Grace Elizabeth Hale ,

Commonwealth Professor of American Studies, Professor of History

 

HIUS 3232: The US South in the Twentieth Century

Spring 2015

Tell about the South.  What's it like there.  What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.

                                                William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936)

 

            This course examines the broad history of the American South in the twentieth century, with special emphasis on racial oppression and violence, the creation of segregation, class and gender relations within the region, the role of evangelical Christianity, the cultural and economic interdependence of black and white southerners, and the Civil Right Movement and its aftermath.  It explores the idea of the global South by comparing the region to the rest of the US and placing this relationship in a transnational frame.  It also models how historians use primary historical documents, including visual and audio as well as textual sources, to think critically about the past. 

               This course meets for lecture twice a week and for discussion once a week.  Each lecture will start with a primary document of the day, which will range from photographs, songs, and film clips to laws, newspaper editorials, and artifacts. We will begin with an analysis of what this document tells us about southern history.  Please complete the readings and/or viewings before your discussion section meets.

Teaching Assistants:  Your teaching assistants are Jonathan Cohen and Joey Thompson, both PhD students in the department of history.  Jonathan did his undergraduate work at McGill University and is interested in twentieth century US history, working-class culture, the political economy, race, Jewish Studies, and Bruce Springsteen, probably not in that order.  Joey did his undergraduate work at the University of Alabama and an MA in Southern Studies at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.  He is interested in twentieth century US history, the South, and vernacular and popular music, probably not in that order either.  They will provide you with information about policies for their discussion sections.

 

Office Hours:

Hale: Nau 238 M, W 2-3:30

Cohen: Tuesdays, 10-11am in Nau 396, Wednesdays, 2-3pm in the Alderman lobby

Thompson: 10:30-12:30 at the Greenberry's in Alderman

 

Course Requirements: 

Midterm (25%)

Reading response papers (20%)

Final exam (30%)

Class participation (25%)

 

Reading Response Papers:   Students in this course are required to attend their discussion sections each week with a one page, single-spaced, printed response to the questions provided below.  Your teaching assistant will take up this response 9 unannounced times during the semester.  The grades for 8 of these papers will be combined into one score that counts 20% of your final grade.  Please draw your answers from the readings and viewings, rather than the lectures (there will of course be overlap but the purpose of the responses is to make you think about the readings and other materials).   Use specific references where possible, but no footnotes or citations are required.

 

Class participation includes attendance at lectures; participation in sections; and attendance at an MLK celebration event and two other campus lecture to be approved by your TA.

 

Class Policies:  

Cell phones, tablets, and computers are not allowed in the lecture or discussion sections of this course.  Students using these devices in class will be asked to leave the lecture hall.  If you have an emergency (a hospitalized family, for example) that requires you to leave your phone on vibrate, please clear this with the TA or the professor before class. 

As your professor, I am committed to making UVA a safe space for all students.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or isolated, there are many individuals here who can help. The Student Health Center offers Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) for its students. Call 434-243-5150 (or 434-972-7004 for after hours and weekend crisis assistance) to get started and schedule an appointment. If you prefer to speak anonymously and confidentially over the phone, call Madison House's HELP Line at any hour of any day: 434-295-8255.  You may also speak to me in office hours or make an appointment.

If you or someone you know is struggling with gender, sexual, or domestic violence, there are many community and University of Virginia resources available.

http://www.virginia.edu/sexualviolence http://www.virginia.edu/justreportit/confidential_resources.pdf

Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA) http://saracville.org/)

UVA Women's Center http://womenscenter.virginia.edu/

UVA Director of Sexual and Domestic Violence Services at 434-982-2774

 

Course Materials:

Books:

The following four books are required.  You can purchase them at the UVA bookstore or online at the bookstore of your choice. 

 

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) available in its entirety online at

            http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DubSoul.html

 

Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940

(1998)

 

William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936)

 

Daniel McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (2011)

Articles:

(on Collab, JSTOR, or online with links as listed below)

 

Theda Purdue, “Southern Indians and Jim Crow,” in The Folly of Jim Crow (2012) (Collab)

 

Paul McEwan “Racist Film: Teaching The Birth of a Nation” Cinema Journal 47:1 (Fall 2007), 98-101.

