59.102 First Year Seminar in Honors:  Text and the City

Fall Semester, 1
credit

Instructor

Class Section

Office

Class Days

Office Hours

Class Times

Phone

Class Location

E-mail

Campus

The First Year Seminar in Honors (FYSH) uses Lowell as its text.  Rich in history and culture, and home to
your chosen home for the next four years, the City of Lowell offers a perfect
venue for students to connect to their surroundings while learning how to view
the city through the lens of the Humanities.  Along the way, students will develop
library research skills and an appreciation for the narratives that lie in
buildings, objects, and what people leave behind. As important, we hope our
students form strong connections to each other, to the faculty, and to the
community. The fall seminar meets once/week and is a one-credit course; it is
paired with a follow-up spring course worth two credits.  The Honors Program is pursuing general
education credit in the Humanities for successful completion of this course
sequence.

Goals.  At the conclusion of this course, students
will:

Describe
the geophysical resources that contributed to the rise of 19th
century industrial and technological innovation in Lowell

Describe
the influence of that innovation on the lives of stakeholder
groups—mill workers, owners, merchants, farmers—in the Lowell area from the
19th through the 21st century.

Identify
the distinctions between primary and secondary sources in research and
scholarship in the humanities, and describe the strengths and limitations
of each.

Identify
resources on campus and in the community for research into Lowell history and
culture.

Requirements.  Students are expected to attend
class regularly and actively.
Seminars are distinguished by joint student-faculty participation and
contributions to the learning experience.
You should come to class fully prepared to discuss any readings or
assignments for that day, and should participate in class field trips, asking
questions and making observations as appropriate.

There are three projects for this semester:

1.
Midterm Project:
This project is designed allow you to integrate what you have learned
about the history of Lowell
creatively. You will produce a collection of journal entries reflecting the
experience of different stakeholders in the Lowell Industrial Revolution.

2.
Final Project:
This project is designed to focus on primary and secondary sources. You
will assemble an annotated bibliography on a topic relevant to Lowell history or culture containing both
types of sources, and present what you have learned in class.

3.
Engagement Assignment:  This assignment is designed to foster
engagement in the City of Lowell
while providing choice in the exact nature of that involvement.  You will receive a list of venues and
events that qualify for this assignment and must attend three of them across
the semester, and then submit a one page reflection paper on the
experience.

Texts.  Although the
Honors Program will supply students with two required texts for this course,
the primary text is the City of Lowell.  Others are:

Dublin, T. (1982). Farm to
Factory:  Women’s Letters
1830-1860.  New
York:  Columbia University Press.

Mrozowski, S.A.,
Ziesing, G.H., & Beaudry, M.C. (1996).  Living on the Boott: Historical Archaeology at
the Boott Mills Boardinghouses, Lowell,
Massachusetts.  Amherst, MA:  University of Massachusetts
Press.

Foundations

Week

Date

Topic

Activity

1

Introduction

2

How it started

Field Trip: Waterwheel

3

Factories & Industry: 19th Century

Field Trip:
Riverway

4

Factories

5

Factories & War: 20th Century

6

Factories & Change: Little Canada & Urban Renewal

7

Rediscovering the River and
Reinventing Lowell

8

Institute to University: UML

Allen House tour

Discovering History

9

Library research

UML Library presentation

10

Primary sources

11

Secondary sources

12

People as sources:
Interviewing, Oral Histories, and Narratives

Mogan
Center, Oral History
Projects

13

Things as sources:
Urban Archeology

14

Presentations I

15

Presentations I

16

12/9 evening

Common Final Class
Party

Featuring the ethnic
cuisine of Lowell

Revolving Museum

Annotated
bibliographies; primary and secondary sources