As a separate undertaking or as a supplement to a lecture on immigration, a small team of students may be asked to put together a slide show using old photographs. For leads and background information, send students to Irving Howe, The World of Our Fathers (1976); Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives; and Allon Schoener, editor, Portal to America. The first three volumes of Mark Sullivan, Our Times, 1900-1925 (five volumes; 1926), are filled with fascinating anecdotal material, photos, popular songs, and trivia.

In 1938 Marcus Lee Hansen wrote "The Problem of the Third Generation Immigrant," Augustana Historical Society Publications. He pointed out that rejection of the foreign ways of their parents by the second generation was often followed by a renewed interest in the old ancestral ways by the third generation, the second born in America. To what extent is this true for the third and later generations among members of the class? This matter can be a very touchy or sensitive one, and the instructor will wish to make certain that students feel at ease in exploring and discussing their ethnic roots. Ask several to do some background reading and then to write a very brief paper on how well their familial experience accords with the books. Use the bibliographies in Archdeacon and Daniels mentioned in Lecture Suggestions. Good sources are numerous: Lerone Bennett, Jr., Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America (sixth edition; 1993); Sucheng Chan, Asian Awareness: An Interpretive History (1991); Alice Scoursby, The Greek Americans (1984); Lawrence J. McCaffery, Textures of Irish America (1992); Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience (1992); Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America (1992); Joan Moore and Henry Pachon, Hispanics in the United States (1985); and many others.

Patience is not necessarily a virtue when waiting for the correction of an injustice. Booker T. Washington's outwardly accommodationist stance has been troubling to many observers for nearly a century, but to paraphrase him, when your head is in the lion's mouth, you use your hand to pet him. Ask several students to prepare a defense of Washington's point of view. Ask several others to prepare a defense of the more militant view of W. E. B. Du Bois. Ask the two groups to address the class, with the instructor providing a descriptive framework of societal attitudes. See Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901), and W. E. B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (1903). For a fine essay on each leader, see John Hope Franklin and August Meier, editors, Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century (1982). See also Hugh Hawkins, editor, Booker T. Washington and His Critics (second edition; 1974) and David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (1993).

What is the difference between the New Nationalism and the New Freedom? Ask the entire class to write a one-page definition of each, citing specific examples in which each political philosophy was put into effect by the president espousing it. Conduct a discussion on the usefulness--or lack of it--of paying attention to political slogans. Consult Lewis L. Gould, Reform and Regulation: American Politics from Roosevelt to Wilson (second edition; 1986).