Race is a constructed category. It has been constructed: legally & politically, socially & culturally, and
economically, among others.
Of these three areas above, choose ONE area and analyze how the construction of “whiteness” in the United
States (1750-1900) affected any TWO of the following groups of people: Native Americans, African Americans,
Mexican Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, Chinese Americans, and/or Southern and Eastern
European-Americans.
Essay must use in total at least 3 relevant PRIMARY sources from the assigned Canvas readings. You must
use at least one source per group your essay is analyzing.
Sources from the assigned readings:
Juan Nepomuceno Seguin, excerpts from Personal Memoirs of John N. Seguin (1858)
John L. O’Sullivan, excerpt from “The Great Nation of Futurity,” The United States Democratic Review (1839)
“The Chinese in San Francisco,” Harper’s Weekly (1880)
Memorial by Chinese laborers of the Rock Springs Riot (1885)
Excerpts from New York Times coverage of the New York City Draft Riots (1863)
Olson and Beal pp. 109 – 112
The Mississippi Black Code (1865)
The Jewish Daily Forward Reports on the Triangle Tragedy (1911)
Jacob Riis, excerpts from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1901)
Solomon Northrup, an excerpt from Twelve Years a Slave (1841);
The appeal of the Cherokee Nation (1830);
Frederick Douglass on the Desire for Freedom (1845);
Excerpts from Cork Examiner (1846-1847);
Anna Maria Schiano letters to the family (1850-1883);
Samuel F.B. Morse, an excerpt from Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States through
Foreign Immigration and the Present States of the Naturalization Laws (1835)
Sample Solution