Creating America: Reading and Writing Arguments

by Moser, Joyce; Watters, Ann

• ISBN13: 9780130814210
• ISBN10: 0130814210
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

CREATING AMERICA, FOURTH EDITION, presents readings and JOYCE MOSER & images that depict the political and social changes in America from the Revolutionary War to the twenty-first century. Its argumentative focus will teach you how to persuade others through written words and visual ideas.

Table of Contents

Preface	xvii
PART I Contexts for Reading and Writing Arguments	1	(90)
Chapter 1: Reading and Analyzing Arguments	1	(46)
Reading American Cultures	1	(1)
Persuasion	2	(25)
Elements of Persuasion	27	(11)
Persuasion in Diverse Genres	38	(8)
Critical Reading and Persuasive Writing	46	(1)
Chapter 2: Writing and Research	47	(44)
Developing Essays	47	(22)
Integrating Research into Writing	69	(22)
PART II Argument in the American Tradition	91	(459)
Chapter 3: Identities	91	(56)
American Identities Through History	92	(2)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Join, or Die (1754) Franklin's eighteenth-century woodcut, reportedly the first American cartoon	94	(2)
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
"Origin of the Anglo-Americans," (1839) "If we were able to go back to the elements of states, and to examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt not that we should discover in them the primal cause of the prejudices, the habits, the ruling passions, and, in short, of all that constitutes what is called the national character."	96	(6)
JOSEPH KEPPLER
The U.S. Hotel Badly Needs a Bouncer (ca. 1890) A detailed cartoon from the popular weekly magazine, Puck.	102	(2)
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY
Victory Liberty Loan (1919) An early twentieth-century poster to garner support for war bonds.	104	(2)
LUTHER STANDING BEAR
"What the Indian Means to America" (1933) "Tyranny, stupidity, and lack of vision have brought about the situation now alluded to as the 'Indian Problem.' There is, I insist, no Indian problem as created by the Indian himself. Every problem that exists today in regard to the native population is due to the white man's cast of mind."	106	(6)
RALPH ELLISON
Prologue to Invisible Man (1947) "I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind."	112	(4)
JOHN F. KENNEDY
"Inaugural Address" (1961) "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it."	116	(4)
ARTURO ISLAS
"Thanksgiving Border Crossing" (1990) In this excerpt from the novel Migrant Souls, a Mexican American family celebrates a traditional American holiday in its own way.	120	(8)
ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR.
"The Cult of Ethnicity" (1991) An educator and historian reflects on America's multiethnic heritage and asserts the importance of maintaining a cohesive American identity.	128	(4)
DANIEL O. TAUBE
"Aunt Jeannette's Arm: On a Lesson of Being Jewish" (1993) A psychologist and educator reflects on the lessons of the past and the responsibilities of privilege	132	(4)
JEANNE WAKATSUKI HOUSTON
"A Tapestry of Hope: America's Strength Was, Is, and Will Be Its Diversity" (1994) Drawing from her own experiences, a graduation speaker exhorts students to find strength in their diversity.	136	(5)
MARTHA SERRANO
"Chicana" (1994) "Don't call me Hispanic. Don't call me Latina. Don't call me Mexican. Don't call me Mexican American. I want to be called Chicana. I am mestiza--indigenous and Spanish. My heritage is struggle and strength."	141	(3)
FILM The Joy Luck Club (1994) The stories of four Chinese American mothers and daughters are interwoven in a compelling film that traces their families, their challenges, their evolving identities.	144	(1)
Writing Assignments	145	(2)
Chapter 4: American Dreams	147	(72)
American Dreams Through History	148	(4)
WILLIAM BRADFORD
from History of Plymouth Plantation (1645) One of the first great writers of the colonial period documents English settlement in the New World.	152	(8)
SARTAIN'S UNION MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE & ART
Liberty Introducing the Arts to America (1849) An allegorical, feminine, and imaginative visual representation of America.	160	(1)
ANDREW CARNEGIE
"Wealth" (1889) Carnegie asserts a number of assumptions; among them, charity is best bestowed on "those who will help themselves...those who desire to improve."	161	(9)
California, the Cornucopia of the World (1889) A poster by an unknown artist beckons people to the Golden State.	170	(2)
SUI SIN FAR
"In the Land of the Free" (ca. 1900) A young Chinese immigrant mother deals with differences in cultures and values in this ironically titled short story.	172	(9)
LANGSTON HUGHES
"Let America Be America Again" (1938) "O let America be America again--The land that has never been yet--And yet must be--the land where everyman is free"	181	(3)
