Citizen Nation

I need to make a change to the syllabus’s assigned readings, because we will have guest speakers from the US Customs and Immigration Service (US-CIS) with us next Thursday 10/16 to talk about the immigration and naturalization process. There’s no assigned reading for that day, so please make time this week to focus on your CITIZEN project research.

For Tuesday 10/14 please read BOTH RV Ch6 and Linda Kerber’s excellent article, “The Meanings of Citizenship” (click to download the PDF). Kerber is one of the preeminent scholars on the history of how citizenship has changed and what it has meant in different eras, and the author of No Constitutional Right to be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship, among other books. As we’ve talked for several class sessions about citizenship and participation in democratic/political institutions up to about 1900, her article gives us an opportunity to stand back and reflect on how these different story threads (towards universal white male suffrage + granting of black male suffrage but its severe restriction by 1900 under state laws & customs + the glimmerings of a movement for women’s suffrage + the Native American catch 22) come together by the turn of the 20th century.

As you read, consider:
What did Kerber mean when she said citizenship’s meaning was “destabilized”? (She wrote the essay in 1997)
Why is the reality of the history of citizenship so different from the myth? How did that myth become so entrenched?
Kerber questions the need for citizenship. Is her skepticism justified? How was that need perceived or constructed by the end of the 19th century? What might people have made of her argument 100 years ago?

For your response paper due Tues 10/14 (2-3 pages) – you can base it on any of our recent readings: Kerber, Wolfley, Love, or something drawn from chapters 4-6 of Keyssar. Choose one of these, or write about more than one. Use this paper to demonstrate what you’ve learned in the course so far, QUOTING from the readings (cite any direct quotations) and discussing any quoted passages in depth. In your writing try to avoid just summarizing or restating the readings; go below the surface level. Overall, your response paper should address this question (or some portion of this question): How did geography, gender, race, and/or class inform the meaning of citizenship by 1900?

Hint: you might think of this response paper less as a personal/opinion response, and more of a dry run for the kind of essay question that will appear on the final exam.