HIST 388—Introduction to History

Washington Goes to War, 1940-1950:  History and Controversy

HIST 388A                                                                                                                        John Findlay

Parrington 212                                                                                                         Office:  Smith 108B

Tues., 1:10-3:20                                                     206-543-2573 or jfindlay@u.washington.edu

                                            Office Hours:  Tues. 3:30-4:00, Wed. 1:30-3:00 (A Term only), and by appt.

Course Summary

OVERVIEW

History 388, an introduction to the discipline of history, is designed for new or prospective majors in History.  It emphasizes the reading, thinking, and writing skills that are central to the study of history; considers the kinds of evidence that historians use and how they use them; examines how historians construct arguments; and explores how and why historians' arguments differ and change over time. In HIST 388A for Summer Quarter of 2009, we will compare and contrast historians' accounts to one another and to fiction, and study such primary sources as correspondence, and historical interviews. 

The focus of HIST 388A will be two controversial developments stemming from the mobilization of modern Washington state and the Pacific Northwest for war in the mid-twentieth century: the incarceration of people of Japanese descent during World War Two; and the creation, development, and impact of Hanford, the federal plant that manufactured plutonium for nuclear weapons, during World War Two and the Cold War. In considering incarceration during the first half of HIST 388 B, we will examine diverse accounts by historians, novelists, and the internees themselves. In considering Hanford during the latter part of the course, we will examine interpretations by historians, journalists, and others, as well as an assortment of primary source accounts.  For the purposes of grading, required work consists of writing three papers and contributing in a regular and informed way to class discussions.  The quality of papers and contributions to discussion depend, in turn, in large part upon thorough reading of required materials and upon careful and sustained thinking about those materials.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Students in HIST 388 are responsible for the information presented in three different venues.  First, a substantial amount of common reading on specific topics and events is required for the course.  Assigned common reading includes five paperback books available at the University Book Store (Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial; Alice Yang Murray, ed., What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean?; either David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars or John Okada, No-No Boy; Louis Fiset, Imprisoned Apart; and S.L. Sanger, Working on the Bomb).  A small amount of additional common reading will be photocopied and distributed to students.  Most common-reading assignments will be accompanied by study questions designed to stimulate thinking and discussion.  Second, during the latter part of the class, students will select, report on, and write about individualized readings.  Third, regular discussions will focus on the common and individualized readings.  Students are expected to complete the readings on time and to participate in an informed fashion in discussions.

GOALS OF THE COURSE

HIST 388A aims to introduce students to the work that historians do and the materials with which they do it.  The course examines history not only as told by historians but also as told by participants, novelists, journalists, and others.  Because we will focus on incarceration of Japanese Americans and the impact of Hanford, students are also expected to become more knowledgeable about these specific developments, especially within the context of the history of Washington state.

One emphasis will be on learning more about how and why historians develop interpretations of the past, and how and why those interpretations differ and change over time.  By comparing and contrasting accounts of Japanese American internment and the development of Hanford, we will aim to understand how each account emerged and how it reflected the particular background, purposes, methods, and sources used by its author.  We will learn to consider how historians and non-historians have treated the similar events and developments.  One of our concerns throughout will be to answer more successfully questions about how reliable and valuable historical accounts are.  Another will be to learn to appreciate why accounts differ.

Another emphasis will be increasing our familiarity with and understanding of different types of primary sources, i.e. the materials created by individuals who lived through the historical events and left first-hand accounts of them.  Primary sources in HIST 388A include letters, oral history interviews, and photographs, among other things.  These materials offer their own perspective on historical events, and they also make up the body of evidence from which historians derive their accounts of the past.  Like accounts by historians, primary sources are not always wholly reliable.  Our goal is to learn how to consider them more critically, and to consider what different kinds of primary sources say and don't say.

