Instructions: Below are two questions about different aspects of the history of the late 1960s and 1970s, and one cumulative essay question concerning the entire course. Answer these essay questions using essay form (with an introduction, thesis statement, and conclusion). Your word count will vary, but each essay will probably run from 750 to 1250 words. Please double-space with a 1" margin and use 12-point Times Roman or equivalent. Use examples from the lectures and readings, where appropriate, but remember to cite all quotations, paraphrases, and sources of information. A bibliography is not necessary, unless you are citing sources not used in the course, and it is not necessary to cite lecture material. Use this citation style: (Hays, 16). Bring your essays to my office (HH135) or to the History Department office (HH131) by 5:00 p.m., Friday, May 7.
Essay #1: The early 1960s were so optimistic and hopeful: following John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the nation set about creating a Great Society. Goals were the end of poverty, racism, and pollution, and support for education, medicine, and peace around the world. What noble aspirations! By the late 1960s, however, Americans felt themselves still far from all those goals. Instead they found themselves in the midst of rising violence and growing crisis.
Write an essay that explains what happened, and why (in your opinion) things turned out so badly.
Essay #2: In American history, the Presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter form the great era of environmental legislation. Drawing from lecture, Rothman's Greening of a Nation?, and the articles by Webb, Gould, Melosi, Barrow, and Stine, write an essay tracing the history of environmentalism in government from 1964 to 1980. For your thesis, explain how this legislation was shaped by the interplay of such factors as the Presidents themselves (including their goals and personal qualities), politics, and outside events.
Cumulative essay: Revisit Adam Rome's article, "Give Earth a Chance," which gives one viewpoint about factors that led to the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s. Write your own essay on this subject. How and why did the era from about 1950 to about 1970 give birth to environmentalism? Refer to all course materials--lecture, readings, the Cadillac Desert video, your own research paper (if relevant), and even music--to place the environmental movement in its historical context.
The cumulative essay is rather open-ended. I have no specific essay structure in mind, so as long as you write a good essay, using essay form, with a clear thesis and ample supporting evidence, you ought to get a good grade!