This Thursday in class we will be discussing Gale Kenny’s book Contentious Liberties. By now you should have a sense of the sorts of things to look for as you read a book of this kind, and Professor Kenny herself gave us an overview of the book’s major themes last Thursday. So, for your final reading response blog comment of the semester, please post a comment on these post about some aspect of the reading. You can comment on the argument, the methods, the characters, the sources, some combination of these things, or something else that interested you, but be sure to back up your claims with specific evidence drawn from the reading.

Here are a few questions to think about for our discussion of Walker on Thursday. Choose one of them to discuss in your comment, which is due by noon before class.

1. Think about what Walker’s “appeal” is. What does he want his audience to do as a result of reading this book? And whom does he consider to be his audience(s)?
2. The Appeal is generally considered by historians (as it was generally considered at the time) as a very radical, even revolutionary, document. So … what makes it “radical”? A related question: If Walker’s document is, on the whole, a “radical” document, are there any aspects of it that seem less radical than you would expect? What are the limits of his radicalism?
3. One way of thinking about these questions is to look very carefully at Walker’s views on violence. Is Walker’s Appeal a call for violent revolution? Even if you think the answer to that question is obvious, would you be able to find evidence to support the opposite answer?
4. In an earlier class on primary sources, we discussed some techniques for distant reading. Try using one or more of those tools to examine a plain-text version of Walker’s Appeal. Did you find anything significant from viewing the text this way that you didn’t see from your close reading or would not expect?

See you on Thursday!

This week your assignment is to be reading John Stauffer’s book, The Black Hearts of Men, one of our required texts. As you read, consider the following questions and choose one for your required blog comment, due by noon on Thursday.

• Like Oakes and Harrold, Stauffer presents an example of what he calls a “biracial quartet” or interracial community. Does he mean the same things by these terms as the previous historians we’ve read? Was the quartet of Brown-Smith-Douglass-and-McCune-Smith more of an interracial community than the relationship between Douglass and Lincoln or the Washington subversives? Use specific evidence to support your answer.
• How does Stauffer use visual images like photographs as historical sources? What methods does he use to interpret pictures, and is their application persuasive?
• Did these radical reformers influence the wider culture in which they lived? If so, how? If not, then how should we measure their significance to historians instead?

Remember that comments must be posted by noon on Thursday. See you in class!

On Thursday we will be discussing Stanley Harrold’s Subversives, one of your required texts, in class. In preparation, please think about the following questions and choose one of them to respond to in the comments. You should also be receiving an email from me about your performance so far on the blog comments.

1. Oakes used the word “radical” in his book to refer to Douglass and agitators like them. When Harrold uses the word “radical” to describe the antislavery community in Washington, does he mean the same thing by the “term”? Does he consider the “subversives” even more radical than Douglass?
2. Harrold refers to the abolitionists in Washington, D.C., as an “interracial” or “biracial community.” What does Harrold mean by “community,” and based on specific evidence from the book, is this the term you would use to describe the cooperation between abolitionists in the city? Why or why not?
3. What specific original contributions is Harrold making to the historiography on abolitionism? Does he disagree with other historians on some questions, and if so, where are some specific examples in the book where he discusses historiographical debates?

Please comment on one of these questions by noon on Thursday, February 9.

As you finish the Oakes book this week, remember that the author will be visiting our class later in the semester, so make note of anything you would like to ask him about when he is here. This Thursday, we will devote our class period to discussing the book, so also jot down anything that confuses or interests you about his argument.

Also, consider these questions as you read, and choose ONE of them to respond to in your required blog comment for this week.

• This course and Oakes’s book share a word–“radical.” What is Oakes’s definition of a “radical,” and why does he believe a “radical” like Douglass is worth studying?
• Using specific references to the book, how would you characterize the relationship between Lincoln and Douglass in particular, or between white abolitionists and black abolitionists generally? Friends? Allies? Opponents? Or something else?
• Again using specific examples from the book, how much influence do you think abolitionists had over the Republican Party and Lincoln? Is the extent of their influence the measure of their importance, in Oakes’s view?