 

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Robert Korstad, and James L. Leloudis II, “Cotton Mill People: Work,

Community, and Protest in the Textile South, 1880-1940,” American Historical Review 91 (April 1986) (JSTOR)

 

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian

South,” Journal of American History 73:2 (September 1986) (JSTOR)

 

Paul Harvey, “Redeeming the South” (excerpt) from Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures

and Racial Identities Among Southern Baptists (1997) (Collab)

 

Donald G. Matthews, “The Southern Rite of Human Sacrifice” (http://jsr.fsu.edu/mathews.htm  and http://jsr.fsu.edu/mathews2.htm (2000)

 

Mark Noll, “The Churches, ‘Redemption,’ and Jim Crow” from God and Race in American

Politics (2008) (Collab)

 

Zora Neale Hurston, “Spunk,” (1925) http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5131/

 

Robin D. G. Kelley, “We Are Not What We Seem: Rethinking Black Working-Class

Opposition in the Jim Crow South,” Journal of American History (June 1993) (JSTOR)

 

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past”

Journal of American History 91: 4 (2005) (JSTOR)

 

Grace Elizabeth Hale, A Nation of Outsiders (excerpt on Elvis) (Collab)

 

Matt Lassiter and Kevin M. Kruse, “The Bulldozer Revolution: Suburbs and Southern

            History since World War II” Journal of Southern History 75:3 (August 2009)

 

Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-mart: The Making of Christian Free

            Enterprise (2009) (excerpt) (Collab)

 

Heather Ann Thompson, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and

Transformation in Postwar American History” Journal of American History 97:3

(December 2010) (JSTOR)

 

Films: all can be viewed online on Collab or

D. W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation, (1915) (Second Half, about 95 min: first half description on

Collab)

George Stoney, The Uprising of ‘34 (1995) (50 min)

 

Victor Fleming, Gone With the Wind (1939)

 

Henry Hampton, Eyes on the Prize (1986 series): Episodes Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-

61) and No Easy Walk (years 1962-1966) (100 min)

 

Virginia Center for Digital History, Massive Resistance  (50 min)

 

Barbara Kopple, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) (104 min)

 

Schedule:

 

Week 1

1/12 Introduction: Why Study the US South?

 

Unit 1: The Color Line: 1890s-1930s

 

1.14 Segregation: A Political, Social, and Cultural Order

Primary Source: Virginia segregation laws and the Supreme Court’s decision in

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

 

Discussion: Region as a Geographic, Historical, and Cultural Category

Readings: Hale, Making Whiteness, Intro (3-12), chapter 2 (43-84)

 

Week 2

1.19  no class: attend an MLK Celebration event.  The schedule is here http://www.virginia.edu/mlk/.  Please turn into your TA a piece of paper with the name of the event you attended and a short description of what you learned at the event by 2.3.

 

1.21 The Role of Violence in the Jim Crow South

Primary Source: Lynching photographs

 

Discussion: Jim Crow South, Jim Crow Nation

Readings: Hale, Making Whiteness, chapters 1, 3, and 5 (13-42, 85-120, 199-240)

 

Week 3

1.26 Life Along the Color Line I: African Americans

Primary Source: W. E. B. Dubois, “Of the Sorrow Songs”

 

1.28 Life Along the Color Line II: American Indians, Asian Americans, and Latina/os in the

Segregated South

            Primary Source: George Edwin Butler, The Croatan Indians of Sampson County, NC. 

Their Origin and their Racial Status.  A Plea for Separate Schools (1916)

 

Discussion: Making Race I: Using DuBois’ Ideas to Think About People of Color

Readings: DuBois, Souls, intro, chapters 1-4,13,14; Theda Purdue, “Southern Indians and

Jim Crow,” from The Folly of Jim Crow (2012) (Collab)

 

Week 4

2.2 The Image of Southern Blacks in Early 20^th Century Popular Culture: Minstrelsy, Coon

Songs, and Films

            Primary Source: George Johnson, “The Whistling Coon,” 1891

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVYHSlEssYY&feature=related

 

2.4 Consumer Culture in the South

            Primary Source: Advertisements

 

Discussion: Making Race II: Popular Culture

Readings: Hale, Chapter 4 (121-98) and sources on visual culture of Jim Crow (Collab)

 

Week 5

2.9 The Lost Cause: Fieldtrip to Jackson Park (information to be provided)

Primary Source: Jackson Park and Rufus Holsinger, “Unveiling of Stonewall Jackson Monument, October 19, 1921,” (Photograph) Holsinger Studio Collection (#9862), Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

 

2.11 Working-Class Life and Music Across the Color Line

            Primary Sources: The Carter Family, “Wildwood Flower,” (1928) and “Can the Circle

            Be Unbroken” (1928) Charlie Patton, “Tom Rushen Blues” (1929); Robert

Johnson, “Come On in My Kitchen,” (1936)

 

Discussion: Film and Segregation

Readings: Birth of A Nation plot description (Collab) and Paul McEwan “Racist Film:

Teaching The Birth of a Nation” (2007)

Viewing: Birth of A Nation (parts 2) (start watching at title card “Second Part-

Reconstruction) https://archive.org/details/dw_griffith_birth_of_a_nation

 

Unit 2: Movements: 1910s-1930s

Week 6

2.16 The New Woman in the South: Suffragists, Flappers, and Blues Women

            Primary Source: Bessie Smith, “St. Louis Blues” (1929)

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34

 

