HISTORY 112, DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ESSAY, SUMMER 2025
For our document analysis essay we will be focusing on competing ideals of freedom during the Cold War and the social movements associated with the New Left and the New Right. You have a diverse array of documents at your disposal, and here is your selection of prompts – choose one:
How did the ideas and strategies of the Civil Rights Movement evolve over time? What strategies do the different organizations advocate for achieving liberation, and what groups or forces do they hold responsible for the subjugation of African Americans and Hispanic Americans? For this prompt, you might focus on the sources from MLK, Chavez, Hampton, the Panthers, the Migrant Farmers, Garcia and Stokely Carmichael.
Examine the spectrum of strategies and social critiques in the Second Wave feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. What relationship do these sources draw between the personal and the political? What differences do you see in the sources in terms of how they conceive of the struggle, and who/what perpetuates patriarchy in America? What reaction to the women’s movement do you see in the ‘family values’ of the New Right? For this prompt, you might focus on the sources from the Redstockings, Firestone, SDS, Friedan, Schafely, and NOW, and you might engage in comparison with the Civil Rights sources.
Compare the criticisms of the ‘military-industrial complex’ in the sources from Mills, SDS, Friedman, and Barry Goldwater. How do the New Right and the New Left differ in their thinking about freedom and the relationship between the individual and the state?
Examine differing ideas about the role and function of the state as found in the sources from Friedman, SDS, Mills, Johnson, Nixon, Goldwater, and Garcia. How did the New Left and New Right each conceive of government’s proper role in American daily life? How did they appear to differ in their perspective on the Cold War and the Keynesian idea of the ‘welfare state’?
Our mission is to engage analytically with an issue or theme that you find to be particularly interesting. What you choose to focus on is entirely up to you so long as you restrict yourself to course materials and present a clearly-stated central argument. With each of the sources, remember to always pay close attention to how they reflect their specific historical context (their specific time and place).
Here is your official list of documents:
From Course Resources…
Betty Friedan, selection from The Second Sex, 1962
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Cesar Chavez, Letter from Delano, 1969
C. Wright Mills, “Cheerful Robots,” 1959
Milton Friedman, from Capitalism and Freedom, 1962
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Port Huron Statement, 1962
The Redstockings Manifesto, 1969
Fred Hampton, “I am a revolutionary” (audio clip)
The Black Panthers, “Ten Point Program,” 1966
Stokely Carmichael, “The Basis of Black Power,” 1966
Shulamith Firestone, Chap. 1 from The Dialectic of Sex, 1970
Selection from Phyllis Schafely on ERA
From American Yawp Reader…
Migrant Farmers and Immigrant Labor, 1952
National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose,” 1966
Lyndon Johnson, Howard University Commencement Address, 1965
Richard Nixon on the American Standard of Living, 1959
Barry Goldwater, Republican National Convention Acceptance Speech, 1964
George Garcia, Vietnam Veteran Oral History, 1969