History 474            Winter 2012                                    Response One (on Women’s Suffrage reading)

Please answer the following question in a short essay (1.5 to 2 pages, typed, double-spaced).  

QUESTION

Consider the passage of the nineteenth amendment as an example of a group of Americans successfully changing the political system.  Not all political movements succeed.  What went right for the suffragists?  What combination of factors converged at this time to lead to this amendment?  Which of these factors do you think was the most critical?

Note 1: Even if you do not write a response essay for this assignment, you should read the question before you start the reading.  Use the question (along with the core class questions listed on page one of the syllabus) to help determine what’s most important in the readings.

Note 2: Make sure you downloaded the HIST 474 reading on women’s suffrage (vs. readings posted for my other classes)..  The first lines of our reading are “Chapter 15 / Women’s Suffrage / The Nineteenth Amendment is Ratified.”

FORMAT FOR YOUR ESSAY

The essay should begin with a very short introduction (about 2-4 sentences) that announces your overall thesis. Then the essay should contain about three supporting paragraphs.  Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that announces the paragraph’s supporting argument.  In other words, the topic sentence should be a mini-thesis statement that supports your overall thesis.  Then, in the supporting paragraphs, supply evidence from the reading assignment to support your paragraph’s mini-thesis.  Aim to cover a wide range of different sources from the reading.  Because this is such a short assignment, you do not need a conclusion paragraph.  You can just end with your last supporting paragraph.  Do not go over two pages.

 In outline form, the essay should look like this:

-Intro (2-4 sentences, with thesis statement that answers the assigned question)

-Supporting paragraph #1 (with topic sentence at start, giving mini-thesis for paragraph)

-Supporting paragraph #2 (same)

-Supporting paragraph #3 (same)

For evidence in your supporting paragraphs, incorporate as many brief quotations as you can from the reading, especially from the primary sources.  Do not rely on long quotations that take up too much space.  Instead, try to quote just snippets of the primary sources.  Choose just the most revealing four or five words from a primary-source passage and build your ideas around it.

Citations: Do not worry about a bibliography or about formal footnotes or endnotes.  At the end of a sentence with quoted material or specific information, just provide a brief parenthetical citation.  For the Women’s Suffrage reading, abbreviate it as WS, along with the page number.  Thus, a sentence that quotes from page 239 should end (WS, 239).

Final Tip: You can learn more about my expectations for academic writing by reading my “tips on writing” page.  Students who want even more structured guidance are welcome to download and use the “writing worksheets” posted on my HIST 474 webpage.

Please answer one of the following two questions in a short essay (1.5 to 2 pages, typed, double-spaced).  Follow the same rules and format as for Response One.  Your essay should draw roughly equally from the two readings.

 QUESTIONS:

OPTION A: What role did gender play in the prohibition and nativist movements?  Consider how advocates of prohibition and immigration restriction wrote about men’s roles, women’s roles, family life, sex, and so on.  Your thesis statement should summarize the main effect of gender concerns on the movement.

OPTION B: Consider the prohibition and nativist movements as emblematic of broad trends in early 20th-century cultural conservativism.  Based on these two readings, what were the three big conceptual pillars of cultural conservatism at this time?  (By conceptual pillar, I mean a broad idea or assumption held by conservatives that inspired their actions.)  Your thesis statement should briefly summarize those three pillars, which you’ll then illustrate in the essay’s body.  Try to go beyond simple pillars, such as “cultural conservatives disliked immigration.”  Instead, dig a little deeper to identify the ideas that made these conservatives dislike immigration.

2. Consider the passage of the nineteenth amendment as an example of a group of Americans successfully changing the political system.  Not all political movements succeed.  What went right for the suffragists?  What combination of factors converged at this time to lead to this amendment?  Which of these factors do you think was the most critical?