Professor Edward L. Ayers

Teaching Associates: Amy Rider, Carrie Janney-Lucas, Kate Pierce

This course will explore the emergence and destruction of the most powerful slave society of the modern world: the American South. It begins with the seventeenth century and extends through Reconstruction. We examine the lives of slaves and slaveowners, small farmers and large planters, men and women, soldiers and civilians. Throughout, the focus is on the way that black Southerners and white Southerners interacted.

Readings include books of historical analysis, original documents, materials on the Web, memoirs, and fiction.  The selections from the Oxford Book of the American South (OBAS) are linked to a short biographical sketch of the author, a description of the reading placing it in context, and a select bibliography for further reading. The books for the course are available at the University Bookstore:

Requirements include a midterm and a substantial research paper. Energetic participation in a weekly discussion section is a central part of the course. At several points in the semester films will be shown and discussed in section. These are important parts of the class and attendance is required.

The main paper will be written in segments. Students will compose four five-page essays on particular questions focused on the South's experience in slavery and the Civil War. The essays will focus on primary sources in the on-line Valley of the Shadow Project, HarpWeek, Alderman Library's Special Collections, and on microfilm. Each essay will be submitted at the time of discussion. Students will then revise and integrate those essays to constitute their final paper of fifteen pages, offering a coherent analysis of the coming, fighting, and aftermath of the Civil War in the American South.

Each student must use at least two separate kinds of sources--the Web, the newspapers on microfilm, or the diaries and letters of Special Collections--in two separate brief papers and in the final paper. Your teaching associate will be happy to discuss your writing at each stage along the way.

Grading:

August 29: Introduction

reading:
  • Edward L. Ayers, "What We Talk About When We Talk About the South"

September 3 and 5: England and America

reading:
  • T. H. Breen and Stephen Innes, Myne Owne Ground
internet:
  • Explore the first permanent English settlement in the "New World" through Virtual Jamestown. The site includes maps and images, labor contracts for indentured servants, public records, letters and first hand accounts, and runaway and indentured servant advertisements.
images:
  • View the paintings of John White on the Materials page of the course web site. The images are in three pdf files called Drawings-of-John-White-1, 2, and 3; you will need Acrobat Reader to view them. The original paintings are in color; the images are in black and white. The images were taken from Paul Hulton, ed., America, 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

September 10 and 12: Africa and America

reading:
  • Robert Ollwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects
  • In OBAS: Olaudah Equiano from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

September 17 and 19: Revolution

reading:
  • Peter Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies, 147-180, 181-221, 395-417, 418-456
  • In OBAS: Thomas Jefferson from Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)
film:
  • "The Patriot" (showing dates)

September 24 and 26: Emergence of "The South"

reading:
  • Michael Johnson and James Roark, Black Masters, pp. 1-152

October 1 and 3: White Southerners

reading:

October 8 and 10: Black Southerners

reading:
writing:

October 15 and 17: Reading Holiday and Midterm

reading:
  • reading holiday

October 22 and 24: Politics

reading:
  • TBA

October 29 and 31: Creating the Confederacy

writing:
  • five-page essay, using the Valley Project, Secession Editorials on-line, newspapers on microfilm in Periodicals/Microfilms Room of Alderman, or manuscripts in Special Collections in Alderman: why secession?

November 5 and 7: War

reading:
  • In OBAS: Sarah Morgan from The Civil War Diary of Sarah Morgan (1862-1865) and Sam Watkins from "Co. Aytch" (1882)
  • Ira Berlin, et al, Free At Last, chapter 1
writing:

November 12 and 14: Freedom

reading:
  • Ira Berlin, et al, Free At Last, chapters 2, 5, and 6
film:
  • "Glory" (showing date)

November 19 and 20: Reconstruction

writing:

November 26 and 28: Life After Reconstruction

reading:

December 3 and 5: Reflections

reading:

Final Exam (Friday, December 14, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.)

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