Fitchburg State College
Center for Professional Studies
Summer II 2008

Democracy in America
7/21/08 – 7/31/08 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
McKay Campus

Democracy in America will explore America's democratic traditions from the founding of the United States through the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. We will examine ideals of classical republicanism and the articulation of Jeffersonian democracy, consider how political, industrial, and market revolutions prompted redefinition of democracy, and explore the role that the First and Second Party Systems played in this process. Participants will learn about America's unique and dynamic political culture during the nineteenth century, including how debates over race and sectional identity shaped American politics. We will examine how Americans continually redefined the meaning of democracy through the emergence of the Republican Party, the violence of the Civil War, and the early years of Reconstruction. With an emphasis on the relationships among local, state, and federal governments and public participation in American political life, we will provide participants with knowledge of the seminal writings of Jefferson, Clay, Jackson, Calhoun, Sumner, Lincoln, and Douglass, while also introducing them to lesser-known Americans who shaped American democracy, including Charles Langston, and Anna Dickinson. Through current historical scholarship and close readings of historical evidence, participants will develop a deeper understanding of democratic ideals of America's historical reality.