Bruce E. Baker

HIS2XXX: History of New Orleans

Tutor: Dr Bruce Baker
Armstrong Building Room 1.24
(0191) 208 3636
bruce.baker@newcastle.ac.uk
Office Hours: TBC
Semester: 2
timing TBC

Module Content:

New Orleans, the major port at the outlet of the Mississippi River, has been one of the most important cities in North America over the last three centuries. Particular focuses of this module will be on the relationship between the city and the natural and built environment, the economy of New Orleans and its place within wider trading patterns, the nature and legacies of slavery, and the development of the unique culture of New Orleans.

Teaching and Assessment

Lectures, Seminars, and Private Study

All students are expected to turn up, prepared, to all lectures and seminars. If you are unable to attend due to illness, or for any other reason, please e-mail me in advance. The purpose of the seminars is to provide you with the opportunity to talk over the reading you have done on the week's topic and to discuss key events and themes from the history of New Orleans. Alongside the seminars you are expected to complete approximately 268 hours of private study during the course of the semester.

Tutorials

I will be available during my weekly Office Hours for individual advice and guidance. If the Office Hours conflict with one of your other classes, you may be able to make an appointment with me for an alternative time.

Reading

You will be expected to devote a considerable amount of time (approximately 8 hours) each week to preparatory reading. It is essential that you do the reading before attending the lecture and do not rely simply on the lecture itself. It will be assumed that you have gained some sense of the chronology and events through your own reading. The reading list below should provide a basis for preparatory reading for the lectures, seminars, assessed coursework, and revision. This list is, however, only a starting point and you should feel free to pursue and develop your own interests within the field.

Assessment

This module uses a combination of different forms of assessment as follows.
  • Online Quiz (15%)
    Geography determined the site of New Orleans, and its multinational, multiethnic history and heritage gives it a culture and vocabulary all its own. To understand the history of the city, you need to have a working knowledge of the geography and nomenclature that is distinct to the Crescent City. This online quiz must be completed by the end of Week 2.

  • Research Report (35%)
    Writing concise, well-structured reports on research is an important skill for historians and in many other contexts. In this assignment, you will pick from a set list of topics and be given a research question and a set of primary sources. You must produce a research report of 2000 words that follows a specified format. Essentially, you are doing a task that a research assistant does to support a principal investigator: imagine that the principal investigator you are writing the report for will use it as the basis for writing or to determined whether further research in an areas is needed.
    • Statement of Scope of Report (200 words)
      Discuss your understanding of what the question is asking for, along with a clear statement of what aspects of the what aspects of the question your report was and was not able to answer. Make any suggestions you think appropriate for how the question might be refined or reframed.
    • Discussion of Primary Sources (300 words)
      List the primary sources you were given and any others you used for the report. Give full citation information for each and a brief explanation of the nature of the source and the publication or archive from which it came.
    • Historiography (300 words)
      Provide a bibliography of the key secondary works you used to prepare the report, along with others that might be relevant that you were unable to access. Briefly explain the key issues in the current historiography around this topic.
    • Report (1000 words)
      Write a concise summary of your answer to the question assigned. It should be structured as any other essay with a clear thesis and good organisation, though there is no need for a standard introduction and conclusion since those are addressed in other parts of the research report.
    • Further Research (200 words)
      Give your suggestions for further research that might be pursued in relation to this research report. This might be other primary sources to look for or examine, secondary reading that would deepen or expand our understanding or related research questions and topics that arise out of the work you have done.

  • Group Project The final set of assessments for this module are built around a group project. Each student will look at the list of possible topics here and use this web form to indicate their top five choices (which must come from at least three categories). Informed by those preferences, I will then assign students to a group; each group will have five students. Each group should then begin to discuss how they plan to divded up the work on the overall project in order to allocate a discrete 2000-word section to each group member. Groups are encouraged to discuss and plan the project and research collectively, but each member will be responsible for, and marked on, their own 2000-word section. This will be marked individually and is worth 30% of the mark for the module. Groups will collectively do a five-minute presentation about their project in class in Week 12 which is worth 10% of the module mark. Groups will also collectively produce a version of their project for a website page using at least one or two images. The webpage will be due in Week 12, will be marked collectively, and is worth 10% of the final mark.

Schedule

  • Week 1
    • Lecture - Introduction
    • Lecture - Indians & French settlement
    • Seminar - A River and Its City (Prologue, Ch. 1)
  • Week 2
    • Lecture - New Orleans in the French empire / map quiz
    • Lecture - slavery in colonial New Orleans
    • Seminar - slavery & economy assignment workshop
  • Week 3
    • Lecture - Louisiana Purchase
    • Lecture - economy in the flatboat era
    • Seminar - A River and Its City (Ch. 2)
  • Week 4
    • Lecture - slavery in antebellum New Orleans
    • Lecture - steamboat trade
    • Seminar - synthesis & historiography essay
  • Week 5
    • Lecture - municipal politics
    • Lecture - growth of the faubourgs
    • Seminar - Mardi Gras
  • Week 6
    • Surgery (2 hrs)
    • Seminar - history of area workshop
  • Week 7
    • Lecture - Civil War
    • Lecture - Reconstruction
    • Seminar - postbellum economy assignment & workshop
  • Week 8
    • Lecture - late nineteenth-century economy, esp. cotton
    • Lecture - New Orleans in a Caribbean context
    • Seminar - A River and Its City (Ch. 4)
  • Week 9
    • Lecture - modernisation of the city in the early twentieth century
    • Lecture - jazz
    • Seminar - A River and Its City (Ch. 5) - The 1927 Flood / postbellum economy assignment due
  • Week 10
    • Lecture - literary New Orleans
    • Lecture - civil rights movement
    • Seminar - tourism
  • Week 11
    • Film - When the Levees Broke (2hrs out of total of 4hrs)
    • Seminar - presentations on history of area assignments & history of area assignments due
  • Week 12
    • Surgery (2hrs)
    • Seminar - revision

Reading List

N.B. Most of the items listed here are available in the Robinson Library, with a few exceptions. If you are unable to find an item that you want you may wish to make use of other libraries in the area. If you still can't find it, please let me know.

Most of our primary source readings are available in digital format, and in many cases I have provided the links here.

Week 1

Lecture: Introduction

Lecture: Indians & French settlement

Seminar: A River and Its City (Prologue, Ch. 1)

Week 2

Lecture: New Orleans in the French empire

Lecture: slavery in colonial New Orleans

Seminar: slavery & economy assignment workshop

Week 3

Lecture: Louisiana Purchase

Lecture: economy in the flatboat era

Seminar: A River and Its City (Ch. 2)

Week 4

Lecture: slavery in antebellum New Orleans

Lecture: steamboat trade

Seminar: synthesis & historiography essay

Week 5

Lecture: municipal politics

Lecture: growth of the faubourgs

Seminar: Mardi Gras

Week 6

Surgery (2 hrs)

Seminar: history of area workshop

Week 7

Lecture: Civil War

Lecture: Reconstruction

Seminar: postbellum economy assignment & workshop

Week 8

Lecture: late nineteenth-century economy, esp. cotton

Lecture: New Orleans in a Caribbean context

Seminar: A River and Its City (Ch. 4)

Week 9

Lecture: modernisation of the city in the early twentieth century

Lecture: jazz

Seminar: A River and Its City (Ch. 5): The 1927 Flood

Week 10

Lecture: literary New Orleans

Lecture: civil rights movement

Seminar: tourism

Week 11

Film : When the Levees Broke (2hrs out of total of 4hrs)

 

Page revision date: 25-Feb-2019

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