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE
There's No Way like the American Way (1937) Bourke-White's ironic Depression-era photograph.	184	(3)
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
"Early Success" (1937) An American writer of fiction turns to the essay form to analyze success achieved at an early age.	187	(5)
PLEDGE FURNITURE SWEEPSTAKES ADVERTISEMENT Win a Houseful of Beautiful Furniture! (1967) Selling consumers on material symbols of success in a Pledge Sweepstakes advertisement.	192	(2)
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"I Have a Dream" (1963) "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."	194	(5)
WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI
"Tomorrowland" (1997) A writer visits Celebration, a community developed by the Walt Disney Company.	199	(7)
JACOB WEISBERG
"United Shareholders of America" (1998) An essay on the role of the shareholder-citizen in American democracy--self-sufficient and individualistic, but perhaps to the detriment of civic virtue and community.	206	(7)
CHRIS COUNTRYMAN
"Structured Appeal: Let America Be America Again" (1997) A college student analyzes a poem by Langston Hughes.	213	(2)
FILM Avalon (1990) The story of a Jewish American immigrant family in the 1940s and 1950s.	215	(2)
Writing Assignments	217	(2)
Chapter 5: Images of Gender and Family	219	(76)
Gender and Family in American History	220	(4)
Keep Within Compass (ca. 1790) A seventeenth-century etching urging "proper" behavior for women.	224	(3)
Enlist: On Which Side of the Window Are YOU? (1917) An American World War I recruitment poster	227	(2)
Fame Instead of Shame (1944) The famed Charles Atlas advertisement for bodybuilding.	229	(2)
FORD MOTOR CO. They'll Know You've Arrived (1958) An advertisement for the infamous Ford Edsel automobile.	231	(2)
JUDGE WILNER
Rusk v. State: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 406 A.2d 624 (1979) Arguments in the noted "date rape" case.	233	(7)
KEENAN PECK
"When 'Family' Is Not a Household Word" (1988) "Although blood relation, marriage, and adoption have served as useful shorthands for 'family,' the legal establishment must now find categories that can accommodate new living arrangements without losing all definition."	240	(5)
ALFRED LUBRANO
"Bricklayer's Boy" (1989) "Related by blood, we're separated by class, my father and I. Being the white-collar son of a blue-collar man means being the hinge on the door between two ways of life."	245	(6)
THOMAS STODDARD
"Marriage Is a Fundamental Right" (1989) "In an increasingly loveless world, those who wish to commit themselves to a relationship founded upon devotion should be encouraged, not scorned. Government has no legitimate interest in how that love is expressed."	251	(2)
BRUCE FEIN
"Reserve Marriage for Heterosexuals" (1990) "The law should encourage male-female marriage vows over homosexual attachments in the interests of physically, mentally, and psychologically healthy children, the nation's most valuable asset."	253	(3)
SUSAN FALUDI
"Blame It on Feminism" (1991) "The truth is that the last decade has seen a powerful counter assault on women's rights, a backlash, an attempt to retract the handful of small and hard-won victories that the feminist movement did manage to win for women."	256	(14)
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
"A Family Legacy" (1992) "The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-it-ness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity."	270	(6)
MARY PIPHER
"Saplings in the Storm" (1994) A psychologist examines reasons why young women's voices become silenced.	276	(11)
JOHN WU
"Making and Unmaking the `Model Minority'" (1994) "The model minority myth precludes the possibility that some Asian Americans may not be upwardly mobile and successful. Yet our parents expect us to become upwardly mobile and successful. Our parent's expectations personalize the society's model minority expectations for us."	287	(4)
FILM Mi familia (My Family) (1995) A story of three generations of a Mexican American family in Southern California.	291	(2)
Writing Assignments	293	(2)
Chapter 6: Work and Play	295	(64)
Work and Play Through History	297	(2)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
from Autobiography (1771) "As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a Task of more Difficulty than I had imagined. While my Care was employ'd in guarding against one Fault, I was often surpriz'd by another."	299	(6)
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
from Women and Economics (1898) "Each woman born, re-humanized by the current of race activity carried on by her father and re-womanized by her traditional position, has had to live over again in her own person the same process of restriction, repression, denial; the smothering `no' which crushed down all her human desires to create, to discover, to learn, to express, to advance." repression, denial; the smothering `no' which crushed down all her human desires to create, to discover, to learn, to express, to advance."	305	(3)
