- 20 Mar, 2021
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Women’s rights.
In your final project, you will bring together a number of primary sources on a related topic, and show, in a paper of between 5-7 pages, or 1500-2000 words, how beliefs. attitudes, laws, or perspectives concerning your topic or focus changed (or did not change) between the years (or some subset of years between) 1500 and 1865.
You must use at least three (3) written primary sources, and at least one (1) visual primary source in your paper. Your task will be to read and take notes on each of your primary sources, and ask yourself how these particular accounts demonstrate that attitudes, laws, and/or beliefs concerning your overall topic have, or have not, changed during the period of the course.
Be sure to focus during your reading on crafting a WORKING THESIS, and ultimately, a STRONG and SPECIFIC THESIS concerning your topic.
Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:
SLAVE NARRATIVES
LAWS REGARDING SLAVERY
ABOLITIONIST BELIEFS
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
ATTITUDES TOWARD FOREIGN NATIONS (France, Great Britain, Spain, Mexico, etc.)
BELIEFS/LAWS CONCERNING VOTING and DEMOCRACY
BELIEFS/LAWS CONCERNING TECHNOLOGY and INDUSTRIALIZATION
BELIEFS CONCERNING THE AMERICAN WEST (“The Frontier”)
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
THE PRESIDENCY
WORK and LABOR
THE END OF THE WORLD
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM
RACISM
FREE BLACKS
IMMIGRATION
FEDERALISM and ANTI-FEDERALISM
NATIVE AMERICANS
NATURE
MORMONISM
AGRICULTURE and FARMING
ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
CHILDBIRTH
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
CONSCRIPTION and MILITARY SERVICE
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT
CHILD LABOR
DEATH and DYING
PHOTOGRAPHY and PORTRAITURE
I can provide suggestions for primary sources, but it is part of the project that you must do the digging first. Be sure that your primary sources are relevant to American History. The American Yawp text likely has several primary sources you can use as “jumping-off” points, but ultimately you will have to perform library research in order to find additional sources.
The topics above are all viable topics, but remember — a narrower topic results in a better paper. Always. So if the topic of “The Presidency” and “1500 to 1865” seems to large (it is) — narrow the topic down to “The Presidency” and “1800 to 1824”. If you chose “abolitionist beliefs” you could narrow it down to “abolitionist beliefs in New England” between “1800 and 1865”. The narrower your focus, the more specific insights you will come up with.
Helpful resources:
PRIMARY SOURCES
The Internet History Sourcebook at Fordham University has a large collection of primary sources organized into various topics. ONLY USE THOSE TOPICS THAT RELATE TO AMERICAN HISTORY. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/modsbook.asp
The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, which we used in Paper #3, is an excellent resource with thousands of primary sources (each record is really a primary source.)
The Hanover College Historical Texts Project has many primary sources organized by topic. The last few sections cover the United States. https://history.hanover.edu/project.php
This helpful Youtube video details how best to search for primary source collections using Google. https://youtu.be/25SBiqo-vPM
There are thousands more collections, across the world. Searching under your general topic and “primary sources” may give you many more places to look.
WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
The USC Library has an excellent site on organizing a social science research paper. https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/purpose.
A writing guide issued by Harvard is also available through the Blackboard shell. It is immensely useful. Following the directions closely on these sites will result in a well-structured paper, and truthfully, structuring your paper correctly, and clearly, is more than half the battle in making yourself understood to the reader. Writing a clear, concise essay with a strong thesis is like riding a bicycle — once you learn the basics, you never really forget, although you can always get better at it.