The founders of the USA inscribed in their Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” and the US Constitution begins with the phrase “We the people…”. Yet, from the outset these seemingly inclusive phrases granting or declaring inclusive rights and privileges met with the reality of racialized enslavement, the international trade of enslaved people, the harsh consequences of settler-colonialism experienced by Native Americans, and the disenfranchisement of specific groups of people based on sex or skin color – which appear to be at odds with the premises of the founding documents. From the very founding of the nascent nation, different types of social (reform) movements sought to challenge these principles and practices of inclusion and exclusion through different types of protest and with different goals in mind. In this seminar, we will consider social movements ranging from anti-slavery sentiments to abolitionism, the early movement for women’s rights and suffrage, as well as public education, prison reform and the temperance and dietary health movement from the period of the Early Republic, through the Antebellum Period, to the eve of the Civil War. In some sessions we will also take a transnational perspective, when we consider, for instance, the impact of the Haitian Revolution in anti-slavery and abolitionist discourses. The course will primarily center on understanding the goals and means of social reform movements of that time, but we will also consider questions of radicalism and dissent from a historical and theoretical perspective. We will also examine some contemporary renderings of these issues, such as the movie Amistad (Spielberg, 1997).
- Dozent/in: Maxi Albrecht