Reimagining the Seventies: Historiography, Historical Method, and 1970s America
Spring Quarter 2023
Instructor: Julie Osborn (she/her)
Office: Smith 210C
E-mail: josborn2@uw.edu
Class Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-1:50, Thomson 135
Office Hours: before class, by appointment
Course website: https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1634256
The United States in the 1970s is often considered the twentieth century's "eminently forgettable" decade, a footnote between the tumultuous 1960s and the Reagan revolution. When remembered, it is often considered an anomaly, an era characterized by nostalgia for its distinctive popular culture and aesthetic choices but not worthy of academic inquiry. In this class we will join a small chorus of historians who have attempted to take the decade seriously, as it was a period marked by important political shifts, economic restructuring, meaningful conversations about “morality,” religion and sex/gender and a vigorous backlash that swiftly met most of these new ideas.
In this course we will operate with a dual purpose. In addition to looking at the historical events of the decade and why they mattered, we will approach those events by carefully considering historical methods and historiographical approaches more broadly. Each week we will consider a set of events through particular historiographical frames, we will attempt to disentangle the threads, and to reassemble them, building to an individual research project that applies one of the historical methods to some aspect of American history in the 1970s.
The goal of this 388 is to use the 1970s as our shared temporal home base but to bring in each student’s individual interests in terms of methodology and subfield. Students are expected to read widely in assigned course readings and the research materials relevant to individual projects and execute and manage all stages of a research project, including the formulation of a sound historical argument. Students are also expected to participate actively in discussions, group work, and any online work that is assigned. The goal of this 388 is to deepen your understanding of what it means to practice history, think historically, generate cogent historical questions, and produce sophisticated historical writing that engages primary and secondary sources on a novel topic.
This class meets the requirements for a “W” course, meaning that you will engage in “in-depth exploration and investigation of aspects of specific course topics. These assignments will give you the opportunity to develop your own ideas and interpretations concerning what you are learning in class, to put texts and ideas in conversation with one another, to create space for you to reflect on your learning, and to think critically about how knowledge is created. In fact, much of your university education will occur in the research, reading and writing assignments required by your courses.”
Required Reading
Bruce Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift In American Culture, Society, And Politics (New York: Da Capo Press), 2002.
Articles and primary source texts will be shared in PDF form on Canvas.
Assignments
- 20% Class participation: prepared, respectful, thoughtful participation in every class discussion that demonstrates a grasp of assigned material.
- 10% secondary source description and analysis (~1 page submitted to discussion page on Canvas) due end of WEEK 2.
- 10% Before the END OF WEEK 3 Make a 30-minute appointment through the History Writing Center to discuss your research plan for the quarter. For maximum flexibility, these meetings can be held either in-person or via Zoom depending on availability. (Required: C/NC. Students must have final instructor approval on topic/scope of research by the end of week three.
- 10% Paper Prospectus, In Class Peer Review Exercise Week 5.
- 10% Prepare and deliver a ten-minute in-class presentation on your research project Week 10.
- 40% Submit a final research paper (minimum 10 pages) due Wednesday of final exam week.
WEEK ONE
Tues March 28:
Introduction, Class Requirements, Research Paper Information
Thurs March 30:
Historical Overview of the Decade
Read: Barbara Keys et al, “The Post-Traumatic Decade: New Histories of the 1970s”
Stephen Tuck, “Reconsidering the 1970s – The 1960s to a Disco Beat?”
Schulman, The Seventies, Preface and Introduction
WEEK TWO
Tues April 4
Library Presentation by History Librarian Theresa Mudrock
Meet in Suzzallo 102
Prepare: questions for a research librarian relevant to your prospective project!
Thurs April 6
Vietnam and the American Psyche
Read: Catton, “Refighting Vietnam in the History Books: The Historiography of the War”
Chester Pach, “And That’s the Way it Was: The Vietnam War on the Network Nightly News”
Christian Appy, American Reckoning, Introduction
Write and Submit: primary source description and analysis to Canvas (500-1000 words) due 5p Friday.
