Goals Fulfilled:
HIST 222, U.S. History 1877 to Modern Times, which I satisfactorily completed during the Spring 2020 semester, fulfilled the third of my eight Honors course requirements as well as a major course requirement.
Reflection:
HIST 222 was one of my favorite classes I have ever taken at Longwood, and Dr. Hannah Dudley-Shotwell, the Honors faculty member who instructed the course, was one of my all-time favorite professors.
This Honors History course was unlike any I had ever taken before. While we did indeed focus on the major historical events that took place in America between post-Civil War Reconstruction in 1877 and today, we focused more exhaustively on how they affected the everyday men and women living between those periods. HIST 222 was essentially a social history class, and I absolutely loved the way Dr. Dudley-Shotwell presented material.
Every night, we had between ten and thirty pages of primary sources to annotate, historical essays to analyze, or Crash Course YouTube videos to take notes on and study. Reading primary sources written by the poor, the working class, and vilified minority populations was infinitely more insightful than the glossy, generalized nonsense presented by most textbooks. By presenting material in this way, Dr. Dudley-Shotwell encouraged us to look past our idealized versions of the past and understand the oppression women, Native Americans, immigrants, and America’s Black community have faced for centuries.
In class, Dr. Dudley-Shotwell urged us to participate in thoughtful discussions regarding our place in American history. We spent countless class periods working in groups to answer questions and formulate presentations to share with the class. Unfortunately, our semester was abruptly cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down the entire nation in the Spring of 2020 and led Longwood to close its doors that March. Nevertheless, Dr. Dudley-Shotwell moved our discussions online, and we each participated in a variety of discussion boards focused on our primary source readings and documentaries assigned on Canvas.
Though HIST 222 did not end as I expected it too, it was still a fantastic experience. Crafting my final project was a particularly fun and memorable occasion. Rather than assigning an exam, Dr. Dudley-Shotwell assigned us a BuzzFeed-esque “listicle” writing assignment at the end of the semester. We were to each decide upon a recurring theme discussed throughout the course and produce seven major entries relating to that theme in the form of a list, supported by evidence from class.
For my project, I selected “7 Ways that Studying U.S. History 1877 to Modern Times History Shapes the Way You Think About LGBTQ Rights.” It may be found in PDF form below.