In short, then, the course aims above all to improve our appreciation of what goes into accounts (primary and secondary) of the past, what makes accounts more or less reliable, and what leads different individuals to different conclusions about the past.  In order to attain this goal, students are expected to read and think critically about the past, and to write about and discuss primary sources and secondary works thoughtfully and with precision.  Another major goal of HIST 388B, then, is to improve students' abilities to read and think critically, and to communicate about history thoughtfully and precisely in both written and spoken form.  Weekly discussions and regular paper assignments will offer opportunities to assess abilities and improvement.

As in all History courses, still another goal is to improve students' abilities to think historically—about the incarceration of people of Japanese descent and the development of Hanford, in Washington after 1940, as well as about other times and places.  Historical thinking entails the recognition of complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty in human affairs; the development of a critical—and often skeptical—attitude toward sources of information; and the understanding that events occur sequentially and that the sequence matters.  Historical thinking also requires that one try to understand the past from the different points of view of people living at that time, and to recognize that those points of view usually differ from our own.  Students will be expected to demonstrate historical thinking in papers and discussions.

Finally, HIST 388A aspires to improve students' ability to think conceptually.  Coming to terms with the past requires that one impose some intellectual order on the numerous, diverse, sometimes chaotic facts from previous times, to make connections between different trends and events and persons and viewpoints.  By working carefully with concepts, we can identify patterns in historical development, and link different events and trends together.  In HIST 388B, for example, conceptual thinking might help us connect developments at the national level to trends at the state or regional level, or it could assist us in finding commonalities between the incarceration of people of Japanese descent and the evolution of America's nuclear weapons program.  Conceptual thinking, in other words, permits us to pull together selectively a variety of issues, sources, and events into explanations of the past.  Students are asked to demonstrate conceptual thinking in papers and discussion.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

I. June 23:  Introduction to Class; World War Two and the Pacific Northwest

PART ONE:  Incarceration of People of Japanese Descent, 1942-1946

II. June 30: Overview of Incarceration of Nikkei during World War Two

Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial:  Japanese Americans in World War II, rev. ed. (New York:  Hill and Wang, 2004), entire.

III. July 7: Historians' Different Interpretations

Alice Yang Murray, ed., What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean? (Boston:  Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000), entire.

First Paper due, at the beginning of class, consisting of one page, and answering the following question.   Referring with specificity to at least two of the five interpretations in What Did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean?, explain why historians' views of "internment" changed over time. Worth 15% of Final Grade

IV. July 14:  History through Fiction

Read either John Okada, No-No Boy (1957; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), entire; or David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars (New York:  Vintage Books, 1995), entire.

If you have already read one of these novels, please choose the other one for this assignment.

V. July 21:  Correspondence from the Camps

Louis Fiset, Imprisoned Apart: The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple (Seattle:  University of Washington Press, 1997), entire.

Second Paper due, by beginning of class on July 28, of 4-6 pages, answering one of the questions to be presented so that different materials from Weeks II-V are discussed. Worth 25% of Final Grade

PART TWO:  Hanford and the Mobilization of Washington

VI. July 28: Interviews and Journalism as History

S.L. Sanger, Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford (orig. pub. 1989; rev. ed., Portland:  Continuing Education Press, Portland State University, 1995), x-xiii, 1-226, 255-56.

VII. Aug. 4:  No class meeting; Individual meetings with professor to be arranged

By this time, students will have identified, and begun to read selections, from individual readings for the final assignment of the quarter—a paper of 6-8 pages that analyzes one or more texts concerning Hanford.  The texts may be primary sources or secondary works regarding some aspect of the history of Hanford.  An annotated list of suggested texts follows.

1.       Atomic Energy Commission histories of U.S. nuclear weapons facilities—Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, A New World, 1939/1946 and Atomic Shield, 1947-1952 (University Park:  Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962- ).  These accounts of the development of the atomic bomb were "official" versions produced by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.  They treat Hanford along side other American facilities and sites.

2.       Deutschmann, Paul John, "Federal City:  A Study of the Administration of Richland, Washington, Atomic Energy Commission Community," M.A. thesis, University of Oregon, 1952.  Available in Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.  Study of government-controlled town by a political-science type.

