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America in the 1960s
Final Paper Assignment
Spring 2023
Professor Thomas J. Sugrue
CAs: Zingha Foma, Andrea Ho, Oliver Ruiz-Gomez
PAPER
Length: 2000-2500 words or 8-10 double spaced pages in 12-point font with one-inch
margins.
DUE DATES
Prospectus: March 27, 2023 no later than 11:59pm: You must submit a two to three
paragraph prospectus that contains these three elements: 1) A brief description of the
topic you wish to explore, 2) a statement about why this topic matters or what it will
contribute to our understanding of the 1960s, 3) A list of sources that you have identified.
Your prospectus will not be graded, but it will have to be approved before you begin
research. It may be returned to you for revision and resubmission if your topic is not
viable or if you do not have adequate sources to address it.
Final Paper: Sunday, May 7, 2023 no later than 11:59pm. We would prefer that you turn
in your papers sooner. This is not the sort of paper that you can write in the last day
before it is due. Late papers without a documented excuse, for example, a medical or
family emergency, will be marked down one grade for each day or part of the day
overdue. (For example an A paper delivered on May 7 would be downgraded to a B; May
8 to a C, etc.).
PAPER TOPICS
Option 1: Research paper using original primary source materials.
You should use primary source materials (available through Bobst or other online
databases) to examine the history of particular event, social movement, or controversy in
the 1960s broadly defined. Primary sources are those produced in the period under study,
such as newspapers, magazines, government documents, the archives or records of
various social movements or political organizations, speeches and unpublished or
published writings of key activists, policymakers or political leaders, films, television
broadcasts, by first-hand accounts of events by participants and observers (such as oral
histories and memoirs). Many sources are available online, including:
*historical newspapers (available in various databases, particularly at Bobst, including
mainstream dailies, regional or local newspapers, African American press, or
underground/alternative newsmedia)
*the digitized records of specific organizations (for example, the library holds digitized
NAACP records)
*court cases and related materials
*federal government reports and records, including presidential speeches and
congressional hearings, as well as reports and documents issued by various government
departments such as the Department of State or the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
*the memoirs or writings of important or lesser known historical figures.
You must choose a subject that is manageable in 8-10 pages. In other words, you cannot
write a paper on the entire presidency of John F. Kennedy or the Vietnam War or the
New Left. You can however write a paper on a single presidential executive order or a
protest or a dimension of the history of a single organization, such as a local branch of the
NAACP or Vietnam War teach-ins at a particular school or a series of speeches delivered
by Phyllis Schlafly or an underground newspaper’s opinion pieces or cartoons or
coverage of a particular issue. You cannot write a full biography but you could examine a
critical event or defining moment in a person’s life. (These are all illustrative
suggestions).
Option 2: Oral History
Conduct an oral history with a person or persons who lived through and can recall the
period covered by this class, anytime between 1950 and 1980. You should identify your
subject or subjects soon—and be prepared to conduct more than one interview if
necessary. You may choose to interview someone you know or a stranger, someone
ordinary or someone well-known. If you have a difficult time finding a person to
interview you should pursue Option 1 instead. You must situate your person’s life in the
broader social, political, economic, intellectual, and/or cultural context of the period.
A few things to consider when you are choosing your subject:
Don’t go into your interviews with a fixed idea about your subject or his or her life. Be
prepared to modify your topic or rethink your questions if your subject can’t answer
questions in detail.
Don’t just ask your subject what he or she thought about something—ask them what they
were doing. What was his or her life like?
Remember that your subject will interpret the past through the imperfect lens of memory.
Also note that people’s interpretations of the past are often shaped by their current
political, social, or economic positions. The relationship between memory and history is
important and interesting. You may find yourself reflecting on the larger meanings of
what your subject remembers or how your subject chooses to tell his or her story.
We do not just want you to give us someone’s life history—as interesting as it may be.
You should put your subject’s life in the larger context of the era. Some examples: How
does a woman’s life relate to the themes of women’s and gender history? How did a
veteran’s experience fit into the larger history of the Vietnam War? How did a student’s
life relate to the transformation of gender roles or sexuality on campuses or to the social
and political movements of the era? How did a corporate executive relate her experience
to the political currents of the era? What relationship did a resident of an inner-city
neighborhood have to the collapse of the urban economy? How did a campaign operative
change tactics when her candidate lost a primary? How did a parent react to her son
dropping out of college and becoming a hippie? What did it mean that a mother stayed at
home with her children during the 1960s when it seemed that the role of women was
changing so rapidly? How did a Protestant/Catholic/Muslim/Jew/Buddhist change his
religious practices in an era of real cultural change? These are but a few of the many
contextual questions that you should ask of your subjects AND explore in the primary
and secondary sources about the period.
Don’t be daunted if your subject seems to have lived an ordinary life. (Students regularly
come to me worried that their interview subject “wasn’t doing anything in the 1960s.”)
Of course, they were doing something—and it’s your task to make sense out of the
ordinary as well as the extraordinary.
ADVICE
The course assistants and I hold weekly office hours. We are happy to give you advice on
your paper topics and any research questions that might arise. Do not hesitate to contact
us.
REQUIREMENTS FOR ALL PAPERS:
1. You must provide context for your papers by consulting relevant secondary
sources (scholarly or journalistic books and articles written about the period you
are studying).
2. You must use footnotes or endnotes in your paper and follow a consistent,
recognized form for citation. My first choice is the Chicago Manual of Style,
which is available online through the NYU Library. We will not accept papers
with parenthetical citations, for example: (Smith, 2007).
3. Edit your papers carefully. Do not wait until the last minute to write them. The
best student papers go through several drafts. We can tell when you have baked
up a paper at the last minute—and will grade the paper accordingly.
4. If you are conducting an oral history, you must get a signed permission form—
with name and address and contact information—for your interview subjects. We
will not accept a paper unless we can verify that you did indeed conduct the
interview with the person who is named in your paper. We may call or contact
that person to confirm his or her identity.
5. You will get an F for the paper and be sent to disciplinary proceedings if you are
found to have plagiarized in your paper (that is take someone else’s words or
ideas and passed them off as your own without proper citation), if you use
another student’s work, if you use a paper that is not your original work, if you
use a paper that you or someone else has written for another course, or if you
fabricate information.
6. The paper deadline is FIRM. You have more than two months to finish this
paper. You will be penalized if the paper is late.
7. Good luck—have fun. You are about to do the work that professional historians
do for a living. We expect that this will be one of the most interesting papers you
have written and look forward to your well-written, deeply-researched, and
analytically rigorous papers.
ORAL HISTORY PERMISSION FORM TEMPLATE:
________________________________, a student at New York University is
interviewing you for his/her research paper for this semester’s course on America in the
1960s. By signing the form below, you are giving the student permission to quote you in
his or her paper. Any material from your interview will be used only by the student for
the purpose of writing his or her research paper. The paper will be graded by the
instructor and will will not be circulated to anyone else without your express permission.
Below, please indicate your consent to be interviewed and please provide contact
information. We will not be able to accept the student’s paper unless you sign this form
and provide us with contact information. This is solely to verify that the student did
indeed interview you. We may contact you if we have any questions about the student
and his/her project, but will not use the information below in any other way.
If you have any questions about this process, please contact Professor Thomas Sugrue,
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, 20 Cooper Sqaure,
New York, NY 10003. Email: [email protected].
Thank you.
NAME_______________________________________________________________
ADDRESS____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
PHONE NUMBER _____________________________________________________
EMAIL ADDRESS _____________________________________________________
SIGNATURE __________________________________________________________