JACOB RIIS
Two Women Sewing (ca. 1907) A photographer documents sweatshop labor in New York City's Lower East Side.	308	(2)
DAVID NASAW
from Going Out (1994) A writer explores the roots of American mass entertainment in this social history.	310	(6)
HAWAIIAN TOURIST BOARD
Duke Kahanamoku (1914) A postcard to capture interest in the exotic and appealing Hawaiian islands.	316	(2)
Physical Culture (1927) This magazine cover of a physically fit "cover girl" embodies the publisher's philosophy: A healthy body is a prerequisite for moral excellence.	318	(2)
WOODY GUTHRIE
"Union Maid" (1940) A pro-union (and still popular) song dedicated to women workers.	320	(2)
STUDS TERKEL
from Working (1972) An oral history of Mr. Bates, a stonemason.	322	(6)
GLORIA STEINEM
"The Importance of Work" (1983) "Anyone who has ever experienced dehumanized life on welfare or any other confidence-shaking dependency knows that a paid job may be preferable to the dole, even when the handout is coming from a family member. Yet the will and self-confidence to work on one's own can diminish as dependency and fear increase."	328	(6)
LEONARD KOPPETT
from Sports Illusion, Sports Reality (1994) In his essay "The Poison of Amateurism," a writer suggests that amateurism in sports is really an "institutionalization of hypocrisy."	334	(5)
SUSAN K. CAHN
from Coming on Strong (1994) An educator poses questions about professionalizing women's sports in her essay "You've Come a Long Way, Maybe."	339	(6)
MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT Motrin Spoken Here (1998) A product used to treat pain is pitched through the image of a worker.	345	(2)
JORGE FLORES
"From Necessary to Unwanted: An Analysis on the Anti-Mexican American Movement During the Great Depression" (1997) A college student researches labor and immigration issues of the Depression.	347	(8)
FILM Jerry Maguire (1997) A sports agent struggles with disillusionment and moral recovery.	355	(1)
Writing Assignments	356	(3)
Chapter 7: Justice and Civil Liberties	359	(72)
Justice and Civil Liberties Through History	360	(4)
ANDREW HAMILTON
"In Defense of Freedom of the Press" (1735) A core principle of American democracy is articulated in this famous case.	364	(4)
THOMAS JEFFERSON
The Declaration of Independence (1776) "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."	368	(6)
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
from Civil Disobedience (1850) "It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right."	374	(8)
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
"Independence Day Speech at Rochester" (1852) "The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This fourth of July is yours, not mine."	382	(5)
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
"Women's Right to Vote" (1873) "The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? I scarcely believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens, and no State has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, which shall abridge their privileges."	387	(7)
U.S. SUPREME COURT Plessy v. Ferguson (1894) "If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane."	394	(5)
EUDORA WELTY
Dolls (1935) This photograph graphically represents the pain and problem of prejudice in the image of two African American youngsters--clutching white dolls.	399	(2)
NORMAN ROCKWELL
Freedom of Speech (1943) One of a series entitled "The Four Freedoms," this painting was also one of Rockwell's many covers for The Saturday Evening Post.	401	(2)
U.S. SUPREME COURT Brown v. Board of Education (1954) "Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other `tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does."	403	(3)
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963) "For years now I have heard the word `Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This `Wait' has almost always meant `Never.' We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied."	406	(17)
JOSHUA QUITTNER
"Unshackling Net Speech" (1997) An article on the tension between free speech and protection of children using the Internet.	423	(4)
FILM The Long Walk Home (1995) Two families, one African American, one European American, experience the Montgomery bus boycott.	427	(1)
Writing Assignments	428	(3)
Chapter 8: War and the Enemy	431	(46)
War and the Enemy Through History	432	(2)
Creating War and the Enemy Through Persuasive Language	434	(1)
THOMAS PAINE
"These Are the Times That Try Men's Souls" (1776) "I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little."	435	(3)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"The Gettysburg Address" (1863) "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced."	438	(1)