3.       Gerber, Michele Stenejhem, On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Site (Lincoln:  University of Nebraska Press, 1992, 1997, 2007).  Gerber produced one of the first environmental histories of an American nuclear-weapons site.

4.       Hales, Peter Bacon.  Atomic Spaces:  Living on the Manhattan Project (Urbana and Chicago:  University of Illinois Press, 1997).  A provocative re-interpretation of the Manhattan Project by an art historian and specialist in American studies.

5.       Hanford Education Action League, Perspective, 1990-1997 (17 issues), Special Collections, University of Washington Library.  Publication of the Spokane activist watchdog group focused on Hanford clean-up.

6.       Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) Project, 1987-1995, miscellaneous reports, many of which are in Government Publications, University of Washington Libraries.  HEDR was a government-funded program to assess the environmental impact of Hanford operations on downwind and downstream populations.  It was, in a sense, history as written by scientists.

7.       Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (HTDS), 1988-2007, miscellaneous publications, many of which are available in the University of Washington Libraries.  HTDS was another government-funded project to assess the influence of Hanford operations on the thyroid of downwinders.  It, too, was history as written by scientists.

8.       Hein, Teri.  Atomic Farmgirl:  Growing Up Right in the (2000; New York:  Houghton Mifflin, 2003).  Memoir of a childhood spent downwind from the Hanford plant.

9.       Manhattan Project scientists and officials, miscellaneous works.  Many scientists and Army officers associated with the Manhattan Project—such as the physicist Leona Marshall Libby and the Army officers Leslie Groves and Kenneth Nichols—left their impressions of Hanford during wartime, in memoirs, autobiographies, and related studies.

10.   Matthias, Col. Franklin T.  Diary 1942-1945.  Matthias was the Army officer who supervised the construction and operation of Hanford during World War Two.

11.   MacGregor, Nell Lewis.  "I Was at Hanford," in Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.  Manuscript memoir of Washington woman who worked at Hanford during World War Two.

12.   National media coverage of Hanford, 1942-1960.  Miscellaneous publications covered a variety of aspects of Hanford's story, even at times when much of that story was classified.  Those publications included ones with easily accessed indexes—The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, etc.  One could also study changes in regional coverage (The Oregonian, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Times, The Spokane Spokesman Review), although there are fewer reliable indexes.  Fred Clagget (see no. 15 below) kept clippings scrapbooks on some aspects of coverage of Hanford and the Tri-Cities.

13.   Photographs of Hanford, Declassified Document Retrieval System, U.S. Department of Energy (http://www2.hanford.gov/declass/).  The federal government has made available thousands of historic photographs of Hanford, most of which were once classified.

14.   Pugnetti, Frances Taylor, "Tiger by the Tail":  Twenty-Five Years with the Stormy Tri-City Herald (Pasco, Wash.:  Tri-City Herald, 1975).  Memoir of operating a newspaper in Hanford's sphere of influence.

15.   Richland Community Council minutes, 1948-1958, and Richland Diary, in Fred Clagett Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.  Clagett was a chemist who went to work at Hanford in 1948 and became involved in the public affairs of Richland as a civic official.  As a member of the Community Council, he sometimes challenged the government's and government contractor's view of affairs at Hanford and Richland.

16.   Richland, Washington, town planning documents:  Office of G. Albin Pehrson, Architect-Engineer, "Hanford Engineer Works Village, Richland, Washington," Nov. 1943, and J. Gordon Turnbull, Inc., and Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, Inc., Master Plan for Richland, Washington (Cleveland and Chicago:  J. Gordon Turnbull, Inc., and Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, Inc., 1948).  Richland was planned for the Army and DuPont once during World War Two, and then planned again in the context of Cold-War expansion during 1947-1948.

17.   Sanger, S.L.  Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.  The original (unedited) tape recordings on which Sanger's book Working on the Bomb is based.

18.   Senatorial correspondence, papers of Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson, U.S. Senators from Washington State, in Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.  During the later 1940s and the 1950s and 1960s, elected representatives from Washington state got involved in lobbying federal agencies concerning conditions at Hanford, and in responding to letters from constituents concerning Hanford and the Tri-Cities.  Their papers represent an especially rich source of information concerning Hanford.

