Purpose: This assignment provides you the opportunity to practice critical reading, summarization and paraphrasing skills and demonstrate your ability to make a historical argument based on primary and secondary source evidence.
Skills:
Contextualize, Analyze and Engage with primary sources
Contextualize, Analyze and Engage with secondary sources
Write an essay that comes to well-reasoned conclusions, supported by relevant evidence, and tested against relevant criteria and standards
Knowledge:
demonstrate knowledge about central events and context of US History in the 1930s-1940s period.
Task:
For this essay you write a 1,000-1,500-word paper (4-6 pages) that answers the essay prompt with a clearly articulated thesis statement and defends your analysis with evidence from primary and secondary sources.
Detailed Instructions:
Write a 1,000-1,500-word essay in response to the following prompt: To what extent was the New Deal a continuation of the Progressive movement, and to what extent did it represent a significant shift?
The essay should explain the central goals of the Progressive movement (a debatable issue in and of itself!) and compare and contrast those goals with those of the New Deal. You must consider specific proposals and legislation in your answer. This essay question is phrased in such a way that you will need to make your own historical interpretation and argument, just like a professional historian. Write in third person (no “I think”s, “I believe”s, etc) to make a strong case.
I cannot emphasize this enough… The three words that you should keep in mind while writing your paper are: TO. WHAT. EXTENT. It’s not enough to simply discuss the Progressive movement and New Deal. It’s not enough to compare and contrast them. You must make a defendable claim.
This entire essay can be written using only the sources listed below or found in the GML textbook, Perusall, or on Canvas. If you would like to use outside sources, they must come from reputable sites. Points will be deducted for using commercial websites.
Here are some sites with curated primary and secondary sources on the New Deal and Progressivism:
Digital History: The Progressive Era https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=11&smtID=1
State Historical Society of Iowa: New Deal https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/new-deal
New Deal Programs: Selected Library of Congress Resources https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/newdeal/index.html?&loclr=reclnk
The Living New Deal https://livingnewdeal.org/
Use the Writing Guide to help you start your essay and proofread the paper when you are ready to submit. Consider going over the paper with one of the History tutors before submission. The History Writing Tutors are available for appointments to help you throughout the writing process. Please take advantage of this free service by signing up for an appointment (Links to an external site.). Just like the first essay, those who make an appointment and hold their tutoring session prior to the deadline will receive an automatic three-day extension. Students can make these appointments weeks in advance!
Format the paper using Chicago Manual of Style formatting. For a breakdown of proper formatting see this page. Include a cover page and an alphabetized bibliography at the end of the paper. Put quotation marks around any direct quotes and properly cite all direct and indirect (paraphrased) sources in footnotes. Do not submit a paper that is substantially comprised of other’s thoughts or ideas – write your own thoughts.
