Political Science
Option 1:
Drawing on the readings from lessons 3 & 4 (especially the main academic readings), discuss the historical context of early ethnic/racial group formation in the U.S. What forces and circumstances shaped relations among “the three races” that inhabited the U.S. during the time of Tocqueville’s writing? How did the sharp increase in subsequent immigration alter the conditions, number, and variety of American ethnic groups? Site examples.
Option 2:
The Irish are often singled out as something of an early historical model for ethnic group politics in the U.S. Drawing on readings from lessons 3 & 4 (especially the main academic readings) describe what contributed to the “Irish success story,” in political terms. How is that experience applicable (or not applicable) to other groups who either were already in the U.S. prior to the Irish (i.e., Blacks / Native Americans), and for those which followed?
1.Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Chapter XVIII, “The Present And Probable Future Condition Of The Three Races That Inhabit The Territory Of The United States,”
Note: Read the first three sections of the chapter, through “Situation of the Black Population in the United States….” That is about 1/3 of the total chapter shown on this web-page
http://xroads.virginia.edu/HYPER/DETOC/1_ch18.htm
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States
3. Federation for American Immigration Reform, History of US Immigration Laws.
http://www.fairus.org/facts/us_laws
4. University of Missouri, “A Historical Look at US Immigration Policy,”
http://web.missouri.edu/socbrent/immigr.htm
5. http://immigration.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000023
6. PowerPoint: A Brief History of Immigration Policy”, Steve Holland
http://www.macalester.edu/qm4pp/math%20108/presentations/Spring%202005/ImmigrationLaw.pdf
Lesson IV: Early Immigration, Political Mobilization and Incorporation: The Irish and Machine Politics
READ:
1. Immigrants & Urbanization: America in the Late 19th & Early 20th Century (PowerPoint)
http://tinyurl.com/3axfv3s
2. Michael Barone, “Race, Ethnicity, and Politics in American History,”
http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/0817998721_343.pdf
3.”Political Machine,”-from a Russian online encyclopedia (of all things) but not a bad description of a political machine.
http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/231185
4. Bruce M. Stave, “Urban Bosses And Machine Politics,”
http://www.answers.com/topic/urban-bosses-and-machine-politics
5.An excerpt from the book, “American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley-His Battle for Chicago and the Nation,” by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
http://www.wikitree.com/articles/Daley/