Readings | Riots, Strikes, and Conspiracies in American History | History

Required Books

Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979. ISBN: 9780930350055.

Papke, David Ray. The Pullman Case: The Clash of Labor and Capital in Industrial America. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999. ISBN: 9780700609543.

Course readings.
SES #	TOPICS	READINGS AND NOTES
1	Introduction	No readings
2-3	The Attica Prison Uprising, 1971	Cinda Firestone's documentary, Attica, shown in class. Do background reading on the Attica Prison Uprising. Start the readings on the Boston Tea Party.
4	First discussion of papers: What makes for a good topic?	No readings
5-9	The Boston Tea Party, 1773	Maier, Pauline. "Popular Uprisings and Civil Authority in Eighteenth-Century America." In William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, XXVII (1970): 3-35. Upton, L. F. S. "Proceedings of Ye Body Respecting the Tea." Ibid, XXII (1965): 87-300. Frothingham, Richard. Presentation to a special "Tea Party Anniversary" meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society on December 16, 1873. In Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, XIII, 1873-1875. Boston, MA, 1875, 156-83. "Destruction of the Tea in the Harbor of Boston, December 16, 1773 [Three Letters]". Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 4 (1858): 373-389. Adams, John. Diary entry for December 17, 1773, and selections from number VI of his "Novanglus" newspaper essays, first published in 1774 to answer another essayist who wrote as "Massachusettensis," from Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1865), II: 323-24 and III: 79-93, 98-99.
10-14	The Rendition of Anthony Burns, 1854	The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 H., Jane, and William H. Pease. The Fugitive Slave Law and Anthony Burns: A Problem in Law Enforcement. Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; and Toronto, Canada: Lippincott, 1975, pp. 5-8, 3-54, and 71-98. ISBN: 9780397473298. Finkelman, Paul. "Legal Ethics and Fugitive Slaves: The Anthony Burns Case, Judge Loring, and Abolitionist Attorneys." Cardozo Law Review, XVII (May 1996): 1793-1858. (Note: Some of the narrative is redundant with other assigned readings, but look for new elements and consider the ethical issues Finkleman raises.) Schwartz, Harold. "Fugitive Slave Days in Boston." New England Quarterly, XXVII (1854): 191-212. Boston Slave Riot, and Trial of Anthony Burns. Containing the Report of the Faneuil Hall Meeting; The Murder of Batchelder; Theodore Parker's Lesson for the Day; Speeches of Counsel on Both Sides. Corrected by Themselves; A Verbatim Report of Judge Loring's Decision; and Detailed Account of the Embarkation. Boston, MA: Fetridge and Company, 1854. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. Cheerful Yesterdays. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1900, pp. 132-66. Adams, Charles Francis. Chapter XIV in Richard Henry Dana: A Biography. Vol I. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1891, pp. 262-82. ISBN: 9781112599897. Thoreau, Henry David. "Anti-Slavery in Massachusetts." In Thoreau, Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. Montreal, Canada: Harvest House, 1963, pp. 26-41. (Out of print.) ISBN: 9781173079659.
15	Second discussion of papers: Doing research	No readings
16-20	The Pullman Strike in Chicago, 1894	Papke, David Ray. The Pullman Case: The Clash of Labor and Capitalism in Industrial America. University Press of Kansas, 1999. ISBN: 9780700609543. United States Strike Commission, Report on the Chicago Strike of June-July, 1894 (Washington, 1895), i-liv (introductory materials; the commissioners’ report); also testimony on behalf of the Pullman workers, pp. 416-435 (Thomas Heathcote, Jenny Curtis); of the company, pp. 528-547, 552-599, 618-620 (George Pullman and Thomas H. Wicks, with statements issued during the strike pp. 578-588); of the union and on the escalation and failure of the strike, pp. 129-154, 160-165, 168-171 (Eugene V. Debs), and the injunction issued on July 3, 1894 pp. 179-180. "The Boycott of the Pullman Company." Harper’s Weekly, July 7, 1894. Pictures in Harper’s Weekly, July 14, 1894. "Some Lessons of the Great Strike." Harper’s Weekly, July 21, 1894. "State Rights and State Duties." Harper’s Weekly, July 21, 1894. "A word to the Working-Men." Harper’s Weekly, July 28, 1894. "Can the Boycott be Made Impossible?" Harper’s Weekly, July 28, 1894. "In Re Debs." in United States Reports (Supreme Court Decision, 1894), Vol. 158. New York, 1895, pp. 564-600. Cleveland, Grover. "The Government in the Chicago Strike of 1894." Presidential Problems. New York: The Century Co, 1904, pp. 79-117. ISBN: 9781402165450. Debs, Eugene V. "The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike." (1904; a reply to Cleveland) Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches, Chicago, 1908, and "How I Became a Socialist." pp. 181-205, and pp. 79-84. Altgeld, John Peter. Live Questions by John P. Altgeld Comprising His Papers, Speeches and Interviews. Chicago: Bowen, 1899, pp. 459-461 (comments on "In Re Debs." November 15, 1894), and pp. 650-670 (comments on the federal government's interference in the strike, October 17, 1876). "The Lesson of the Recent Strikes" from four perspectives, North American Review, August 1894, pp. 180-188.
21-24	The Student Uprising at Columbia University, 1968	Crisis at Columbia: Report of the Fact-Finding Commission Appointed to Investigate the Disturbances at Columbia University in April and May 1968. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1968, pp. 63-155, and 205-15. (Out of print.) Bell, Daniel. "Columbia and the New Left." In Confrontation: The Student Rebellion and the Universities. Edited by Daniel Bell, and Irving Kristol. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1969, pp. 67-107. ISBN: 9780465013814. Truman, David. "Reflections on the Columbia Disorders of 1968." (an unpublished memoir; used with the permission of Truman's son), pp. 1-96, 106-180, and 251-72. Donadio, Stephen. "Columbia: Seven Interviews." Partisan Review (Fall 1968): 354-92. Avorn, Jerry L. Up against the Ivy Wall; A History of the Columbia Crisis. New York: Atheneum Press, 1969. Appendix I and II, pp. 285-97. Kunen, James Simon. The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary. New York, NY: Random House, 1968, pp. 15-55. (Out of print.)
25	Conclusion	No readings