Written Assignment: Your written assignment will be a 5-page interpretive essay, based on reading historical newspapers from a selected date in Americas national and/or global history. Using this day in history as your starting point, you will read across several weekly or daily newspapers from that time period. I will include a guide that has links to digital newspaper collections that are available through the University Library or through U.S. government sites.
The timespan we chiefly will be looking at is 1865-1965. Your paper will identify the date you are researching and the chief event that took place on that day. Are you researching the R.M.S. Titanic sinking? The bombing of Pearl Harbor? You will be expected to go into some detail about that key event. But thats only part of the assignment. Heres where the fun begins!
You will also research the surrounding events on the front page. What was happening at the same time as President Kennedy was shot? How did the newspaper editors and the readers react to this event in question? This will require looking at the editorial pages, where people wrote letters to the editor long before social media. What sort of social activities were happening at this time? You might look at the social pages or the human interest news, what we today call soft news. What clothes were being worn? What items were being sold? Look in the advertisement section to find out. You can even talk about what plays were being performed, or what movies were being shown (depending on the time period).
Your grade will depend on your use of newspapers. In the United States, there are typically two kinds of newspapers. Weekly newspapers served local communities and small towns. Many such papers from 1789 to 1963 can be accessed for free at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/. You might need to consult the newspapers one week before or after your date to find any mention of it.
As described in your course syllabus, your short essays will consist of at least three (3) double-spaced pages, not including title pages or end matter. Adding the title page and bibliography, this amounts to five (5) pages total. Missing title page and/or bibliography results in the loss of a letter grade each.
