History 8076

                                                      American Economic History

Location:  Bartley 038

Instructor:  Dr. Eugene McCarraher

Office:  475 St. Augustine Center

Office Hours:  MWF 9:30-10:30 or by appointment

Office Phone:  9-4796

E-mail:  Eugene.mccarraher@villanova.edu

Course Description

       In this course, we will examine both the changing political economy of American capitalism – its property forms, production relations, and state formations – and the culture of the marketplace, what E. P. Thompson once called the “moral economy.”  

Texts

       The following texts are required and can be purchased at the university bookstore or on-line.

                Christopher Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism

                Jill Fraser, White-Collar Sweatshop

                Eugene Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery

                Ellis Hawley, The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly

                Stephen Innes, Creating the Commonwealth

                Angel Kwollek-Folland, Engendering Business

                Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union

                Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul

                David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor

                David Noble, Forces of Production

                Martin Sklar, The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism

                Susan Strom, Beyond the Typewriter

                Olivier Zunz, Making America Corporate

       Other readings will be available on-line.

Grading

       As this is a graduate-level course, participation in class discussions will be an important element of your final grade.  This participation will consist of two parts:  contribution to weekly conversation about the readings (30%) and completion of weekly writing assignments (30%).  Each writing assignment will be a 3-4 page paper in which you evaluate the reading for that class.  You are also required to write a term paper, 15-20 pages in length, in which you review 4-5 books on a topic in American economic history.  This paper will count for 40% of your final grade.   

Schedule

August 25 – Introduction

September 1 – Thomas Haskell and Richard Teichgraeber,

                        “The Culture of the Market” (hand-out)

September 8 – Innes, Creating the Commonwealth

September 15 – Clark, Roots of Rural Capitalism

                         “Special Issue on Capitalism in the Early Republic,”

                         Journal of the Early Republic

September 22 – Genovese, Political Economy of Slavery

                          Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility”

September 29 – Sklar, Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism

October 6 – Zunz, Making America Corporate

                    Roland Marchand, “The Corporation Nobody Knew:

                                                    Bruce Barton, Alfred Sloan, and the Founding

                                                    of the General Motors `Family’”

October 13 – Fall Recess – No Class

October 20 – Montgomery, Fall of the House of Labor

                      Steve Fraser, “The `Labor Question’”

October 27 – Kwollek-Folland, Engendering Business

November 3 – Strom, Beyond the Typewriter

November 10 – Hawley, New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly

                          Hawley, “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat,

                                         And the Vision of an `Associative State, 1921-1928”

November 17 – Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul

November 24 – Thanksgiving Recess – No Class

December 1 – Noble, Forces of Production

December 8 -- Fraser, White-Collar Sweatshop

                        Lichtenstein, State of the Union