19.   Van Arsdol, Ted, miscellaneous publications in University of Washington Libraries.  Van Arsdol was a journalist from the Tri-Cities who did a great deal of reporting on Hanford and published an assortment of studies of its history, including on the overall project, on the Manhattan Project photographer Robley Johnson, on the debate over public access to the Wahluke Slope, and on the role of trailers in Tri-City development.

20.   Witherup, William, Papers.  Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.  Papers of a poet and activist who was raised and Richland and who wrote extensively about Hanford.

VIII. Aug. 11:  Oral Presentations to Class

Students will make brief oral presentations to class abut their individual projects, and receive feedback about the texts that have chosen to assess.

IX. Aug. 18: Recent Historical Interpretations of Hanford

Michele Stenehjem Gerber, "Historical Truth and Rebirth at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation," Columbia, The Magazine of Northwest History 4 (Winter 1990/1991): 2-3; Stanley Goldberg, "General Groves and the Atomic West:  The Making and Meaning of Hanford," in Bruce Hevly and John M. Findlay, eds., The Atomic West (Seattle:  University of Washington Press, 1998), 39-89 (these readings for discussion will be distributed in photocopied form).

Third Paper due, by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday 20 Aug., of 7-10 pages, assessing one text or set of texts (primary sources or secondary works) regarding Hanford.  Worth 40% of Final Grade

Grading and Assignments

Course grades for HIST 388A will be calculated based on students' performance on three papers and discussion.   Please note that students must complete all assignments to get a passing grade.  There should be no late papers, although I will try to be reasonable in the event of illness of a family emergency. 

HIST 388A requires students to write three papers of increasing length.  It is assumed that the papers will be word-processed.  Students are expected to write clearly and with precision; to state a thesis early on and develop it throughout the paper; and to use a consistent method for citing readings.  I will be looking in particular for insights into materials we are covering.  Although we will speak in greater detail about each paper as the due date approaches, keep in mind that the papers offer you the chance to demonstrate mastery of the skills that the course is trying to teach:  historical and conceptual thinking; critical reading of primary sources and secondary works; comparing and contrasting different kinds of historical accounts; evaluating the reliability of different accounts; and so on.

Students are welcome to talk to me about any paper at any time before it is due, and even show me portions or all of a draft, provided I have ample time to comment on it and return it before it is due. 

The first paper is due at the start of class on July 7.  It should fit on one side of one sheet of paper, but in this instance may be single-spaced and may use a small font and small margins.  By asking for the paper to be completed prior to class, I anticipate that students will be especially well prepared for discussion.  The paper will count for 15% of the course grade.

The second paper is due at the start of class on July 28.  You will be asked to choose one question (out of several) on which to write; questions will be circulated at least one week before the paper is due.  The paper is meant to bring to a close the unit on Japanese American incarceration, so the essays are expected to be "integrative" in nature; that is, they ask students to bring different readings and topics together in the same paper.  The paper is expected to be between 4 and 6 double-spaced pages.  The paper will count for 25% of the course grade.  Note that the due date of this paper coincides with the due date of the Sanger reading.  Please try to complete both on time!

The third paper is due in my office in Smith 108B or my mailbox in Smith 315 by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday 20 August, the second-to-last day of the quarter.  Each of these essays will grow out of students' individualized readings in primary sources or secondary works on Hanford.  The papers should analyze the different texts by contextualizing and critiquing them.  Skills learned in earlier weeks focusing on "internment" will thus be applied to different problems revolving around the development of Hanford.  The emphasis on the paper is on students' reading primary sources and secondary works critically, and applying historical and conceptual thinking to the texts.  The paper will count for 40% of the course grade.

Informed, consistent participation in discussion is also an expectation of the course.  Discussion counts for 20% of the course grade.

The University of Washington grades numerically, using a range from 0.0 to 4.0.  Each assignment will be evaluated with a single number, such as 3.7 or 2.1.  Final grades will be calculated as follows.