WEEK THREE
Tues April 11
The Vietnam War Comes to an End
Watch: Hearts and Minds, clips (in class)
Read: Robert O. Self, All in the Family, Chapter 2 “Last Man to Die: Vietnam and the Citizen Soldier”
Thurs April 13- NO CLASS, DEADLINE FOR INDIVIDUAL APPOINTMENTS FOR PAPER TOPIC APPROVAL, START WORK ON RESEARCH & PAPER PROSPECTUS
WEEK FOUR
Tues April 18
Nixon’s Presidency – Watergate and Its Fallout
Watch: An American Family (1973), clips (in class)
Read: Schulman, Chapter 1 “Down to the Nut-Cutting: The Nixon Presidency and American Public Life"
Thurs April 20
Race and The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement - The Busing Crisis
Read: Schulman, Chapter 2 “E Pluribus Plures: From Racial Integration to ‘Diversity’”
McRae, "The New National Face of Segregation: Boston Women Against Busing"
WEEK FIVE
Tues April 25
Race, Class, and “Backlash”
Watch: “All in the Family” pilot, clips (in class), The Jeffersons (in class)
Read: Jefferson Cowie, "’Vigorously Left, Right, and Center’: The Crosscurrents of Working-Class America in the 1970s” in America in the 70s
Thurs April 27
In-Class Peer Review Exercise of Paper Prospectus
WEEK SIX
Tues May 2
Women and Reproductive Rights in the early 1970s
Read: Schulman, Chapter 7, “Battles of the Sexes: Women, Men, and the Family”
Leslie Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime Intro and Epilogue
Self, All in the Family, Chapter 5, “Bodies on Trial: The Politics of Reproduction”
Thurs May 4
Conservative Women Respond: The ERA and Women’s Labor
Watch: Mrs. America, 9 to 5, clips (in class)
Self, All in the Family, Chapter 4 “The Working Mother Has No Wife: The Dilemmas of Market and Motherhood”
Beth Bailey, “She ‘Can Bring Home the Bacon’: Negotiating Gender in the 1970s” in America in the 70s
Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are, Chapter 10 “The ERA as Catfight”
WEEK SEVEN
Tues May 9
Carter’s Many Crises
Read: Schulman, Chapter 5 “Jimmy Carter and the Crisis of Confidence”
Meg Jacobs, “The Conservative Struggle and the Energy Crisis” in Rightward Bound
Thurs May 11
“Malaise Culture” and the Music of the Decade
Read: Schulman, Chapter 6 “’This Ain’t No Foolin’ Around’: Rebellion and Authority in Seventies Popular Culture”
Bradford Martin, “Cultural Politics and the Singer/Songwriters of the 1970s” in Rightward Bound
WEEK EIGHT
Tues May 16
70s Cinema
Watch: Network (in class)
Read: New York Times, “Chayefsky’s ‘Network’ Bites Hard As a Film Satire of TV Industry”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1976/11/15/issue.html
BBC, “The ‘Outrageous’ Forty Year Old Film that Predicted the Future”
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161125-network-at-40-the-film-that-predicted-the-future
Thurs May 18
“Family Values” and the Reagan Revolution
Read: “Inventing Family Values,” Matthew Lassiter in Schulman and Zelizer, in Rightward Bound
Interview with Jimmy Carter, G. Barry Golson, ed., The Playboy Interview
Read: Schulman, Chapter 4 “The Rise of the Sunbelt and the ‘Reddening’ of America”
Schulman, Chapter 9 “The Reagan Culmination” and conclusion
WEEK NINE
Tues May 23
Student Presentations Day 1
Thurs May 25
NO CLASS - Final Paper Prep
WEEK TEN
Tues May 30
Student Presentations Day 2
Thurs June 1
Student Presentations Day 3
FINALS WEEK – PAPERS DUE BY WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 @ 5:00p
Syllabus attachment covid_Dec 2022[5].pdf