HISTORY
546
Beyond
the Good War:
Politics,
Society, Culture in 1940s America
Class meets Monday evenings, 6.30-9.15
Philip Jenkins 407
Weaver Building
Please note: I check my e-mail regularly (obsessively?) and this
is an excellent way to get in touch with me if you have a quick question or if
you want to make an appointment for a more substantial discussion.
The Course
The decade of the 1940s occupies a
curious place in American historical writing. The period is of course dominated
by the events of the second world war and its immediate aftermath. Domestic
affairs tend to get blurred into the story of the New Deal which immediately
precedes it, and all the stereotypes of the 1950s which follow it, images of
red-baiting, nuclear war, and Eisenhower prosperity. In fact, the 1940s
represent a particularly crucial era, which for example marked a widespread
national debate over how much of the New Deal inheritance could or should be
saved: was the growth of the federal government a temporary expedient required
to deal with the crisis of the great depression, or had the new welfare/warfare
state come to stay? Meanwhile, the impact of total war had a massive
influence on issues of race, gender and family structure, while military service
rapidly accelerated the assimilation of ethnic minorities into a newly
reconceived Americanism. In many ways, the mid- and late-1940s witness many of
the debates and controversies which would characterize the next quarter
century, for instance over civil rights, lynching, and desegregation, and the
crucial 1948 election looks forward to the alignments of the 1960s as much as
it recalls the New Deal. Culturally, too, the 1940s deserve to be recognized as
a very vigorous era, notably in the American cinema. In social and behavioral
science, this was a remarkable period, in which documents like the Kinsey
report set the stage for the later “sexual revolution.” The era was
far more than an interval between the populism of the 1930s and the new
experiments of the 1950s. This seminar encourages students to apply
interdisciplinary perspectives on what is still one of the most under-worked
periods of modern American history. Throughout, we will make extensive use of
popular culture, particularly literary and cinematic representations to
understand political and social developments.
Course Requirements
The course will take the format of a
reading and discussion seminar. I expect that each week, students will come to
class having read a common set of chapters. In addition, I will be allotting
particular books to people, either as individuals or small groups, so that they
can be responsible for leading discussion about those particular issues. Each
student should come to class with at least two open-ended questions around
which the discussion of the readings should be organized.
Each student will write a major
paper on a topic related to problems and controversies raised in the readings.
The paper (about 20-25 typed pages, fully referenced) will analyze some issue related
to the politics, culture, thought or social developments of the 1940s. Please
note that this period is quite underworked, and there are substantial
opportunities to maker an original contribution to knowledge, so choose a topic
in which you can make substantial use of primary sources and particularly
popular culture materials. DO please, at an early stages, check out the rich
resources available in Pattee, in the Historical Collections and Labor
Archives, and also in the Rare Books collection. My earnest (and quite
realistic) hope is that your written work will be good enough to be submitted
to a journal for publication. I will be asking each participant to make a
presentation based on the paper to the whole group during April. Each student
will have half an hour to present his/her research and the questions raised.
In addition, I want you to write a
paper of about 1,200 words on any one fictional work published in the
period 1940-1950, describing the content of the work, and discussing it
critically as a historical source for the period in question. You might
comment, for example, on how the book reflects the mood of the society at the
particular time it was written; what it reveals about attitudes towards race,
class or gender; and/or what it suggests about the political attitudes of the
time. Basically, I want to know what a historian studying this period might
learn from this book. Incidentally, none of these books is on reserve, since
they should all be easy to get in cheap editions from any good bookstore. If
you cannot get hold of a library copy, please be sure to order a copy of your
own in lots of time. Any good bookstore should be able to get a copy within a
week or two at most. These are also exactly the sort of items that will be
available second-hand at Websters on Allen Street. FILM reviews would also be
quite acceptable. Regular class attendance and participation are of course
expected as a necessary element of the final grade.
