BACK to HIST 148 Syllabus

DO NOT BE LATE! The department closes at 4pm. If you cannot bring the exam to me between 3 and 4pm on Tuesday, you must make arrangements to have it put in my box (also on the 5th floor of HSS) before that time.

Since this is a take-home final, it should be typed and proofread for spelling and grammar. Be sure to include your name, course title, and date at the top of the first page. If you wish to be able to pick up your exam from the department, be sure to sign the attached Buckley waiver and staple it to the front of your exam. If you do not want to sign the waiver, bring a large self-addressed envelope with sufficient postage (have the post office weigh it with the final inside) and I will mail it to you.

If you have any questions that did not get answered in class, I can be reached at rshaw @ ucsd.edu or at my office, 858-534-8941. Before asking your question, be sure that you have read all of the exam first.

For this exam, you will write 2 essays, subject to the requirements and conditions described below. Part I is not optional; for Part II, you have your pick of two options.

Thorough, complete, and thoughtful answers will be graded more highly than those that are less developed, and/or poorly organized and presented.

PART I: (50%)
Using 3 of the following six themes to organize your response, describe and assess the development of the postwar American city.

• Geography of the City
• Economics
• Technology
• Culture and Society
• Problems and Solutions
• Regional Variations

You must use Teaford’s American Cities and at least 3 other sources from the course material in your response (do not use outside sources). Each book or article in the reader counts as one source. (You may draw from the lectures and handouts, but these will not count towards the 3 sources.)

As before, you are strongly encouraged to include a discussion/analysis of the relevant historiography.

Pick either (A) or (B). Don’t write on both!

(A)

Compare and contrast American cities before and after World War II. Be sure to note both major changes and continuing trends.

You should include some sort of assessment of these changes and continuities. What is your analysis of the American city today and the path it took to get here? What worked and what did not? …etc., etc. The more detailed and complete your argument the better.

You must use at least 3 sources from the course materials to support your proposal, and they must be different from the ones used to answer Part I. At least 1 of them must be a book (but not Teaford).

If you had to design the perfect city, what factors would you take into account, and why? What would such a city look like?

In constructing your answer, you must take past developments into account. Speculation is okay, but you must ground it with a clear and well-developed sense of past efforts and failures to improve urban life. What worked? What went wrong? Why? How might you correct past mistakes and build on the ideas that worked? etc., etc. The more detailed, complete & historically grounded your argument, the better.

You must use at least 3 sources from the course materials to support your proposal, and they must be different from the ones used to answer Part I. At least 1 of them must be a book (but not Teaford).

Again, lectures and handouts may be used, and you may refer to the sources you used in Part I, but none of these will count towards the 3 sources.

Extra Buckley waivers can be picked up in the History Department Main Office; I will also have some available on Tuesday.