left? And how did it connect to broader movements for social and economic justice and civil rights in the 1960s?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Students for a Democratic Society, Excerpt from “Port Huron Statement” (1962) [LINK]
    • Susan Sontag, “What’s Happening in America,” Styles of Radical Will (New York: Picador, 1969), [PDF] originally published in The Partisan Review (1966)
    • Statement by John Kerry of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1971) [LINK] (Please note that this source includes descriptions of violence)

    Optional

    • Michael Kazin, “The Port Huron Statement at Fifty,” Dissent, Spring 2012 [PDF]
    • Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, eds., The American Yawp, Chapter 28, “The Unraveling” (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 314-342. [PDF  / HTML]
    • Thomas Borstelmann, Chapter 1 (to page 36), The 1970s: a New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality, (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2012), 19-36. [PDF ]

    Reading Questions

    1. The Students for a Democratic Society's 1962 manifesto "The Port Huron Statement" was one of the founding documents of the "New Left" - a coalition of leftist organizations of the 1960s (as opposed to the labor/union-based "Old Left" of the early twentieth century). How does the SDS manifesto respond to the Cold War and the civil rights movement? What are some its major ideals or goals? And what, according to Michael Kazin, in our optional source, was so new about it?

    2. Susan Sontag's essay, "What's Happening in America" was originally published in 1966 in the leftist journal the Partisan Review. Then in her early thirties, Sontag was just emerging as a major American intellectual; "What's Happening in America" was one of her earliest essays to critique U.S. power. (One note on language: Sontag uses some identity terms that while common in the 1960s are outdated today; in some cases, she also uses expressly derogatory terms to mock the language/views of those in power.) What are some of Sontag's main criticisms of the United States? What does Sontag find promising about young people at this moment? 

    3. John Kerry's statement on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War was delivered at a 1971 U.S. Senate Hearing. Kerry had served in Vietnam from four months in 1968/1969 and the hearing brought him to national attention -- he would go on to run for political office in 1972 and would eventually be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984. Please note, the testimony includes some brief though disturbing description of war crimes that Kerry and other Veterans were trying to shine a light on. How does Kerry seek to challenge U.S. exceptionalism -- the idea that the U.S. was a uniquely virtuous nation? And how does Kerry question the major reason given for the war in Vietnam -- stopping the spread of Communism? 

  • Paper 1 due Sunday October 4, 11:59 pm

  • Week 6 · Liberation Movements

    MON
    10/5
    The Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Meanings of Liberation
    How did activism by African Americans, Indigenous people, and other people of color change and grow in the late 1960s?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Black Panther Party, “Ten Point Program” (1966) [PDF / HTML]
    • "The Alcatraz Proclamation" (1969) [PDF / HTML]
    • Excerpt from Amy Uyematsu, “The Emergence of Yellow Power in America,” Gidra, Oct. 1969: 8–10. [PDF / full original text here]

    Secondary Sources

    • Edward D. Castillo, “A Reminiscence of the Alcatraz Occupation,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 18, no. 4 (1994), 111–122. [PDF]

    Optional

    • Robyn C Spencer, Chapters 1 and 2, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Duke University Press, 2016) 7-60. [PDF (chapter 1) + PDF (chapter 2)]

    READING QuestionS

    1. The Black Panther Party emerged in 1966 in Oakland, and quickly spurred connected chapters across the United States. How do the critiques and demands of the Ten Point Program seem similar to or different from those of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s? 

    2. The Alcatraz Proclamation was written by a group of indigenous activists during their 19-month take-over of Alcatraz Island starting in 1969. (The prison was closed in 1963, and the island was recognized as a National Parks site in 1972 shortly after the forceful end of the occupation -- it was opened to the public in 1973). What are their demands and the proposed solutions? How would you compare their demands and solutions to those of the Black Panther Party?

    3.  Japanese American poet Amy Uyematsu's essay, "The Emergence of Yellow Power" was one of the earliest major calls for Asian American activism. What does Uyematsu see as unique about the challenges faced by Asian Americans?

     
    WED
    10/7
    Gay and Trans Liberation
    What were gay and trans liberation’s central goals and tactics, and how did they connect to other radical movements of the 1960s and 70s?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Carl Wittman, “Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto” (1969) [PDF / 1970 pamphlet version PDF]
    • Third World Gay Revolution, “What We Want, What We Believe” (1970) [PDF / HTML]
    • “Transvestite and Transexual Liberation” from Philadelphia Gay Dealer (1970) [PDF / Text-only PDF]

    Optional

    • Richard Meyer, “Gay Power circa 1970: Visual Strategies for Sexual Revolution,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 12, no. 3 (2006): 441–464. [PDF]
    • Jessi Gan, “‘Still at the Back of the Bus’: Sylvia Rivera’s Struggle,” Centro Journal 19, no. 1 (2007): 124–139. [PDF]

    READING QUESTIONS

    1. Carl Wittman was a member of SDS before writing “A Gay Manifesto” – one of the earliest and most influential manifestos for gay liberation. What does he see as some of the major problems facing LGBTQ people, and what are some of his major solutions? Where do you see the influence of the New Left, the counterculture, and/or the Black Panther Party? Are there any points or goals that Wittman states that especially surprised you, given where LGBTQ rights are today?