First Paper                    15%

Second Paper                25%

Third Paper                    40%

Discussion                   20%

                        Final Grade                  100%

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING PRIMARY SOURCES CRITICALLY

You are expected to read and write about primary sources critically.  Study questions are offered to assist you.  Following are some questions that could be asked about any primary source.

What kind of document is this (published account, diary, memoir, journalism)?  How does this affect your reading of it?

Who produced the document, and what do we know about her or him and the time period in which the document was written?  What motives and influences affected the author?

For what kind of audience was it written?  How does the writer's attempt to address an audience shape the document and its contents?

What were the author's unconscious or unspoken assumptions and beliefs (e.g. about race or war)?  What were the author's conscious intentions in trying to reach readers?

How does the historical context of the production of the text relate to its argument and the way it is presented?

How does the document enrich, complicate, or contradict our understanding of the period as presented by other accounts?

How does the form of the document relate to its content?  For example, contrast the daily entires entries of Matthias with the looking-backward view of Groves and oral interviewees.

Compare and contrast one account with others, even if they seem to have little in common.

How do your own perspectives, experiences, and biases affect your reaction to the primary source?

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING SECONDARY MATERIALS CRITICALLY

You are expected to read secondary works critically.  Study questions regarding each reading are offered to assist with this.  Here are some questions that could be asked of any secondary work.

Who is the author, and in what kind of history does she or he specialize?  For example, is this document political or social or economic history?  As you progress through the secondary readings, compare and contrast the emphases and approaches of different writers.

Note that some authors to be studied in this class are not "trained" historians at all, but rather are novelists, journalists, scientists, activists, and so on.  How does one's background and motives affect the kind of history one writes?

Historians are usually arguing both against other scholars and in support of their own (and other scholars') positions.  So, what is this author arguing against, and what is she or he arguing for?  In other words, can you situate this essay in an intellectual context and explain why it was written?  Keep in mind when and where it was published.

How does the author support an argument?  What kind of evidence is used, and is it sufficient to make a persuasive case?  Has the historian used evidence correctly?  Do you think that contradictory evidence is being ignored?  Think about how and why certain types of evidence are "discovered" or how they become available over time.

Is this a new way of looking at history, or is it a new argument about data that others have already tried to analyze?  Comparing and contrasting different works can help answer this question.

Historians usually don't disagree about who did what when.  They tend to disagree about why things in the past are significant and deserve attention.  Ask yourself why a historian argues (or assumes) that a topic is important.  How do his or her arguments differ from those by other historians?

Sometimes historians try to write a definitive assessment of a topic; other times they try to write more provocatively or tentatively to open up a new area of study.  Of which case is this reading an example?

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING PAPERS

The key thing to remember is to write an essay that presents a thesis or argument.  Too often, students approach an essay as an occasion to write down all they remember.  They forget that they are being asked to address a specific question, and to develop a thesis while doing so.

Essays are an exercise in controlling information and ideas, and not simply inundating the reader with them.  It is not the quantity of facts and claims that you assert that counts, so much as your ability to think conceptually and historically, and to write your thoughts in essay form.  Sometimes, papers are more effective because of what gets left out!

The thesis or argument for an essay should be presented in an introduction, and readers should gain from that introduction a sense of direction for the rest of the essay.  Readers should not get to the end of the introduction and wonder what the essay is about.  Neither should readers at any time in the main body of the essay be confused about what the author is doing or where she or he is headed. 

In writing a history essay, you are expected to integrate information and ideas from different places—the readings, the discussions, and even things you learned outside of HIST 388A.  You need to draw connections between the different kinds of information and ideas you have learned.  Don't write book reports or summaries of readings.   Refer explicitly to authors or titles so that it is clear what readings are being used.

Take advantage of opportunities to have others (including instructors) consult with you about your writing and even read portions or all of rough drafts.  One is always writing for an audience, and not for oneself.  Successful writers keep in mind the problem of having to "move" their readers' minds from point A to point B to point C, often covering difficult or complex material and concepts.  Practice at writing, and understanding how one is being interpreted by the reader, if almost always quite helpful.