Artifact Assignment
Professor Catherine Lavender
Your final assignment for the course will be to analyze an artifact of the period 1940-1975 in a five- to seven-page essay. An artifact is any item produced in the United States during the period--including buildings, novels, paintings, coffeepots, advertisements, comic books, quilts, treaties, songs, cartoons, treatises, plays, operas, maps, inventions, among many other things. Once you have chosen an artifact, you will pursue two routes of research. First, you will do research in secondary sources (histories and the like) in order to tell the story of the artifact and to determine its significance. Second, you will find other primary sources--published or unpublished--to shed light on the history of the artifact that you have chosen.
For further assistance in preparing your paper, see the guidelines for writing a research paper and the guide to footnoting.
Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender courses in The Department of History, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York. Send email to lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu
Last modified: Tuesday 6 June 2000.