HIST since 1865

Humanities

Question 1 about 300 words: As I’ve described in our work on primary sources, Historians use those pieces of evidence form the past in order to make arguments and assertions about what happened and why things happened the way they did in the past.

This unending process of historical revision and reconsideration often reflects changes in American society. For a long time, for example, history was mostly a list of what presidents or other wealthy, white men were up to. After the social revolutions o the 1960s and 1970s, however, society (and therefore historians) began to ask interpretive questions about the role of other people like women, ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, workers, the poor. Today, therefore, our history reflects much greater consideration of the lives of those people and we’ve come to new conclusions about the past because of our inclusion of a wider slice of the populace in our studies.

As a new generation of historians, I’m curious as to how you think our understanding of history might change over the next 50 years. What do you think our society will think is important to focus on when the next generations are writing and teaching history? [Note that I don’t mean to ask what events from today are historically important (like the recent election, for example), I mean what issues or ideas will histories discuss that they may not focus on today.]

Question 2 about 300 words : For this discussion, carefully read the Voices of Freedom primary sources on pages 792 and 793 of the Give Me Liberty! textbook. The two sources offer differing views about the proper direction for American society in the 1960s. In your response, I’d first like you to compare the ideas about liberty and the role of government that you see in Goldwater speech with what you read and discussed last week from Franklin Roosevelt on page 660. Next, explain how the goals expressed by Friedan in the NOW Statement of Purpose are connected to the differing ideas of freedom put forward in the Goldwater and Roosevelt documents.

In your response you should use evidence from the primary sources to prove your point. Typically this requires a three-step process of making your assertions about the issue, giving the reader evidence that proves your point (usually by providing a brief quotation from the text), and then fully explaining to the reader why the evidence proves your point. Since we are all looking at the same two pages of the textbook, you don’t need to provide a citation when you reference the material.