Note this syllabus is subject to change. Changes will be reflected on this page and announced in class. The hyperlink below the date of the class links to assignments for that day.
Jan 9
Introduction (powerpoint for Jan 9/11)
T-Shirt Exercise (Complete by 9 am on Jan 10)
In Class Exercises
Jan 11
Introduction II
General Motors Annual Report Exercise;
The Age of Commerce
Jan 16
Before Capitalism, Before America (powerpoint)
In Class Exercise
Introduction is due
Jan 18
Early Colonial America
Mini-Lecture
Quiz on Mini-Lecture
Slides
In Class exercise
Jan 23
Benjamin Franklin
History Lab Due–The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Power Point
In Class Exercise
Jan 25
Dueling Visions of a New Nation: The Constitution Thomas Jefferson/Alexander Hamilton
slides
Alexander Hamilton, “First Report on the Public Credit,”
Further Excerpts on Public Credit
Hamilton, “Report on Manufactures,” ACR, 77-82.
Thomas Jefferson, Excerpt from Notes on the State of Virginia (1784)
Information on Thomas Jefferson’s Nailery
In Class Quiz on Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures. Pay attention to what Hamilton says about agriculture and relations between the North and the South. Do you see any hints of Adam Smith’s ideas in Hamilton’s Report?
Jan 30/Feb 1
Slavery
Ulrich B. Phillips, “The Economic Cost of Slaveholding in the Cotton Belt,” Political Science Quarterly 20, no. 2 (1905): 257, 271–75,
Note: U.B. Phillips was a Southern historian and white supremacist who wrote in the first third of the twentieth century. Much of his work has been discredited, but I am asking you to read this piece to see how he thought of slavery. Do you think Phillips sees slavery as being capitalist?
Charles Ball, “Slavery in the United States,” 161-170,“Henry Clay, “In Defense of the American System,” ACR, 153-160,; Edward Baptist, “Toward A Political Economy of Slave Labor,” in Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development, ed. Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 31-61.
In Class Quiz Jan 30 on Reading (Emphasizing Phillips and Baptist)
Map Showing Spread of Slavery in US
Powerpoint for class
In Class Exercise
The Age of Capital
Feb 6
Transportation and Communication Infrastructure and the Logic of Capital
Powerpoint
Fendol Bevers Map of Wake County (1870)
February 9 (Friday)
Midterm paper is due
Feb 8
Railroads and the Logic of Capital
Richard White, “Railroaded,” ACR, 256-264; William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis;, 310-340.
Brief quiz on Nature’s Metropolis
In class exercise
Powerpoint
Feb 15
Responses to Capitalism I
Andrew Carnegie: The Gospel of Wealth and the Battle for Homestead
Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth,” in ACR,283-88, Jane Addams “Twenty Years at Hull House,” in ACR, 289-295.
Some Views of the Homestead Strike:
They May Fight Yet, Chicago Interocean, July 12, 1892
“Labor and Anarchy,” New York Times, July 25, 1892
Feb 20
Southern Capitalism I
Reading: Allen Tullos, Habits of Industry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 134-171.
In what ways do we see the hand of the North in this reading? In what ways do we see people from the North interacting with people from the South in this reading?
In Class exercise
Madame C.J. Walker–Delayne’s Presentation
Powerpoint
Feb 22
Southern Capitalism II
W.E.B. Dubois The Upbuilding of Black Durham. The Success of the Negroes and their Value to a Tolerant and Helpful Southern City,” The World’s Work, January 1912, 334-8
Powerpoint
New York Times recreation of Tulsa 1921
In Class Exercise
History Lab Due
Feb 27/29
Fordism/Sloanism
For Feb 27. Look at this brochure contained all the cars models made in 1904.
What do you see? What does this tell us about cars? About business and capitalism?
For Feb 29 Charles Kettering, “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied,” Nation’s Business, January 1929
In Class Exercise Cars of 1904
After Class Quiz Feb 29 (opens at 11:25)
Slides
The Age of Control
Mar 5
The Great Depression
Reading: FDR, Second Fireside Chat, “The Many and the Few,” (Flint Sit-Down Strike), ACR, 354-364,
In Class
FDR’s Second Fireside Chat Audio
Slides
Mar 7
Research Session
Slides
In Class Exercise
Mar 11-15 Spring Break No Classes
The Age of Control
Mar 19
World War II
In Class Exercise
Reading: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Emergency Measures,” (May 27, 1941) in ACR, 366-371, Executive Order to Desegregate Production, in ACR 372-374.
Video: “Victory is Our Business” General Motors Film 1942
Advertisement “Smoke Gets in Their Eyes,” Philco Corporation
slides
Mar 21
A Consumer’s Republic
Slides
Soviet “Contest” Awaiting Nixon, New York Times, July 23, 1959
Kitchen Debate-Nixon Khrushchev Debate 1959 (Actual debates starts around 1 minute in)
For class discussion: What do you notice in the article and the “debate” between Khrushchev and Nixon? What role does capitalism and communism play?
In Class Project Cameron Village
Mar 26
New Industrial State Capitalism: IBM
Reading: IBM Annual Report 1954
IBM Annual Report 1969
Annual Report Exercise: Look at the IBM 1954 and 1969 annual reports. (Again look at the pictures, read the text. I don’t expect you to pay much attention to the numbers.) What do you see? How would you describe IBM in these two years from the annual reports? How has it changed?
Ever Onward IBM–IBM under the first Thomas Watson
Slides
In Class Exercise
IBM Annual Report 1955
IBM Annual Report 1962
IBM Annual Report 1965
Mar 28
Immigrant Entrepreneurs
South Asians as Motel Owners in Eastern North Carolina, 1979
April 2
Capitalism in Post-World War II North Carolina
Reading: Bryant Simon, The Hamlet Fire (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2017), 1-75
What connections do you see between the story of Hamlet and the rest of our course so far? What differences?
Capitalism in My County
slides
Smoke Without Fear, pamphlet 1954
A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers, January 1954
Apr 4
Transforming American Capitalism
Reading: Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits,” New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970; Lewis Powell, “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” Confidential Memo to the US Chamber of Commerce, August 23, 1971
Bryant Simon, The Hamlet Fire (Chapel Hill, UNC Press, 2017), Chapter 6 Deregulation, pages 161-190
In Class Exercise on Friedman/Powell
Beginning of Class Quiz on Friedman/Powell
slides
Apr 9/11
Silicon Valley
World’s Largest Companies by Market Capitalization
Market Capitalization Exercise
Tom Wolfe, “The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce,” Esquire,December 1983
Slides
Silicon Valley Genealogy Chart
In Class PC
Triumph of the Nerds (Xerox Parc at 1:41)
Apr 16 Surveillance Capitalism
Apr 18 Globalization
Container Ships
Slides
Containers Podcast: Episode 1: Welcome to Global Capitalism
Containers Podcast: Episode 7: The Lost Docks
Video: Longshoremen at Work (1979)
How did containerization change the nature of work on the docks? How did it change the docks? How has it changed American society? Note the change in the video around 11:30. Who has gained in containerization? Who has lost?
Apr 23 Wrap Up
Hamlet