HISTORY/ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 283

 

Cultural and Environmental History

of Mount Holyoke College

Spring 2006

 

Robert Schwartz

 

Office Hours: 

 

206 Skinner Hall

 

Tues. & Thurs., 4-5, and by appointment  

 

telephone: x2465

 

rschwart@mtholyoke.edu

Aime DeGrenier  RIS adegreni@MtHolyoke.edu

 

Mild Boonipat Web Tech

sboonipa@MtHolyoke.edu

 

 

 

 

Course Web Site  http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist283/

Discussion Forum  http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist283/forum/forum.html 

Archives and Special Collections: Digital Image Data base

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/library/arch/col/imagebase/index.html

Schwartz, MHC Campus sitehttp://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/campus/

Books available for purchase at the Odyssey:

Helen L. Horowitz, Alma Mater, 2nd edition, U Massachusetts Press (pb)

Anne Carey Edmonds, A Memory Book. Mount Holyoke College, 1837-1897 (pb)

Course packets available for purchase at the History Department, 310 Skinner

 

Packet 1.

D.W. Meinig, ed., The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes. Geographical Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979)

D. W. Meinig, “The Beholding Eye. Ten Versions of the Same Scene,” ibid.

___________, “Symbolic Landscapes. Some Idealizations of American Communities,” ibid.

Peirce F. Lewis, “Axioms for Reading the Landscape. Some Guides to the American Scene,” ibid.

D.W. Meinig, “Symbolic Landscapes: Models of American Community,” in ibid.

Marwyn S. Samuels, “The Biography of Landscape. Cause and Culpability,” in ibid.

Yi-Fu Tuan, “Thought and Landscape. The Eye and the Mind’s Eye,” ibid.

David Lowenthal, “Age and Artifact. Dilemmas of Appreciation,” ibid.

David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty, Nearby History. Exploring the Past Around You, selected chapters. Kyvig and Marty, Nearby History, chap. 1, Why Nearby History? Pp. 14-19, 28-41

Chapter 3, Traces and Storytelling, 42-57

Chapter 6, Oral Documents

Chapter 7, Visual Documents, 128-146

Chapter 8, Artifacts

Chapter 9, Landscape and Buildings, 165-179

Anne Whiston Spirn, “Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human  Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996).

 

Packet 2.

Krupabai Satthianadhan, Saguna : The First Autobiographical Novel in English by an Indian Woman, edited by Chandani Lokuge. 1st ed. New Delhi, Oxford University Press. 1998

 

Packet 3.

 

Environmental & Ecological History

David R. Foster, Thoreau’s Country. A Journey through a Transformed Landscape (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999): “Three Landscapes in New England History (8-14); “The Cultural Landscape of New England” [Views of the Nineteenth-Century Landscape; Daily Life; The Farmer as Hero](15-47); “Landscape Change (209-220)”; “Insights into the Ecology and Conservation of the Land (220-229)

 

Missions in General

Helen B. Calder; Alice Seymour Browne; Charlotte B. Deforest; Elizabeth Gordon; and Grace H. Knapp, “Mount Holyoke’s Missionary Influence, Life and Light for Woman 42 (October 1912): 413-421

Robert, Dana Lee. American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996. Chapter 3 The Missionary Teacher: 2. Mary Lyon and the Systemization of Missionary Preparation; 3 The Collapse of the Lyon-Anderson Consensus; The Shape of American Women’s Mission Thought, A Concluding Thought.

 

Missions in India

Amanda Porterfield. Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Chapter 1 “The Place of Anebellum Missionary Women in American Religious History;” Chapter 5 “The Presence and impact of Mary Lyon’s Students in Maharashtra;”  Conclusion.

Correspondence of Ruth Parker White (1895-1989), Class of 1917.  MHC Archives

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, South India. The American Madura Mission (Boston, 1924?)

