Demo project:
Louisa Cousselle: Reconstructing a Life in the West
(Paula Petrik, George Mason University)
Central Question: What does the life of Louisa Cousselle reveal about women in the nineteenth-century trans-Mississippi West?
Introduction
Historical Background
Primary Sources
Joseph Cousselle and Louisa Langley, Marriage License, 1853
Ship’s Passenger List, American Eagle, 1853
Internal Revenue Service, Nevada Tax List, Nevada, 1865
Fire Losses, Helena, Lewis and Clark County, Montana, 1874
U.S. Census Bureau, Bozeman, Gallatin County, Montana Territory, 1880
Will & Probate, Bozeman, Gallatin County, Montana Territory, 1883 and 1886
“Death of Mrs. Lou,” Avant Courier [Bozeman, Montana Territory], June 26, 1886
Louisa Cousselle’s Gravestone, Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York
Project Questions
Project Activities
Additional projects coming for January 2014 include:
Revolutionary Women’s Eighteenth-Century Reading and Writing: “Remember the Ladies”
(Karin Wulf, College of William and Mary)
What does the evidence of elite women’s reading and writing in eighteenth-century Philadelphia tell us about gender and politics on the eve of the American Revolution?
Bleeding Kansas
(Nicole Etcheson, Ball State University)
Why did settlers in Kansas Territory fight a small civil war? What does Bleeding Kansas tell us about the slavery issue in nineteenth-century United States politics and the causes of the national Civil War?
The California Gold Rush: A Trans-Pacific Phenomenon
(David Igler, Univeristy of California, Irvine)
How was the gold rush influenced by California’s proximity to places and diverse communities around the Pacific Ocean? To what extent was California’s early social diversity and conflicts also a result of its relationship to the Pacific world?
Interpreting the Battle of Gettysburg
(Christopher Hamner, George Mason University)
How did Americans attempt to describe what the battle of Gettysburg was like, and how did differences in their perspectives affect their depictions of the battle?
The Civil War
(Jennifer Weber, University of Kansas, Lawrence)
What single cause lies beneath all other explanations for the Civil War?
The Legend of John Henry
(Scott Reynolds Nelson, College of William and Mary)
Who was John Henry? What can his story tell us about the lives of African Americans in the postwar South?
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
(John McClymer, Assumption College)
Why did the United States abandon its Open Door policy of admitting immigrants irrespective of race, nationality, or country of origin?
Who Joined the People’s Party in the 1890s and Why?
(Rebecca Edwards, Vassar College)
What drew some Americans in the 1890s to work and vote for the People’s Party? How did the party’s supporters explain the economic hardships Americans—especially farmers—were experiencing, and what remedies did they propose?
The Juvenile Delinquency/Comic Book Panic of the 1950s.
(James Gilbert, University of Maryland, College Park)
To what extent did culture, in the shape of comic books, influence juvenile delinquency rates in the 1950s?
School Desegregation: North and South
(Joseph Crespino, Emory University)
How did school desegregation efforts differ in the North and South, and what were the challenges that reformers faced in trying to desegregate American schools after the 1960s?
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Organization and Protest in the Civil Rights-era South
(Paul Harvey, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)
How did African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama organize to challenge and defeat segregation in public transportation in their city? And what does their organizing reveal about the nature of leadership and the work of ordinary people in the life of social movements?
The Diggers: Cultural Rebellion in the 1960s
(David Farber, Temple University)
Who were the Diggers? How and why did they rebel against mainstream American society in the 1960s era?