In summary, the grade will be derived as follows:
paper -
60%
book review -
20%
attendance and participation -
10%
presentation -
10%
100%
SYLLABUS OF
CLASSES
1. January 8
The 1940s: myths and stereotypes
2. January 15
The good war and afterwards
READ: The Good War
OTHER READINGS:
Goulden, The best years, 1945-1950
3. January 22
Domestic politics
READ: The End of Reform
OTHER READINGS:
Dunar, The Truman scandals and the politics of morality
Gabler, Winchell
McCullough, Truman
Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime
4. January 29 *I
NEED TO KNOW THE TOPICS OF YOUR TERM PAPERS TODAY
Red baiting and the politics of spectacle
OTHER READINGS:
Fried, McCarthyism
Jenkins, Cold War at home
Rose The Cold War Comes to Main Street
Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes
Weinstein, and Vassiliev. The haunted wood
5. February 5
Labor Wars
READ: Rainbow at Midnight
OTHER READINGS:
MacDougall, Gideon’s Army
White and Maze Henry A. Wallace
6. February 12
Race and the American Dilemma
READ: Native Son
OTHER READINGS:
Hill, ed., The FBI's RACON
Jenkins The South in Black and White
Myrdal, An American dilemma
O'Brien, The color
of the law
Rise The Martinsville Seven
Egerton Speak Now against the day
*PLEASE WRITE A TWO PAGE SYNOPSIS OF YOUR PROPOSED PAPER, WITH
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. BRING ENOUGH C0PIES TO DISTRIBUTE TO EVERYONE IN THE
SEMINAR FOR IN-CLASS DISCUSSION.
7. February 19
Many Americas
OTHER READINGS:
READ: McWilliams, California
: The Great Exception
Cash, Mind of the South
Carey McWilliams, Southern California Country
Starr The Dream Endures
8. February 26 *BOOK
REVIEW DUE TODAY!
Religion and the churches
READ: 1950 - Crossroads of American Religious Life
OTHER READINGS:
Bach, They Have Found a Faith
Blanshard, American freedom and Catholic power.
Braden, These Also Believe
Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs
Carey McWilliams, Mask for Privilege
Marty, Modern American Religion
9. March 12
Gender and family
OTHER READINGS:
Jenkins, Moral panic
May, Homeward Bound
Mitchell, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady
10. March 19
Sexuality
READ: The Killer Inside Me
OTHER READINGS:
Black, Hollywood censored
Kinsey, et al Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
11. March 26 *PAPER DRAFTS DUE
Sciences of mind and society
READ: The Age of Doubt
OTHER READINGS:
Abrahamsen, Crime and the Human Mind
Merton Mass persuasion
Wertham, The Show of Violence
12.April 2
Culture in the American Century
READ: Cannery Row
13. April 9
The Cinema
OTHER READINGS:
Koppes, Hollywood goes to war
Schatz, Boom and Bust
14-15. April 16/23
PRESENTATION OF PAPERS
TERM PAPER DUE IN FINALS PERIOD
SOME KEY BOOKS
(items on reserve are marked with a *)
*David
Abrahamsen, Crime and the Human Mind (New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1944) - 364Ab82c
Marcus Bach,
They Have Found a Faith (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1946,) BR516.B27
Black,
Gregory D. Hollywood censored PN1995.5.B49 1994
*Blanshard,
Paul, American freedom and Catholic power. (Boston : Beacon Press,
1949.) 282.73B611a
Charles S.
Braden, These Also Believe (first published 1949. New York: Macmillan,
1963,)
*Andrew J.
Dunar, The Truman scandals and the politics of morality Columbia :
University of Missouri Press, 1984. E814.D86 1984
*W. J. Cash,
Mind of the South (1941) F209.C3 1941
*John C.
Culver & John Hyde. American dreamer : the life and times of Henry A.
Wallace E748.W23C85 2000
*Egerton,
John. Speak now against the day E185.61.E28 1994
Fried,
Albert McCarthyism : the great American Red scare New York : Oxford
University Press, 1997. E743.5.F668 1997
*Neal
Gabler, Winchell New York : Knopf, 1994. PN4874.W67G33 1994
*Joseph C.
Goulden, The best years, 1945-1950 New York : Atheneum, 1976. HN58.G66
1976
*Robert A.
Hill, ed., The FBI's RACON (Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press, 1995,)
E743.5.F35 1995
McKay
Jenkins The South in Black and White Univ. of North Carolina Press,
1999. PS261.J46 1999
Philip
Jenkins, Cold War at home. F154.J46 1999
Philip
Jenkins, Moral panic (Yale University Press, 1998). HV6570.2.J46 1998
Philip
Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs (Oxford University Press, 2000).
BL2525.J46 2000
*Alfred C.
Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy and Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human
Male (Philadelphia: W. B.Saunders, 1948). HQ18.U5K5
*Koppes,
Clayton R. Hollywood goes to war (New York. London : Free Press :
Collier Macmillan, c1987. ) D743.23.K66 1987
McCullough,
David G., Truman E814.M26 1992
Curtis D.