 

Missions in Turkey

Barbara J. Merguerian, "Mt. Holyoke Seminary in Bitlis: providing an American education for Armenian women." Armenian Review, vol. 43, no. 1/169 (Spring 1990), pp. 31-65.  (On  order ILL)

Barbara Reeves-Ellington, "A Vision of Mount Holyoke in the Ottoman Balkans: American Cultural Transfer, Bulgarian Nation-Building and Women's Educational Reform, 1858-1870." Gender & History, 16, no. 1 (2004): 146-171. (CP 3)

Charlotte E. (1839-1915) and Mary A. C. (1841-1913) Ely Papers (Class of 1861). MHC Archives. Letters from Bitlis, Mount Holyoke Seminary for Armenian Girls, dated 1882, undated, 1889; Letter of Mrs. Harrison A. Maynard describing the genocide, “The Days of Terror in Bitlis.”

Vickery, Bess P. Mount Holyoke Courageous: A Call to the Near East. New York: Carlton Press Corp., 1994. Foreward, Introduction, Chapter 3 The George Cushing Knapp Family; Chapter 4 The Ely Sisters; Chapter 5 The Mission at Van—the Raynolds Family.

 

Missions in China

Hunter, Jane. The Gospel of Gentility: American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the-Century China. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984, Chapter 3 “Single Women and Mission Community.”

Papers of Viette Brown Sprague (1846-1923), Class of 1871. MHC Archives. “Work in Kalgon” (China).

Papers of Alice Browne Frame (1878-1941), Class of 1900. MHC Archives. “General Report of Woman’s Work of Tungchow Station, North China Mission for the Year 1916” (As reported by Mrs. Wang of Wheat Chaff Alley, Tungchow, to her visiting grandmother—a Chinese woman describes her experiences with the Christian Mission.)

Alice Seymour Browne, “The New Woman in Old China,” reprinted from Life and Light, 1911.

 

Course Requirements

1.       Regular attendance and informed participation in class discussions. (10 percent of grade)  [One unexcused absence permitted; additional absences will detract from the final grade.]

2.       Short written assignments and oral presentations of work in class (30 percent of grade).

3.       Construction of a component of the Historical Atlas of MHC in collaboration with the class. (60 percent)

 

Jan. 31

History in the Back Yard and the Wider World

Horowitz, introduction.

Historical Atlas: www.mtholyoke.edu/go/atlas 

 

Feb. 2

 

The Historical Atlas Project

Historical Atlas: www.mtholyoke.edu/go/atlas

Read one of the Atlas components; write a short summary of main points and evaluation of the use of images.

Kyvig and Marty, Nearby History, Chapter 7, Visual Documents, 128-146 (CP 1)

Optional: Kyvig and Marty, Nearby History, chap. 1, Why Nearby History? Pp. 14-19, 28-41; chap. 9 Landscapes and Buildings (CP 1)

Schwartz, Campus site http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/campus/

Feb. 7

Mount Holyoke: The Surroundings and the Beginnings

Horowitz, chap. 1. Mount Holyoke.

Edmonds, “Mount Holyoke Female Seminary,” pp. 9-54. Choose an image to post on the web and comment upon in class.

Optional: Horowitz, chap. 2 Vassar 

 

Feb. 9

Tools for the Historical Atlas

Write and post an abstract of Horowitz, chap. 1.

Workshop on Dreamweaver

Feb. 14

The Rise of the Women’s College

Edmonds, “From Seminary to College,” pp. 55-84. Choose an image to comment upon in class.

Horowitz, chap. 14, Mount Holyoke,  A Larger Classroom

Optional: Horowitz, 3 Wellesley; 4 Beginnings of College Life; 5 Smith; 6 The Cottage System; 11 Student Life 

 

Feb. 16

Mount Holyoke Abroad: Early Missions

 

Porterfield, Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries, chaps. 1, 5, and conclusion. (CP 3)

Helen B. Calder; Alice Seymour Browne; Charlotte B. Deforest; Elizabeth Gordon; and Grace H. Knapp, “Mount Holyoke’s Missionary Influence, Life and Light for Woman 42 (October 1912): 413-421 (CP 3)

Optional: Robert, American Women in Mission, chap. 3 The Missionary Teacher: 2. Mary Lyon and the Systemization of Missionary Preparation; 3 The Collapse of the Lyon-Anderson Consensus;  The Shape of American Women’s Mission Thought, A Concluding Thought. (CP 3)

