PROMPT:
1. Justice in the Early 20th Century
To “establish justice” is one of the primary goals of the Constitution according to the preamble. In brief, to “establish justice” means to be concerned with fairness, safety, and equality for all under the law (you may find more expansive definitions elsewhere). The preamble’s mention of “justice” is connected to the “self-evident” truth in the Declaration of Independence that “all men [nowadays, we mean all people] are created equal … endowed … with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
During the period from 1919 through the end of Hoover’s presidency in 1932, was the goal of the preamble to “establish justice” expanding or shrinking in the United States?
Ch. 24 The Jazz Age: Redefining the Nation, 1919-1929
Ch. 25 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? The Great Depression, 1929-1932
Ch. 26 Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1941
What Should Your Essay Look Like?
Let’s start with the basics.
- Three- to five-paragraph expository essay (answers the prompt with a main claim backed by evidence).
- Introductory paragraph that includes a clearly stated claim that answers the prompt.
- Multiple examples of specific, relevant historical evidence from our materials that back up your main point.
- 12 point font; double-spaced; page numbers.
- Clear writing and effective paragraph organization; proofread, please.
- No title page but write your full name and date on the first page and give your paper an interesting title.
Required Sources and Citations
- Use our assigned sources: Corbett, U.S. History and the additional sources embedded in each chapter.
- In addition to the regular narrative in each chapter, essays must use at least two of the additional embedded sources:
- My Story (written primary sources)
- Americana (visual primary sources with analysis)
- Defining “American” (analyses of primary sources)
- Click and Explore (leads you to various kinds of sources – primary and secondary).
- Use parenthetical citations to show where your essay material came from (quotes, paraphrases, summaries, ideas; whatever influenced your writing must be cited). Instructions below.
- Do not use unassigned sources. Of course, there are libraries full of material on all the topics we will cover, but I am asking you to keep it simple. Use just our assigned materials. If you feel that you need additional sources, contact me first before using them for an essay.
Examples using material in Chapters 18 and 19 of Corbett, U.S. History:
- Chapter Text Example: (Corbett, 18.3).
The online version of our text doesn’t use page numbers, so you may use the section numbers of each chapter that you can see in the table of contents. This citation (Corbett, 18.3) means that the preceding quote or paragraph is based on material in section 18.3, “Building Industrial America on the Backs of Labor.” If you’re using the PDF version of the text, which includes page numbers, you may use page numbers instead of section numbers in your citations.
- My Story Example: (Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth, 18.2).
My Story excerpts inserted into chapters are primary sources – memoirs, letters, interviews of specific individuals. Cite these sources with the name of the author, source title, and text location. For example, if you use the My Story excerpt Andrew Carnegie Gospel of Wealth, the citation format above gets the job done: author’s name, title of the original source (note the italics used for book titles), and the location in our text, chapter 18, section 2.
- Americana Example: (Americana, 18.4).
Since the Americana examples are quite varied in terms of their titles, we’ll keep this citation form simple. If you use material from one of these sources, simply use the title Americana and the location in our text, chapter and section number: (Americana, 18.4).
- Defining “American” Example: (Defining American, 19.1).
Let’s use the same approach to citing Defining “American” info as we do for citing Americana. Just use the inset title, Defining American (we’ll drop the quotation marks for simplicity’s sake), and the location in our text: (Defining American, 19.1).
- Click and Explore Examples:
These links to different kinds of sources deserve a little more attention, but we will still keep them simple. If you use material that you found by following a link in a Click and Explore section of the text, write the citation with the name of the link as it appears in our text and the location: chapter and section number.
The first two sections of chapter 18 have three Click and Explore sources. The first two are about Thomas Edison from the Library of Congress and a text/podcast. The third example is a PBS broadcast. We would cite them this way:
(Library of Congress, 18.1).
(Edison’s Folly, 18.1).
(Robber Barons or Industrial Giants, 18.2).