MacDougall, Gideon’s Army (New York: Marzani and Munsell, 1965)
JK2391.P7M3
Carey
McWilliams, California F861.M25 1971
Carey
McWilliams, Mask for Privilege E184.J5M16
Carey
McWilliams, Southern California Country (New York: Duell Sloan Pearce,
1946,) 979.49M259s
*Martin E.
Marty, Modern American Religion: Under God Indivisible 1941-1960 University
of Chicago 1996. BL2525.M37 1986
Elaine Tyler
May, Homeward Bound (New York: Basic, 1988); HQ535.M387 1988
*Robert
Merton Mass persuasion : the social psychology of a war bond drive
(1946) 301.1523M558m
*Greg
Mitchell, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady New York : Random House, 1998 .
E856.M57 1998
*W. H.
Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime. HV6791.M67
* Gunnar
Myrdal, An American dilemma : the Negro problem and modern democracy
(New York. London : Harper & brothers, [1944] E185.6.M95 1944
O'Brien, Gail Williams. The color of
the law HV9955.S63O27 1999
*Eric W.
Rise The Martinsville Seven (Charlottesville, VA: Univ. of Virginia,
1995) KF224.M29R57 1995
*Lisle
Abbott Rose The Cold War Comes to Main Street University Press of Kansas
1999. E813.R56 1999
*Thomas
Schatz, Boom and Bust, Univ. California Press 1999; PN1993.5.U6S318 1997
Ellen
Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes Princeton Univ. Press, 1999 E743.5.S37
1998
Kevin Starr The
Dream Endures Oxford Univ. Press 1997 . F866.S78 1997
Weinstein,
Allen, and Alexander Vassiliev. The haunted wood New York : Random
House, c1999 UB271.R9W45 1999
Fredric
Wertham, The Show of Violence (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1949).
364W49s
Graham White
and John Maze Henry A. Wallace Chapel Hill : University of North
Carolina Press, c1995. E748.W23W48 1995
******************
Just to give some notions of the literary scene in these years, I
offer some representative and fairly random authors and titles:
NOVELS
James M Cain, Double Indemnity
James M Cain, The Butterfly (1946)
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
Raymond Chandler, The High Window (1942)
Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake (1943)
Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister (1949)
Howard Fast, Citizen Tom Paine (1943)
Howard Fast, Freedom Road (1944)
William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses (1942)
William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)
Kenneth Fearing,, The Big Clock (1946)
Robert A. Heinlein, Waldo and Magic, inc.(1950)
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Laura Z Hobson, Gentleman's agreement (1947)
Charles Jackson Outer Edges (1948)
Charles Jackson Lost Weekend (1944)
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Sinclair Lewis, Kingsblood Royal (1947)
Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead (1948)
Carson McCullers, The heart is a lonely hunter (1940)
Irwin Shaw, The Young Lions (1948)
Lilian Smith, Strange Fruit (1944)
Spillane, Micky, I, The Jury (1947)
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row (1945)
Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (1950)
Gore Vidal, The City and the Pillar (1948)
Mary Jane Ward, The Snake Pit (1946)
Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men (1946)
Thornton Wilder, The Ides of March (1947)
Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)
Richard Wright, Black Boy (1945)
Obviously, lots of other writers are active in the era, for
example, and in no particular order: John P. Marquand, Wallace Stegner, Upton
Sinclair, Cornell Woolrich, Zora Neale Hurston, and William Saroyan.
POETS
Major poets of the period would include:
Robert Frost Robert
Lowell T.
S. Eliot
Wallace Stevens Marianne
Moore e.e.
cummings
William Carlos Williams Gwendolyn
Brooks Theodore
Roethke
Richard Wilbur, Karl
Shapiro Randall
Jarrell
John Crowe Ransom Allen
Tate Conrad
Aiken
PLAYS
Lillian Hellman, Watch on the Rhine (1941)
Arthur Miller, All My Sons (1947)
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949)
Thornton Wilder The Skin of Our Teeth (1942).
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
SOCIAL SCIENCE
James M Burnham The coming defeat of communism. (1950)
James M Burnham The Machiavellians: defenders of freedom
(1943)
W. J. Cash, Mind of the South (1941)
Barrows Dunham, Man Against Myth (Boston: Little Brown,
1947)
Robert Merton Mass persuasion : the social psychology of a war
bond drive (1946)
Robert Merton and L. Wilson Sociological analysis (1949).
Arnold Toynbee, Study of History (1946)