ASH 3002y Seminar Participants

Student Projects and Assignments

Colonial America:  

• Assignment description
• Mollie Gilbert, Noble Savages and Intentions: Textual Analysis of Benjamin Franklin’s "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" (1999)
• Alison Joseph, Pocahontas and John Smith: the Legacy and the Myth (1999)
• Mi hui Pak, Feeling the Fire: Jonathan Edwards’s "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1999)
• Sarah Rosenthal, Selflessness and Selfishness:  John Winthrop’s "A Model of Christian Charity"
• William Byrd
  • Leah Buley, The Secret Diaries of William Byrd (1999)
  • Katie Skibinski, Analysis of Entries From The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712 (1999)
• Cotton Mather
  • Annrose Francis, Cotton Mather as Clergyman and Scientist (1999)
  • Lisa Gomez, Child Rearing in Puritan Society (as seen in Cotton Mather) (1999)
• Witchcraft and Witch-hunting:
  • Tamara Acoba, Elizabeth Knapp:  "A Servant Possessed"  (1999)
  • Liz Seabrook, Motives behind the Salem Witch Hunt: A Close-Reading of  Deodat Lawson's A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons by Witchcraft, 1692 (1999)

American Studies Comparative Essay:

• Assignment description
• Tamara Acoba, Comparing Works on Slavery (Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself and Stanley Elkins, Slavery) (1999)
• Leah Buley, The labor question in early America: The Liberal Tradition in America versus Chants Democratic (1999)
• Annrose Francis, Critical Analysis of Two Books about Slavery in the U.S. (Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen and Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross) (1999)
• Mollie Gilbert, Not A Laughing Matter: A Comparative Approach to Humor and the American Character (Constance Roarke, American Humor: A Study of the National Character and Gregg Camfield, Necessary Madness: The Humor of Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature) (1999)
• Lisa Gomez, Puritan Myth: Errand or Error? (1999)
• Alison Joseph, Reexamining American History (Mary Beard, America through Women's Eyes, and Rosalind Rosenberg, Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century) (1999)
• Mi hui Pak, The American West:   Henry Nash Smith's "Garden of the World" and Annette Kolodny's "Domestic Eden" (Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth and Annette Kolodny, The Land Before Her: Fantasy and
  Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860) (1999)
• Sarah Rosenthal, Contrasting Views of Indian Removal (Ronald Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era and Grant Foreman Indian Policy) (1999)
• Liz Seabrook, Fantasies of the Frontier, from Turner to Kolodny:  How Perceptions of the American Frontier Have Changed in the Field of American Studies (Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" and Annette Kolodny, The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860) (1999)
• Katie Skibinski, The American Frontier:  Turner vs. Slotkin (Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” and Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: TheMythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860) (1999)

Antebellum America:

• Assignment description
• On slavery and abolition:
  • Tamara Acoba, An Analysis of the Slave Ship
  • Annrose Francis, Slavery and Abolition
  • Mollie Gilbert, Moral Wealth:   Women Abolitionists in the 1830s
  • Mi hui Pak, "A Song for Emancipation":  Paradoxes and Contradictions
• Leah Buley, Whitney Watching the Cotton Gin
• Lisa Gomez, Massachusetts and the Push Toward Ratification
• Alison Joseph, Biblical Allusions in Moby Dick
• Sarah Rosenthal, Paths Converging: Brook Farm as a Means to Make 19th Century American Life More Integrated
• Liz Seabrook, California Cultures: Reading between the strokes of "Danse des habitans de Californie a la mission de st. Francisco."
• Katie Skibinski, Revealing the Sunshine and Shadow of Old New York
  

Early Maps:

• Assignment description
• Tamara Acoba, Map of North and South America, 1540 and De Jode's Map, 1593
• Leah Buley, Early Maps of North America
• Lisa Gomez, historical maps:
  • cc.mail.sunysb.edu/libmap/IMG0022.JPG
  • ccmail.sunysb.edu/libmap/IMG003B.JPG
  • www.sunysb.edu/libmap/nymaps.htm
  • fermi.jhuapl.edu/state/ny_0.html
• Alison Joseph, Charta Cosmographia [Apian 1544] and selection from Cornelius Wytfliet's atlas of America [1597]
• Mi hui Pak, Nova Orbis Tabula (De Witt 1688)
• Sarah Rosenthal, Floridae et Regiones Vicinae
• Liz Seabrook,  Comparison of maps from 1550 and 1600 in  the University of Georgia Map Collection
• Katie Skibinski, Examples of evolving knowledge of New World geography:
  • Charta cosmographia [Apian 1544]
  • Orbis terrae compendiosa descriptio [Mercator 1587]
  • Nova orbis tabula [De Wit 1688]

Census Data:

• Assignment description
• Leah Buley, The number of free colored persons in 1840
• Lisa Gomez, Comparison of Education Data for 1840 and 1850
• Alison Joseph, Race, gender, and private elementary schools in 1960
• Mi hui Pak, Patterns of slaveholding in the eighteenth century: 
  • Table of total pop., no. of slaves, total no. of families, and no. of slave holding families sorted by state
  • Graph of total population
  • Graph of total number of families
  • Graph of number of slaves
  • Graph of number of slave holding families
• Liz Seabrook, Education and literacy of white and free colored females in 1850
• Katie Skibinski, For the year 1900, compare the total number of negro males age
  18-44 in each state to the number of literate negro males over the age of 21
  

Field Trips:

• Assignment description
• Tamara Acoba, The Dyckman House Museum (1999)
• Leah Buley, The Fraunces Tavern Museum (1999)
• Annrose Francis and Lisa Gomez, The Bowne House:  A Flushing Treasure (1999)
• Alison Joseph, Washington's Headquarters, Morristown, New Jersey (1999)
• Sarah Rosenthal, The Lower East Side Tenement Museum (1999)
• Liz Seabrook, A Trip to the Merchant's House Museum
• Trinity Church:
  • Mollie Gilbert, Trinity Church
  • Mi hui Pak, Trinity Church
  • Katie Skibinski, Trinity Churchyard

Reflections on Techonology and American Studies:

• Assignment description
• Leah Buley, On the uses of the internet
• Annrose Francis, Taking Stock: my opinion about the use of technology in the
  American studies class
• Mollie Gilbert, Taking Stock:   Some of my reflections about the internet
• Lisa Gomez, Taking Stock: Evaluating the use of technology in this course
• Alison Joseph, Taking Stock
• Mi hui Pak, Taking Stock
• Sarah Rosenthal, Reflections on Technological Explorations
• Liz Seabrook, Technology Assessment
• Katie Skibinski, Taking Stock