HIST 3304/01 – Georgia History

#10064 – Summer Semester 2008

Instructor:  Dr. Thomas A. Scott

MW 2:00 - 4:45 PM – SO 3010

 

Office:             SO 4100

 

Office Hours: MW 1-2, immediately after class, TuTh 4-5, or by appointment.  I expect to be on campus practically all afternoon everyday.  Drop in any time you see the door open or make an appointment if you would like to see me at times when I don’t have office hours.  I will also respond to e-mail or phone messages as soon as I receive them.

 

Phone:             770-423-6254 (office) or 404-421-8319 (cell) 

FAX:               770-423-6432

e-mail:             tscott@kennesaw.edu

Website:         http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~tscott/

 

Books:

 

Please purchase the following required books:

 

Doctorow, E. L.  The March:  A Novel.  New York:  Random House, 2006.

 

Grooms, Anthony.  Bombingham:  A Novel.  New York:  Ballantine/One World, 2002.

 

Kay, Terry.  The Year the Lights Came On.  Boston:  Haughton Mifflin Co., 1976; reprint, Athens:  Brown Thrasher Books, University of Georgia Press, 1989.

 

Scott, Thomas A., ed.  Cornerstones of Georgia History:  Documents That Formed the State.  Athens:  University of Georgia Press, 1995.

 

While you are in the bookstore also please purchase two (2) blue examination books (standard notebook paper size)

 

The campus bookstore has several copies of a fine textbook, Kenneth Coleman, gen. ed., A History of Georgia.  It is strictly optional, but you may find it useful as a reference book.  Those of you who plan to teach Georgia history probably should own a copy.

 

University Policy on Academic Misconduct:

 

Academic Honesty: Please refer to policy stated in the current KSU Undergraduate Catalog.  See Student Code of Conduct regarding section II Academic Honesty (plagiarism and cheating).  It reads as follows:  No student shall receive, attempt to receive, knowingly give or attempt to give unauthorized assistance in the preparation of any work required to be submitted for credit as part of a course (including examinations, laboratory reports, essays, themes, term papers, etc.)  When direct quotations are used, they should be indicated, and when the ideas, theories, data, figures, graphs, programs, electronic based information or illustrations of someone other than the student are incorporated into a paper or used in a project, they should be duly acknowledged.

 

Testing and Grading:

 

The grading scale is A = 90-100; B = 80-89; C = 70-79; D = 60-69, and F = 0-59.  The final grade will be determined in the following manner:

 

The final grade will be determined in the following manner:

 

            Quizzes – 1/3rd of final grade

            Midterm – 1/3rd of final grade

            Final exam – 1/3rd of final grade

 

Classes will begin with a short written-answer quiz over that day’s reading assignment and the lecture from the previous class.  You may drop your lowest quiz grade.  I will excuse an occasional absence on an individual basis if an emergency or exceptional circumstance causes you to miss.  Please notify me as quickly as possible if you are going to be absent.

 

The midterm and final will consist of a series of essay questions that can be answered in about one to two pages each.  The midterm will cover the material from the first half of the semester, and the final will cover the material from the last half. 

 

Description:

 

Facts and dates are the raw materials of history, but they aren’t history by themselves.  History is what the historian does to interpret and make sense of those raw materials.  When students select and organize the facts in meaningful patterns and try to explain what they mean, then they are creating history.  History starts with a series of questions about what happened, why it happened, and how it is relevant to us today. 

 

To tell their stories, historians rely on primary sources, which are the original documents that have survived from the time of the events about which they write.  They also rely on secondary sources to find out how previous writers have interpreted past events.  Secondary sources are books written by historians who probably did not witness the events they described but studied all the primary sources they could find to reach their conclusions.  Cornerstones of Georgia History is a book of documents organized around central themes in Georgia history and conveying different viewpoints about the events we will study.  Hopefully, the documents will allow you to form your own opinion about what happened, based not on what a textbook or instructor says, but on what a first-hand account tells you.  However, you should always remember that just because a source is primary doesn’t mean it is the truth.  People creating primary sources sometimes have agendas and can be deceptive and self-serving.  Whether you are reading a primary or secondary source, be skeptical about its reliability.  Ask yourself:  what is the writer’s point of view and what evidence supports that interpretation.

 

Works of fiction can add to our understanding of the way people thought in a particular time and place.  The March, The Year the Lights Came On, and Bombingham are highly regarded historical novels.  Georgia has also produced some master short-story writers, such as Flannery O’Connor and Joel Chandler Harris.  While fiction writers are not bound by the same rules of evidence as historians, they share with historians a desire to explain the world around them.  We can ask of their works the same questions we ask of historical accounts: what is the subject and theme, and does the work add to our understanding of Georgia history.

 

This will be a text-based course.  In your exams you will be expected to discuss some of the ideas that come out of the readings and to base your conclusions on the documentary evidence.  I will do my best to help you interpret the material, but ultimately the course will have value to the extent that you think things through and reach your own conclusions.  When you do that, you will be acting like an historian.