    2. Third World Gay Liberation was a sub-group of African American and Latinx activists in the New York Gay Liberation Front. Their manifesto, “What We Want, What We Believe” expressly borrows the title of the Black Panthers’ Ten Point Program. How does their manifesto overlap with/build on the Ten Point Program and/or Wittman’s “Gay Manifesto” -- either in terms of goals or rhetoric?

    3. Trans activists also played a major role in early gay liberation but “Transvestite and Transexual Liberation,” was one of earliest published essays calling for trans liberation after Stonewall. (At the time, the terms “transvestite” and “transsexual” were widely used—including by people in the trans community—though today the broader terms “transgender” or “trans” are generally preferred). Who are the primary targets in their list of demands? To what degree do they overlap with the targets/goals of Wittman’s "Gay Manifesto" and the Third World Gay Liberation’s “What We Want, What We Believe”?

  • Week 7 · No Class / Fall Break

  • Week 8 · Feminism and Community Health Activism in the 1970s

    MON
    10/19
    The Women's Movement
    How did second-wave feminism grow—and grow more radical—in the 1960s and 70s?   
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Carol Hanisch, “The Personal is Political” (1968) [PDF]
    • Radicalesbians, “Woman-Identified Woman” (1970) [PDF] or [HTML]
    • “Combahee River Collective Statement” (1977) [PDF]

    Optional

    • Sara M. Evans, Chapter 2, “Personal Politics,” Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century’s End (Free Press, 2003), 18-60. [PDF]
    • Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Introduction,” How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (Haymarket Books, 2017). [Link to Ebook]

    Reading Questions

    1. The title of Carol Hanisch's "The Personal is Political" provided one of the key phrases of the feminist movement -- the idea that personal experiences had political significance -- and became a key impetus for the creation of what were called "consciousness raising" or CR groups (the kinds of groups she mentions in the first paragraph). How does Hanisch seek to distinguish the activities of these early discussion groups from "therapy" and why does it matter? In what way does Hanisch see women's personal experiences as having collective or political meaning?

    2. "The Woman Identified Woman" written by the New York group Radicalesbians was an extremely influential rethinking of what it meant to be a lesbian -- one that centered lesbian desire within the women's movement. What did the Radicalesbians think was so important or potentially impactful about lesbian desire? How is the essay a larger critique of male power? And how would you compare it to Carl Wittman's "Gay Manifesto"?

    3. The Combahee River Collective Statement was one of the first major statements of what we would now call intersectional feminist theory. How do the authors' own experience as black lesbian feminists inform their analysis? What are some of the major problems that they identify, and how do they seem similar to or different from some of the other major manifestos we've read so far this semester?

     
    WED
    10/21
    Women’s Health and Community Health Activism
    How did activists uncover the politics of healthcare?  
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Susan Brownmiller, “Everywoman’s Abortions: ‘The Oppressor Is Man," Village Voice, March 27, 1969. Reprinted in Linda Greenhouse and Reva B Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade : Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (New York: Kaplan Pub., 2010). [PDF / see original here]

    SECONDARY Sources

    • Wendy Kline, Chapter 1, “Transforming Knowledge: The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves,” Bodies of Knowledge : Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women's Health in the Second Wave (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 9-40. [PDF]
    • Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care, dir. Emma Francis-Snyder (2021) [38 minutes] [VIDEO]

    Optional

    • “Abortion Was Illegal. This Secret Group Defied the Law,” Retro Report (2018), 8 minutes [VIDEO]
    • Marcela Valdes, "When Doctors Took ‘Family Planning’ Into Their Own Hands," New York Times, February 1, 2016 [LINK]

    Reading Questions

    1. In what ways do the women testifying about abortion at the Speak-Out (discussed by Susan Brownmiller in the primary source) and the writers and readers of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" (as discussed in the secondary source by Wendy Kline) engage with and act upon the feminist principle that the personal is political? How did activism building on this principle also potentially limit their activism? 

    2. One of the key arguments of the Young Lords takeover of Lincoln Hospital was that the Latinx/Puerto Rican community of the Bronx should have control over their healthcare. Based on the short documentary, why was self-determination/community control so important to the Young Lords? And what are the parallels in the women's health movement?

    3. The three texts together represent different kinds of strategies of health activism -- how would you name or define these strategies, how do they relate, and what kinds of change do you think these strategies made possible?

