A PORTION OF THE ABOVE CLASS RESERVED FOR MAJORS
ABOVE CLASS OPEN TO UNDERGRADUATES AND
EDUCATION MA’S ONLY

What is a “home”? This course considers the changing ways in which
Americans have defined that term from the colonial era to the
present.  We’ll examine colonial households, idealized nineteenth-
century middle-class homes, “modern” homes of the early twentieth
century, post-World War II suburbia, and (briefly) ideas
about “home” today.  Along the way we’ll also explore various places
that cultural authorities defined, often erroneously, as something
other than “homes.” These included slave cabins, tenements,
boardinghouses, apartments, orphanages, college dormitories, and
communes.  We will also briefly examine the history of homelessness
in America. If class size permits, we will take two field trips to
examine homes in the Bloomington community.

We will think about the home (and its alternatives) as buildings,
workplaces, and cultural ideals. What did Americans in various
periods mean by “home”? Has “home” ever been separate from “work”?
Which sorts of places and households qualified as “homes,” which did
not, and why? Who had the authority to define “home”?  How did ideas
about architectural style and the uses of space influence these
definitions?  To what extent did people who lived in alternative
places conceive of their residences as “homes”?  To what extent did
they reject dominant notions of “home”?  What has it meant to
be “homeless” in American society?

This course assumes no prior knowledge of American history. The main
focus of lectures, discussions, and writing assignments will be on
carefully analyzing primary sources in order to make interpretations
and arguments about the past.  A key goal of this course will be to
think both critically and historically about “home,” a concept that
most of us take for granted.

Reading:  Most reading (and viewing) assignments will be based on
various sorts of primary sources (sources produced by people in the
past), including designs and blueprints, songs, television shows,
illustrations, advertisements, photographs, household manuals,
cookbooks, diaries, letters, fiction, and buildings themselves.
Most reading will be available on electronic reserve.  Students will
also be required to purchase two books, Gwendolyn Wright’s "Building
the Dream" and Jacob Riis’s "How the Other Half Lives."

Requirements:   Regular attendance and active participation are
essential.  Students will also complete short weekly writing
assignments (1-2 pages), a brief research paper (5-7 pages), a
midterm, and final (both examinations will be in essay format).