 

Daily Class Schedule:

 

For a map of Georgia click on http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/gacountymap.htm

 

 

Mon., June 2 – Introduction; lecture on Native Americans and Spanish in Georgia

 

Wed., June 4 – Cornerstones, chap. 1 & 2, “Spain and the Native Americans” C01.doc and “Cherokees and Creeks” C02.doc; Joel Chandler Harris, “The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story,” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html and “How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/toosharp.html; “The Rabbit and the Tar Wolf,” a Cherokee myth, www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/motc021.htm  GS-Tar-Baby.doc

Mon., June 9 – Cornerstones, chap. 3 & 4, “Trustees and Malcontents” C03.doc and “Patriots and Loyalists” C04.doc; Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, “The Fight,” http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/longstreet/georgia.html#geor53    GS-The Fight.doc.  With Chap. 3 also please read the epilogue of Eugene Genovese, A Consuming Fire for an example of a modern historian’s use of the Petition of the Inhabitants of New Inverness:  A Consuming Fire.pdf.  For a discussion of the elements of fiction (plot, subject, theme, setting, etc.) please see elementsfiction.doc.

 

Wed., June 11 Cornerstones, chap. 5, “State of Georgia and the Cherokees” C05.doc and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s account of Cherokee Removal Emerson on Cherokee Removal.pdf .  Also please read Doctorow, The March:  a Novel, Part 1, “GeorgiaThe March Part One Georgia.doc

 

Mon., June 16 – Cornerstones, chap. 6, “Slavery in Ante-Bellum GeorgiaC06.doc and The March, Part 2, “South Carolina  The March Part Two South Carolina.doc

 

The readings today include two oral histories with former slaves conducted in the late 1930s by the Federal Writers’ Project.  If you would like to access the entire collection of several thousand interviews, it is now online through the Library of Congress’ American Memory Project.  The collection is entitled “Born in Slavery:   Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938” at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html.

 

Wed., June 18 – Cornerstones, chap. 7, “Secessionists and Cooperationists” C07.doc and The March, Part 3, “North CarolinaThe March Part Three North Carolina.doc

 

Mon., June 23 – Cornerstones, chap. 8 & 9, “Federal Occupation of Georgia, 1864” C08.doc and “Reconstruction in GeorgiaC09.doc  Also please read AMNESTY OATH.doc

 

Wed., June 25 – Midterm exam

 

Fri., June 27 – Last day to withdraw.  Midterm grades will be recorded in the Vista grade book by noon on the 29th at the latest.

 

Mon., June 30 –Cornerstones, Chap. 10, “Postwar PovertyC10.doc and Terry Kay, The Year the Lights Came On, 1-107 (chapters 1-8) Year the Lights Came On.doc.  For census data on Elbert and Franklin Counties (the setting for The Year the Lights Came On, please read SETTING FOR THE YEAR THE LIGHTS CAME ON.doc

 

Wed., July 2 – Cornerstones, chap. 11, “Jim Crow Georgia and Its Leaders, Black and White” C11.doc; Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech (1895) http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/39/  C11 Atlanta Compromise.doc.  Also please read The Year the Lights Came On, 108-211 (chapters 9-13)

 

Mon., July 7 – Cornerstones, chap. 12 & 13, “Leo Frank Case” C12.doc and “Georgia’s Rejection of Woman Suffrage” C13.doc; also please read Steve Oney’s account of the leading citizens of Marietta who planned the Frank lynching at And the Dead Shall Rise Steve Oney.pdf  And the Dead Shall Rise Marietta chapter.doc 

 

Wed., July 9 – Cornerstones, chap. 14 “Crisis in Agriculture” C14.doc and The Year the Lights Came On, 212-300 (chapters 14-Epilogue plus please skim the “Afterword” by William J. Scheick).

 

Mon., July 14 – Cornerstones, chap. 15 “Moving Toward the Mainstream” C15.doc; Bombingham, chap. 1-8, pp. 1-99 Bombingham.doc.  Also please read Civil Rights forces.doc.  We will show in class B-29s over Dixie, a 1944 documentary film.  B-29s Over Dixie.doc

 

Wed., July 16 – Cornerstones, chap. 16 “Integration of Public Schools and Colleges” C16.doc; and Bombingham, chap. 9-16, pp. 101-204.  Also please look at GA POP GROWTH.doc and georgia election results.doc

 

Mon., July 21 – Cornerstones, chap. 17, “Rise of a Future President” C17.doc and Bombingham, chap. 17-26, pp. 205-304;

 

Wed., July 23 –  Cornerstones, chap. 18, “Economic Development and Quality of Life C18.doc”; and Ferrol Sams, “Call It Progress”  Ferrol Sams Call It Progress.pdf  C18 Call It Progress.doc.  Also please read THE TWO GEORGIAS.doc 

 

Mon., July 28 – Final exam