You can post your required comment by clicking on “Leave a Reply” or “Replies” below. If you use the same name and email address you’ve used previously, you shouldn’t have to wait for me to “moderate” your comment before it appears.

Before coming to class on Thursday, you need to complete the two articles listed on the schedule, by Ronald G. Walters and Carol Lasser. You should also leave a required comment on this post after completing the following tasks.

Task 1: Experiment with the American Periodical Series Online

In her article on “voyeuristic abolitionism,” Carol Lasser uses “distant reading” methods like the ones we discussed in class today to chart changes in the American abolitionist movement. She does so with several kinds of searches in the American Periodical Series Online, a database that is available to us here at Rice. After you have read Lasser’s article, check out the American Periodical Series online and the online help sections on searching and see if you can do either of the following things. Allot yourself thirty to forty minutes total of focused work on these tasks before giving up, and see how far you can get in that time.

• See if you can reproduce any of Lasser’s findings about the frequency of “sexualized” words appearing in antislavery newspapers between 1800 and 1862.
• See if you can find at least one article that meets the criteria Lasser used to find articles (she describes her search terms in footnote 15 and the appendix) for her textual analysis and see if your “close reading” of the article fits with the conclusions Lasser drew in her “distant reading.”

Task 2: Read Geoffrey Rockwell’s page, “What is Text Analysis?”

After completing these tasks, leave a comment on this post that does two things: (a) describes your experience using the American Periodical Series Online, including whatever difficulties or successes you had with it; (b) discusses the relative value of “close” and “distant” readings of primary sources, using specific examples from the readings. That is, what are the comparative advantages of the different methods that Walters and Lasser each use to talk about a similar subject?

These posts are due by noon on Thursday. See you in class!

Before coming to Tuesday’s class, please closely read the articles by Huston and Yannielli listed on the schedule, as well as the additional article (by Stewart, Abzug, or Hershberger) that you were assigned today in class.

On Tuesday, we will talk a little bit about the mechanics of a history article–how it is put together, how an historian makes an argument and establishes the significance of his/her research. So as you read all these articles, pay attention to how and when the author references work by other historians. Note places where the author introduces evidence from primary sources to support the thesis. And especially make note of where the author lays out the major point he or she wants to make.

All of these articles deal with the question that we grappled with in our first week together: what would cause a person or group of people to demand the immediate end of slavery–an extremely profitable institution that most white people accepted and that had been around since the beginning of recorded human history? As you read, think about these questions, and then choose one of them to respond to in your comment for this week by clicking on “Leave a Reply” at the end of this post.

1. James Huston argues that the experience of witnessing slavery’s operations was the crucial factor in the origins of abolitionist commitment. Is that generalization supported by the particular life stories of the characters in your other assigned articles? Does Huston’s case for the “experiential basis” of abolitionism account for immediatists better or worse than the other bases (economic, emulation of other movements, evangelical, etc.) that we discussed in class?
2. Is Huston’s argument incompatible with the arguments of either of the other two articles you read? Why or why not?
3. Based on specific examples drawn from the readings, do you think attention to broader Northern cultural shifts is necessary to explain the stories of particular abolitionists? Why or why not? And which cultural shifts in the broader environment seem to have been most important to the person(s) profiled in your non-Huston articles?
4. On page 12, Huston notes that some historians have found “troublesome” or even “retrograde” beliefs and behaviors among the abolitionists? Is this true of the abolitionists you read about in the other articles? Were there specific aspects of the immediatists you met that surprised or troubled you?

Remember, you should think about all of these questions, and also make note of the major turning points and parts of the articles; we want to think both about what they are saying and how about how they say it, since you will be producing works of historical scholarship this semester, too. For your blog comment, however, you only need to address one of the questions above by noon on Tuesday, January 16.