  • Week 9 · In-class Midterm / Anti-Psychiatry and Disability Activism

    MON
    10/26
    In-class midterm
     
    WED
    10/28
    Anti-Psychiatry and Disability Activism
    How did disability rights and anti-psychiatry activists build on the social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Gary Alinder, “Gay Liberation Meets the Shrinks” (1970) [PDF] [Alternate version through Internet Archive here]

    Secondary Sources

    • Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, dir. James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham (2020) [1 hr 46 min] VIDEO

    Reading Questions

    1. How does the protest by the Gay Liberation Front echo the actions of the women's health movement and/or the Young Lords? What seems different or new?

    2. Crip Camp is organized around the experience of campers and counselors at Camp Jened--a summer camp for teenagers with disabilities--and argues that the experiences of the campers and counselors was one key (if not the key) starting point for the disability rights movement. Based on the film, what was so important about Camp Jened? Please make note of any particular scenes. Do you think that the film overstates the importance of Camp Jened? Why or why not?

    3. What other social and cultural movements seem to have shaped Camp Jened and the development of the disability rights movement, either directly or indirectly?

    4. Judy Heumann and other disability rights activists focused on section 504 of the federal rehabilitation act as a potential path to secure greater access for people with disabilities. How is this focus on rights and legal change similar to or different from other activist movements we've looked at so far this semester? To what degree would you characterize the disability rights movement as a radical liberation movement, like gay liberation or radical feminism? And to what degree is it a more "liberal" movement -- more like the civil rights movement? How are their actions similar to or different from the actions of the women's health movement or the Young Lords?

     

  • Week 10 · Nixon, Environmentalism, and the Rise of the New Right

    MON
    11/2
    Nixon, Environmental Activism, and the White Working Class 
    How did President Nixon work to reorient the Republican Party? And what can the path of environmentalism tell us about the fate of 1960s/70s activism?
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • New York Times "Earth Day" ad, January 1970 (JPG)

    Secondary Sources

    • Jefferson Cowie, "The ‘Hard Hat Riot’ Was a Preview of Today’s Political Divisions" New York Times, May 1, 2020 [Link]
    • James Morton Turner, excerpt from "'The Specter of Environmentalism': Wilderness, Environmental Politics, and the Evolution of the New Right," Journal of American History, 96 no 1 (2009), 123–129. [PDF] [full article link]

    Optional

    • Thomas Borstelmann, Chapter 1 (pages 36-72), The 1970s: a New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality (Princeton University Press, 2012), 36-72. [PDF]
    • Finis Dunaway, "Gas masks, pogo, and the ecological Indian: Earth day and the visual politics of American environmentalism," American Quarterly 60, no. 1 (2008): 67-99 [PDF]

    READING QuestionS

    1. The "Earth Day" ad was run in the New York Times in January 1970, to raise support for the first nationwide Earth Day on April 22, 1970. How does the ad frame the challenges to the environment, and how does it seek to motivate/mobilize the general public to contribute, organize, and take part? Why was this approach ultimately effective, and what do you see as some of its potential limits? (See the optional reading by Finis Dunaway for more background, and more critique, of 1960s/70s environmentalism.)

    2. Jefferson Cowie's article (drawing from his larger book Stayin' Alive) puts the "hard hat riots" of 1970 at the center of the new rise of right-wing populism. In what ways did the hard hat riots feed into Nixon's notion of a "silent majority"? How would you compare the archival images of the riots and marches with the images of leftist protests we have looked at this semester?
    3. In the article excerpt, Turner looks back to the 1960s/70s as a moment when environmentalism won the support of both Democrats and Republicans. In what ways did environmentalism emerge as a bipartisan issue in the late 1960s/70s? Why could Nixon support initiatives like the EPA without getting push back from his supporters? And what are some reasons the Republican Party largely turned against environmentalism?
     
    WED
    11/4
    The Rise of the New Right: Antifeminism and Discophobia
    How did the New Right mobilize against the social and cultural movements of the 1960s/70s? 
    SLIDES TO COME

    Primary Sources

    • Phyllis Schlafly, “What’s Wrong with ‘Equal Rights’ for Women?” (1972) [PDF / HTML version]
    • Richard Dyer, “In Defence of Disco,” Gay Left, 1979 [PDF]

    Optional

    • Marjorie Spruill, Chapter 4, Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics, 71-92. [PDF]
    • Gillian Frank, "Discophobia: Antigay Prejudice and the 1979 Backlash against Disco," Journal of the History of Sexuality 16, no. 2 (2007): 276-306 [PDF]

    READING QUESTIONS

    1. Phyllis Schlafly was a conservative activist who campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) -- an amendment first proposed in 1923, but which gained speed in the 1970s, to guarantee equal rights for women in the U.S. Constitution. This essay was published in her widely circulating newsletter. What are some of her specific arguments about why the ERA and women's liberation was bad, in her view, for women, the family, and US. society more broadly? 

    2. Disco music took off in the mid-1970s, but was also attacked, in part because of its associations with gay men. Based on gay critic Richard Dyer's loving tribute to disco, what was so appealing about disco -- and what might have been threatening about it? Also, how would you compare or contrast the culture of disco to the music and culture of the counterculture?