2.18 The New Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s: White Supremacy in a Region, a Nation, and the

World

            Primary Source: Burning Cross

 

Discussion: New Women and New Racists

Reading: Hale, Chapter 6, (241-280)

Viewing: Gone With the Wind (1939) (we will make this film available online)

 

Week 7

2.23 The New Negro in the South: Veterans, Writers, and Nationalists

            Primary Source: Jean Toomer, Cane (1923)

 

2.25 Evangelical Christianity: Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, and Pre-millennialism

            Primary Source: Two Hymns: “Steal Away to Jesus,” a Negro Spiritual, no date; and

“When the Role is Called Up Yonder,” (1901)

 

Discussion: New Negros and New Christians

Readings: (these are all very short pieces) Paul Harvey, “Redeeming the South;” Donald G.

Matthews, “The Southern Rite of Human Sacrifice;” Mark Noll, “The Churches, ‘Redemption,’ and Jim Crow;” Collab; Hurston, “Spunk” online

 

Week 8

3. 2 Midterm

 

Unit 3: The Great Depression and World War II: The 1930s and 1940s

 

3.4  Southern Poverty and the New Deal

            Primary Source: National Emergency Council’s Report on the Economic Conditions of

the South,” (1938)

 

Discussion: Poverty and Politics

Readings: Hall et al, “Cotton Mill People;” and Hall, “Disorderly Women” 

Viewing: George Stoney, The Uprising of ‘34

 

3.7-3.15 SPRING BREAK  (Start reading Faulkner, Absalom)

 

Week 9

3. 16 Documenting Southern Poverty: The FSA Photographs

            Primary Source: FSA photographs of the South

 

3.18 The Generation of 1900: The Southern Modernists

            Primary Source: William Faulkner talks about history and Absalom, Absalom at UVA

 

Discussion: Faulkner’s South

Reading: Faulkner, Absalom

 

Week 10

3.23 World War II and the Great Migration

            Primary Source: oral histories of African American migration

 

3/25 The Election of 1948

            Primary Source: ballot from the election of 1948

 

Discussion: A Region in Motion:

Reading: Kelley, “We are Not What We Seem,” Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement;” McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, xv-47.

 

Unit 4: The Long Civil Rights Movement

 

Week 11

3.30 Elvis, Race, and Rock and Roll

            Primary Source: Elvis on the Milton Berle Show

 

4.1 Civil Rights Becomes a National Issue I: The Brown Decision (1954)

 

 

Discussion:

Reading: Hale, “Elvis,” Nation of Outsiders (Collab); McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 48-159

 

Week 12

4.6 Civil Rights Becomes a National Issue II: the Till Lynchings (1955) and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)

            Primary Source: Jet magazine article and image of Emmet Till

 

4. 8 Massive Resistance

            Primary Source: the Southern Manifesto (1956)

 

Discussion: The Organizing Tradition

Reading: Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, excerpt to be announced; McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 160-190

Viewing: Eyes on Prize episodes, Massive Resistance

 

Week 13

4.13

Young People in Action: Sit Ins, Freedom Rides, and the Birmingham Movement

            Primary Source: Civil Rights Photographs

 

4.15 Black Power in the South

Primary Source: The Voting Rights Act of 1965

 

Discussion: Power to the People

Reading: McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 191-284

 

Week 14

Unit 5: The Post-Civil Rights South

 

4.20 The New Left in the South in the 1970s: Wildcat Strikes, the War on Poverty, and Union Reform

            Primary Source: Clip from Harlan County

 

4.22 The New Right in the South in the 1970s: Conservative Christians Discover Politics

            Primary Source: film footage of October 28, 1974 rally at the Charleston, WV Civic

                        Center

 

Discussion: The New Left, the New Right, and the South

Reading: Matthew Lassiter and Kevin Kruse, “The Bulldozer Revolution: Suburbs and

Southern History Since World War II,” Journal of Southern History 75:3 (August 2009); Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (2009) (excerpt)

Viewing: Harlan County, U.S.A

 

Week 15

4.27 Mass Incarceration

            Primary Source: “Holler to the Hood” and “Calls From Home”

                        http://appalshop.org/h2h/

 

Discussion: A New Racial Order?

Reading: Thompson, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters”

 

Final Exam:  5.1.15 9-12

HIUS 3232: The US South in the Twentieth Century

Tell about the South.  What's it like there.  What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all

                                                                                                               William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936)

            This course examines the broad history of the US South in the twentieth century, with special emphasis on racial oppression and violence, the creation of segregation, class and gender relations within the region, the role of evangelical Christianity, the cultural and economic interdependence of black and white southerners, and the Civil Right Movement and its aftermath.  It explores the idea of the global South by comparing the region to the rest of the US and placing this relationship in a transnational frame.  It also models how historians use primary historical documents, including visual and audio as well as textual sources, to think critically about the past.