Comparing Reformers
Reformers, American Freedom and Human Nature
1820-1860, 1890-1920, 1930s, 1963-1975
During certain periods in our history, ideas of reform have dominated the public landscape. The reformers have used different definitions of freedom to define their reform. In this paper, you will place your reform within the context of Alan Brinkley’s definition of attitudes about reform:
• Optimistic faith in human nature, a belief that within every individual resided a spirit that was basically good and that society should attempt to unleash OR
• Desire for order and control, stability and discipline, a “conservative nostalgia for better, simpler times.” (p. 305)
You and a partner will choose a pair of reformers who fit in two of the time periods we are studying.
Each partner will research one individual who was part of this reform movement and write a one page single spaced biography of this person. You should choose a topic and people of interest to you and a partner with whom you feel comfortable.
You will include:
- A Thesis paragraph where you analyze whether your reformer is optimistic or pessimistic in light of Brinkley’s definition
- The context of their times
- The tactics and strategies they used
- Their successes
- How they defined reform in relationship to their optimistic/pessimistic attitude about human nature.
After you each write your page, and share it with your partner, you will write another ½ page which compares and contrasts your two reformers on their tactics and strategies and ties them to Brinkley’s optimistic and pessimistic interpretations of reform. This assignment asks you not to do extensive research, but to do some thinking about how to compare two historical personages and their actions and how they can be interpreted in relation to the attitudes of optimism and pessimism.
Your final paper will include 1 page on each reformer complete with footnotes and bibliography (for a total of two single spaces) and a half page each of a comparison (for a total of 2 1/2 pages). You set your deadlines with your partner. I will read rough drafts until Dec 16.
Step 1. Choose 2 people to study from the list attached.
Step 2. Hand in a bibliography of 3 sources on your person with at least one source that tells about the reform movement. Use American National Biography, Notable American Women and Current Biography to start, or Wilson’s Biographies on ICONN. Be sure it is in proper form. You must include one primary source from or about your person. You may NOT use a .com site or wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica.
Step 3. Read Notable American Women, Dictionary of American Biography or Dictionary of National Biography on your two people. Include footnotes. Each person has to fill in one biography sheet. Read the primary document and find at least one quote that you can use from this document. Try to find one related to optimism and pessimism.
Step 4. Define how your reform fits with Brinkley’s two interpretations of reform – which one matches your reform? How and why? 100 words
Step 5. Describe the tactics and strategies your reformer used in their struggle to reform. Include footnotes. 100 words.
Step 6. Write 100 words telling the context of the times. This may include the role of government in this reform, the tactics used, the rights of women or blacks, the power of labor, etc. Refer to step 3. Include footnotes.
Step 7. How and why was your person effective at what they did? Why? On what basis did you make your judgment?
Step 8 Read your partner’s preliminaries. Write 300 words in which you compare and contrast your reformers in three meaningful ways. Conclude by considering what the significance of these 2 reformers is to us today. Can they inspire us? How and why? How do they represent either an optimistic or pessimistic view of human nature as defined by Brinkley? Include footnotes.
Last Day for rough drafts 12/16
Step 8. The final paper should include 2 one page single spaced papers on each person, 2 1/2 page compare and contrasts, footnotes and bibliography, typed and proofread. Number the pages. Due 12/22. No papers accepted without footnotes and bibliography.
For the body of your paper (thesis, info and conclusion), to score in the “A” category, you need to
• write fluently,
• write a meaningful narrative of their reform,
• show the complexity of your reform, and
• You need to weave the attitude about reform throughout your paper
• Write a one page comparison which connects the two reformers in 3 areas; weave in their attitude about human nature
• Your paper would be adequately footnoted from 3 sources throughout the paper.
• You would not rely on just one or two, nor just use three sources in order.
• Your one page compare and contrast should relate your information to the attitudes about human nature, the role reformers play in U.S. society, and how they help to define who we are as Americans.
Those scoring less than an “A” might do any of the following:
• not give equal treatment to each person,
• not establish the context of the reforms,
• not fluently compare and contrast the two people,
• not address the attitudes about reform,
• use one or two sources and only the internet,
• have a conclusion about a minor point in the paper, not the main issue of reform within its time period.
1. Dorothea Dix and Jane Addams – helping the poor
2. Sarah Bagley and Rose Schneiderman – labor
3. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Dorothy Thompson – writers
4. Horace Mann and John Dewey – education
5. Robert Owen and Edward Bellamy – utopia
6. Sojourner Truth and Mary McLeod Bethune or Ella Baker- African American rights
7. Ida Wells Barnett and Jesse Daniel Ames – lynching
8. Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul – women’s rights
9. Lewis Hine and Walker Evans or Margaret Bourke White – photojournalism
10. Jacob Riis and Michael Harrington – writers about the poor
11. John Muir and Rachel Carson or Lois Gibbs- the environment
12. Emma Goldman and Gloria Steinem – women’s rights
13. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul – women’s rights
14. Florence Kelley(P) and Frances Perkins (30s)- labor
15. Samuel Gompers and John L. Lewis – labor
16. Margaret Sanger(P) and Estelle Griswold (60s) – birth control
17. Joe Hill or Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger – folk singers
18. Lincoln Steffens and Woodward and Bernstein – investigative reporters
19. Frances Willard (1839-1898) and Carrie Nation – temperance
20. Terence Powderly (Knights of Labor) and A. Philip Randolph (Sleeping Car Porters)
21. Mary Elizabeth Lease (1850-1933) – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn – socialism
22. Frances Wright (1820s) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1910s) – utopia
23. Ida Tarbell and Nellie Bly – writing as reform
24. Booker T. Washington and Malcolm X
25. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt – regulation of industry
26. Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson – African American rights
27. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson – the poor
28. Huey Long or Frances Townsend and George McGovern – share the wealth
29. Eugene V. Debs and Robert LaFollette – socialists
30. John Spargo and Marian Wright Edelman – children’s rights
31. Tom Johnson (Cleveland 1901) and Robert LaFollette (Wisconsin) – politics
32. John Collier (1930s) and Russell Means (1968) – Indian Rights
33. Henry Gerber (1924) Society for Human Rights and Harvey Milk – gay rights
Biography Sheet: Reformers
1. Reformer’s Name Born Died
Reformer’s Reform
2. Birthplace
3. Family Life
4. Education
5. The cause:
a. place
b. people who were the target of the reform
c. what was unfair and unjust?
6. Background that led reformer to this reform (include motives)
7.Tactics and strategies used (dates and events chronology)
8.Evidence of success of the reformer(give 3 examples)
9. Evidence that the reformer was optimistic or pessimistic (give 3 examples)
10. Evaluate: did the reformers’ actions help a group of people? How and why? Did the reform restrict rights in any way?
11. List your 2 sources here in proper bibliographic form.
