Afaet

questions about what you want to understand better about the past.

1) Identify the broad historical topic that you want to write about. Don't be afraid to think big at first!

You topic can be taken from any number of the themes, events, or concepts that we read about or discuss in-class. For example, you might explore an issue that is addressed in lecture in greater depth, such as racial segregation in the military during WWII, conservative responses to the New Deal, or the use and support of art and culture by the state during the 1930s.

You might explore a specific "angle" on a particular historical event that we discuss, for example, the response of the U.S. communist party to the "Nazi-Soviet Pact," the responses of particular trade unions to the Taft-Hartley legislation restricting the tactics of labor organization, the local responses in Seattle to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, to Japanese internment, or the impact of the McCarthyism at the University of Washington.

Finally, you might explore subjects that are only touched upon briefly, in greater depth, for example, the changing role of women during WWII, the persecution of homosexuals during the cold war, the intellectual origins of neo-conservatism in the 1950s, the F.B.I. investigations of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, or the role of music in 1960s protest culture.

These are just a few examples, meant to give you ideas. The point is to develop your own!

2) Using the library, find one or more than one primary source that you will use to develop your argument.

As you will notice, class lectures use many primary sources. Primary sources are visual media, such as paintings, cartoons, films and advertisements. They can also be written documents, such as newspapers and magazines, as well as letters, memoirs, diaries, or government records.

For example, the lectures and the web-links use clips from early war movies and propaganda films, protest cartoons from the black press, magazine covers advertising Roosevelt's