Please submit your paper either to my mailbox in Ballantine 742 (the History Department office closes at 4:30 p.m.), or directly to me in Ballantine 734 (I will be in my office from 4:30 till 7:00 on Tuesday evening).  Given that this is a flexible take-home examination, you may submit your paper at any time prior to the deadline, but late submissions will be SEVERELY penalized.

2.  lecture notes, primary source documents, and web readings from November 27 through December 4

3.  "The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War."  http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

in particular:  "The Eve of War: Letters & Diaries"  http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/lettersp1.html -- you should explore some sample letters from BOTH Augusta County VA in the South and Franklin County PA in the North, from the section on the "Eve of War"

Anderson and Cayton examine the military career of Ulysses Grant from the 1840s to the 1860s, an era of imperial ambition, national expansion, sectional tension, and ultimately civil war.  People certainly did notice monumental change and rising tension in the world around them, but nobody knew that a civil war was coming, since they were living their lives in the uncertainties of the present, not in any inevitability of the future -- just like we are in the present day.

The three previous assignments concerned the status of violence, of time, and of politics in American culture:  three absolutely crucial factors to consider whenever pondering the past or present.  This fourth and final assignment concerns the role of ordinary people in history.  I'd like you to read the chapter on Ulysses Grant (who yearned to be ordinary), to scour the primary source documents for week 14 and 15 of the course, and to explore some personal letters written by ordinary people in two counties, one northern and one southern, in the years before the outbreak of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861.  This was one of the most cataclysmic moments of all American history, and you shall be comparing the daily lives and the political crises surrounding Americans in the 1840s and 1850s.

When you read the letters, you will understand less than people in the past did because you will not understand some of their unexplained private references.  At the same time you will understand more than they did because you know the context and the history that they couldn't see or predict.  So, as you compare the letters to the documents, be alert to two aspects of ordinary life which the letters emphasize (such as family illness), and two elements of political crisis (such as the slavery controversy) which leached into the letters.  Pay special attention to how people (whether public writers or private correspondents)understood the most important concerns in life:  were they small daily concerns, or monumental political ones?

The central question for you to explain is:  In the 1840s and 1850s up to the outbreak of civil war in 1861, to what degree were ordinary Americans imagined by public writers and private correspondents to be involved in historical change?  A lot, or a little?

(Please note that you should be very specific when alluding to social groups.  If you use the phrase "Americans" or "ordinary people," the immediate question will be which ones?  Elite white men?  Enslaved black women?  I have framed the question broadly, but you must answer it specifically, and as always you will have to make decisions about what constituted mainstream American culture versus marginalized subcultures.)  (I would recommend constructing a grid to organize and assess your evidence, with "daily life" in one column and "political crisis" in the other.  Everything you put under each of those columns should be attached to a specific social group -- including whether you are writing about a Northerner or Southerner.  Keep in mind, too, that private imagination and public imagination might differ.)

There is, as usual, no single right or wrong answer to this question.  Rather, you will be evaluated on your ability to develop a forceful yet nuanced argument in response to the question, to select main themes to organize your analysis, and to provide specific evidence from the Anderson and Cayton course book, your lecture notes, the primary source documents, and the website to substantiate your argument and analysis throughout the paper.

Be sure to footnote the precise source of any quotations, derivative ideas, or uncommon facts.  You should quote from primary documents produced by people in the past -- this is the most persuasive evidence for any historical interpretation.  If you glean ideas from a secondary source (such as your lecture notes), use your own words and simply footnote where you found inspiration for a specific idea.  See the course website for other guidelines and resources about writing papers.

Sample footnotes:
1. Ulysses Grant memorirs, quoted in Anderson and Cayton, p. 287, at fn. 34.
2.  Lydia Hotchkiss to Jedediah Hotchkiss, December 18, 1859; The Valley of the Shadow website.
3. Lecture notes, November 29, 2007.
4. John Calhoun, speech on Mexico (1848).