Barbara J. Merguerian. "Mt. Holyoke Seminary in Bitlis: providing an American education for Armenian women." Armenian Review, vol. 43, no. 1/169 (Spring 1990), pp. 31-65. (On  order ILL)

Barbara Reeves-Ellington "A Vision of Mount Holyoke in the Ottoman Balkans: American Cultural Transfer, Bulgarian Nation-Building and Women's Educational Reform, 1858-1870." Gender & History, 16, no. 1 (2004): 146-171. (CP 3)

  

 

Feb. 21

An Indian Woman’s View of Christianity, English culture, and Missionaries

Satthianadhan, Saguna, pp. xi-xv, 27-41, 77-86, 98-108, 138-150

 

Feb. 23

Mount Holyoke and Later Missions: Ruth Parker White (class of 1917) and the Madura Mission in India

South India. The American Madura Mission (1924)

Correspondence of Ruth Parker White (1895-1989) selections

  

 

Feb. 28

Mount Holyoke: Reading the Landscape and the Built Environment

Kyvig and Marty, Nearby History, chap. 9 Landscapes and Buildings (CP 1)

Meinig, “The Beholding Eye” (CP 1)

Optional: Kyvig and Marty, Nearby History, chap. 3, Traces and Storytelling; (CP 1);

 Peirce Lewis, “Axioms for Reading the Landscape. Some Guides to the American Scene (CP 1)

 

March 2

Ecology, Environment, and Art
Guest: Michael Singer, environmental artists and designer

Explore Singer’s web site and http://www.michaelsinger.com/

Anne Whiston Spirn, “Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted” (CP 1) 

 

March 7

Introduction to the College Archives

Jennifer King and Patricia Albright

Optional: Edmonds, Edmonds, “The Wooley Presidency,” pp. 85-120

March 9

Reading the Landscape

Guest: Mary Scipio, landscape architect

Reading to be assigned

March 14

Changes in the Land: Mount Holyoke and the New England Environment

Foster, Thoreau’s Country, “Landscape Change (209-220)”; “Insights into the Ecology and Conservation of the Land (220-229)

Research in Archives for a document on the MHC landscape. Post on the Web Site. 

 

March 16

Written Assignment due: no class

  

 

Break

March 18-26  

 

March 28

Detecting Environmental History

Yi-Fu Tuan, “Thought and Landscape. The Eye and the Mind’s Eye,” (CP 1)

 

March 30

Stewardship for MHC

Schwartz, “Harmonizing Change and Preservation Some Reflections on the Landscape of Lower Lake Road”

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/campus/reflections_on_lower_lake_open_letter.htm

Research in Archives for a document on the MHC landscape. Post on the Web Site.

April 4

Missions in Turkey

Barbara J. Merguerian, "Mt. Holyoke Seminary in Bitlis: providing an American education for Armenian women." Armenian Review, vol. 43, no. 1/169 (Spring 1990), pp. 31-65.  (On order)

Charolotte E. (1839-1915) and Mary A. C. (1841-1913) Ely Papers (Class of 1861). MHC Archives. Letters from Bitlis, Mount Holyoke Seminary for Armenian Girls, dated 1882, undated, 1889; Letter of Mrs. Harrison A. Maynard describing the genocide, “The Days of Terror in Bitlis.”

Optional: Vickery, Bess P. Mount Holyoke Courageous, Foreward, Introduction, Chapter 3 The George Cushing Knapp Family; Chapter 4 The Ely Sisters; Chapter 5 The Mission at Van—the Raynolds Family 

 

April 6

Taking  Stock: Research Projects

  

 

April 11

Archival Research, Oral Interviews, and Progress Reports

  

 

April 13

Archival Research, Oral Interviews, and Progress Reports

  

 

April 18

Archival Research, Oral Interviews, and Progress Reports

 

April 20

Archival Research, Oral Interviews, and Progress Reports

  

 

April 25

Archival Research, Oral Interviews, and Progress Reports

  

 

April 27

Archival Research, Oral Interviews, and Progress Reports

  

 

May 2

Final Presentations of Atlas Components 

 

May 4

Final Presentations of Atlas Components

May 9

Final Presentations of Atlas Components