History 206
Professor: April Schultz
Description: The immediate post-World War II period in American history was a time of great tension and concern about both gender and family relationships as well as class and racial politics. This course will explore the ways in which popular culture from 1945 to 1960 represented and mediated these conflicts and tensions. We will examine the role of television in the new suburban family, the Hollywood films that millions left their televisions to see, and the politics and appeal of the new rock and roll music.
Objectives: Americans spend a great deal of time engaging with popular culture. It is important that we understand and explore this significant aspect of everyday life and social history. Indeed, the seeds of the conflicts that would lead to the large-scale social movements in the 1960s--women's rights, civil rights, and student protest--were presented and debated in popular culture forms in the 1940s and 1950s. By examining these forms, you will not only learn about this important period in American history, but will learn how to think about popular culture in the present as well.
Required Readings:
William Graebner, Coming of Age in Buffalo: Youth and Authority in the
Postwar Era
Wendy Kozol, Life's America: Family and Nation in Postwar America
George Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s
Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar
America
Course Requirements and Evaluative Criteria:
Active participation in discussions and group work, requiring regular
attendance. There is a great deal of reading for the course, like any course
offered in a regular semester. Please keep up. If you miss more than two
classes, your final grade will drop half a point and keep dropping for every
class missed.
Midterm: Approx. 25%
Final: Approx. 35%
Research Paper: Approx. 40%
Grading: Grading is based on the policy outlined in the Illinois Wesleyan Catalogue. Please refer to that policy. If your final grade is borderline, I will raise it to the next grade level if--and only if--your participation and in-class performance merit it.
Schedule
1/3 Introduction to Course
View "Rosie the Riveter" and "Seeds of the Sixties"
1/4 AV Room: Penny Serenade
Readings: Spigel, 1
Lipsitz, 1-3
Discussion: Challenges and Contradictions of Wartime America
1/5 Lecture and Discussion: Postwar America: Building the "Consensus"
Readings: Kozol, 1-3
Individual Meetings about Projects
1/6 View It's a Wonderful Life
Discussion
Reading: Lipsitz, 4-6
1/9 Lecture and Discussion: Popular Culture and the Cold War
Readings: Lipsitz, 7-9
Kozol, 4
1/10 Library Room 10: Double Indemnity
Discussion
Readings: Lipsitz, 10-12
1/11 AV Room: Father of the Bride
Lecture and Discussion: Melodrama and the "Fifties Family"
1/12 Midterm Examination
1/13 Library Room 10: Situation Comedies
Reading: Spigel, 2-3
1/16 Discussion: The "Fifties Family" and the Suburban Ideal
Readings: Spigel, 4-5
Write introduction and outline for research papers. Turn in on 1/18.
1/17 Library Room 10 or AV Room: Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
1/18 AV Room: Rebel Without a Cause
Reading: Graebner, 1-4
Discussion: "Cracks" in the Consensus
1/19 Lecture: The Birth of Rock and Roll
Reading: Lipsitz, 13
1/20 View Imitation of Life
Reading: Kozol, 5-6
Lecture and Discussion: Race, Gender, and Popular Culture
1/23 No Class: Writing Day
1/24 Research Papers Due in My Office at 9 a.m.
Study for final.
1/25 Final
Return to H-TEACH Home Page.
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