MARK TWAIN
"The War Prayer" (1904-1905) "It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering."	439	(4)
"We Smash 'Em HARD" (1918) Wartime advertisement for White Owl Cigars.	443	(2)
"Deliver Us from Evil" (ca. 1940) World War II-era anti-Nazi poster.	445	(1)
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
"Pearl Harbor Address" (1941) "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."	446	(3)
EDWARD T. ADAMS
Saigon Execution (1969) This famed photograph of a summary execution won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for news photography.	449	(2)
HUYNH CONG "NICK" UT
The Terror of War (1973) This Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph captures the suffering of the children of war.	451	(2)
JACQUELINE NAVARRA RHOADS
"Nurses in Vietnam" (1987) "I didn't really have much time to worry about right and wrong back then, because during these mass-cals we'd be up for 36 hours at a stretch. Nobody wanted to quit until the last surgery case was stabilized. By that time, we were emotionally and physically numb. You couldn't see clearly; you couldn't react."	453	(11)
JEFF ZORN
"Demonizing in the Gulf War: Reading the Archetypes" (1991) An educator examines the process of creating images of political enemies.	464	(4)
JEREMY KASSIS
"Rhetorical Divisiveness in Nation-Building and War: An Analysis of FDR's `Pearl Harbor Address'" (1994) "The national tide had turned against Japan upon the news of the bombing, but FDR's speech wove a subtle public tapestry of logic and emotions with threads of American justice and history to whip up public fervor against the Empire of Japan, to name it `enemy.'"	468	(3)
PETER C. DOUGLAS
"Intelligent Propaganda: Deliver Us from Evil" (1998) A student writer analyzes a highly effective propaganda poster.	471	(4)
FILM Casablanca (1942) A classic American film about the struggles of war that occur behind the scenes of battle.	475	(1)
Writing Assignments	476	(1)
Chapter 9: Frontiers	477	(73)
Frontiers Through History	478	(3)
SARAH KEMBLE KNIGHT
from The Journal of Madam Knight (1704) An enterprising woman records her experience of frontier travel.	481	(8)
from The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) A document marking the end of the Mexican-American War but ultimately failing to guarantee civil rights to Mexicans living in the disputed areas.	489	(4)
MARK TWAIN
from Roughing It (1872) "We were spinning along through Kansas, and in the course of an hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the great Plains. Just here the land was rolling--a grand sweep of regular elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach--like the stately heave and swell of the ocean's bosom after a storm."	493	(7)
ALBERT BIERSTADT
Giant Redwood Trees of California (1874) A popular nineteenth-century painting by an artist renowned for his depictions of nature in the American West.	500	(2)
POLICE GAZETTE
Indian Treachery and Bloodshed (1891) "The action teaches the lesson that if the Sioux are of any use at all they should be fairly dealt with, and if not, that they should at once be given free passes to the happy hunting grounds. As they speak highly of the happy hunting grounds, it might be as well to start them on the journey in any case."	502	(3)
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893) "American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character."	505	(9)
RICHARD HOFSTADTER
"The Thesis Disputed" (1949) "It became plain, as new thought and research was brought to bear upon the problem, that the frontier theory, as an analytic device, was a blunt instrument. The terms with which the Turnerians dealt--the frontier, the West, individualism, the American character--were vague at the outset."	514	(5)
WALLACE STEGNER
"Coda: Wilderness Letter" (1960) "We need wilderness preserved--as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds--because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it."	519	(6)
JOAN DIDION
"Notes from a Native Daughter" (1965) A writer and California native is fascinated by the idea of the West.	525	(10)
LOUISE ERDRICH
"Dear John Wayne" (1984) "August and the drive-in picture is packed. We lounge on the hood of the Pontiac surrounded by the slow-burning spirals they sell at the window, to vanquish the hordes of mosquitoes. Nothing works."	535	(2)
JONATHAN RABAN
"The Next Last Frontier" (1993) A contemporary English writer explores the Western states two hundred years after Madam Knight.	537	(7)
FILM Unforgiven (1993) A film with traditional elements of Westerns--hero, ladies in distress, gunfighting--that both revises and validates the mythic West.	544	(1)
Writing Assignments	545	(5)
Index of Authors and Titles	550	(4)
Index of Rhetorical Terms	554