First, you need to read Chapter 17 in The American Yawp http://www.americanyawp.com/text/17-conquering-the-west/ In this assignment, you will begin the preliminary work for your term paper (descriptio
Help Choosing a Topic
For most students faced with a term paper, the immediate impulse is to choose a very broad topic, with the intention of just summarizing it for the paper.
That will not work in this class.
Instead, you will need to choose a much smaller topic, and then not only summarize, but also draw some sort of conclusion or make some sort of argument.
Here is a small sample of the possible topics you could choose (there are basically an unlimited number of other topics, too).
Reconstruction and After:
The experiences of an individual freedman/freedwoman or family
The politics of Reconstruction
The Plessy vs. Ferguson court case
Segregated sports (like Negro League baseball)
Lynching as a phenomenon
The Indian Wars and Wild West
A specific battle (such as Little Bighorn)
A Native American (such as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Cynthia Ann Parker, etc.)
Native American land cessions and treaties
An Anglo (such as George Armstrong Custer, Buffalo Bill, etc.)
The way the perception/portrayal of Native Americans has changed in pop culture from the 1860s until today
Cowboys (or black cowboys, or cowgirls; yes, they existed!)
Lawmen (or black lawmen, like Bass Reeves)
The Turn of the Century
One of the great industrialists (like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, etc.)
Working-class people in big cities
A Progressive cause (prohibition of alcohol, school/prison/asylum reform, reform in government, women's rights, etc.)
Technological changes
World War I
How America entered the war
A specific battle
The experiences of an individual soldier
The Spanish Influenza
World War I pop culture
The Jazz Age
A jazz musician (such as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Chick Webb, etc.)
The Harlem Renaissance
Flappers
Prohibition
Odd and Interesting Events
The 1924 Notre Dame University vs. the KKK riot
The Hatpin Panic
You get the idea. Select a topic that interests you, and that you will have fun researching! If you're drawing a blank, and just know that you want to write about the Vietnam War (or whatever) but you don't have any ideas beyond that, shoot me an email for advice.
