WUSTL Course Listings Login with WUSTL Key
Search Results: Help Display: Open + Closed     Just Open     Just Closed View: Regular     Condensed     Expanded
1 course found.
HISTORY (L22)  (Dept. Info)Arts & Sciences  (Policies)SP2020
L22 History 215CTopics in American History: The Promised Land: Black Migration to St. Louis & AFAM Hist3.0 Units
Description:St. Louis, considered by one writer in the 1940s as "a Northern city with Southern exposure," was one of the destinations for a combined six million African Americans between 1910-1930 and again between 1940-1960 who were fleeing the rural south to start new lives in the industrial, urban centers of the North, Midwest and West. St. Louis served as an important, if understudied, destination in this movement. Over the course of the first half of the 20th century, the city's black population more than quintupled, from 35,516 in 1900 to 235,000 in 1956. Using St. Louis as a case study, this course asks what it meant for African Americans to pursue an urban future. Here, black businessmen and politicians worked to create their own version of a "city within a city," a "Black Metropolis," with institutions built with black capital to serve black customers and enhance black political clout. Here, migrant struggles for economic justice and equal access to jobs in the interwar years laid the groundwork for later, national struggles like the March on Washington Movement of the 40s, the Black Power movement of the 60s and the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Here, the Great Migration set the stage for St. Louis to play a central role in the story of urban segregation in America, from the early fights over race and real estate that made St. Louis a pioneer in mechanisms of segregation like racial zoning and restrictive covenants to the wholesale displacement and dispossession of mid-20th century urban renewal. Through deep dives into local archival resources alongside selected secondary source readings, we will examine how migrants to St. Louis created-and in some cases recreated-communities and laid the foundations for new forms of cultural and religious expression, often in the face of violence, hardship and discrimination. We will also examine migrants' influence on the political and social movements of the long civil rights era. This course offers the opportunity to conduct independent research in local archives in a structured setting with close guidance from the instructor. Each student will complete a semester-long research project on a subject related to the impact of the Great Migration on the politics, culture, or urban landscape of St. Louis. Students will be introduced to a wide array of primary sources through course readings, ranging from government documents to first-hand accounts of migrants to maps, images and literature. Each week we will focus on one topic, aspect or approach with a goal of helping students find a research topic. This is a fieldwork course. Trips to local archives will be interspersed throughout the course, including the Missouri Historical Society library and archives, the St. Louis Room at the St. Louis Public Library, the State Historical Society of Missouri's UMSL location and Washington University's Archives and Special Collections.
Attributes:A&S IQ: HUM, SDArch: HUMArt: HUMBU: HUM
Instruction Type:Classroom instruction Grade Options:CP Fees:
Course Type:HomeSame As:L98 215CFrequency:Every 1 or 2 Years / History
SecDays       TimeBuilding / RoomInstructorFinal ExamSeatsEnrollWaits
01M-W----2:30P-3:50PUmrath / 140 DeslogePaper/Project/Take Home2060
Actions:Books
Label

Home/Ident

A course may be either a “Home” course or an “Ident” course.

A “Home” course is a course that is created, maintained and “owned” by one academic department (aka the “Home” department). The “Home” department is primarily responsible for the decision making and logistical support for the course and instructor.

An “Ident” course is the exact same course as the “Home” (i.e. same instructor, same class time, etc), but is simply being offered to students through another department for purposes of registering under a different department and course number.

Students should, whenever possible, register for their courses under the department number toward which they intend to count the course. For example, an AFAS major should register for the course "Africa: Peoples and Cultures" under its Ident number, L90 306B, whereas an Anthropology major should register for the same course under its Home number, L48 306B.

Grade Options
C=Credit (letter grade)
P=Pass/Fail
A=Audit
U=Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
S=Special Audit
Q=ME Q (Medical School)

Please note: not all grade options assigned to a course are available to all students, based on prime school and/or division. Please contact the student support services area in your school or program with questions.