This interdisciplinary casebook provides primary historical documents and commentary on The Crucible within the context of two relevant historical periods: the Salem witch-trials of 1692 and the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, when the play was written. The play is a testimony to the inherent dangers Miller sees in any community seized by hysteria. The Salem witch-hunts, which Miller uses to illustrate such a community, were echoed more than 250 years later in the hunt for subversives during the "Red Scare" of the 1950s. The authors provide literary and dramatic analysis of the play, comprehensive historical backgrounds, relevant documents of the periods, and questions and projects to help students in their understanding of the issues raised. In a discussion of Puritan society of the seventeenth century, documents illustrate their beliefs and the disasters that contributed to community hysteria. A chapter on the Salem witch trials includes testimony, letters, and first person accounts by actual people on which Miller based his characters. A chapter on the "Red Scare" of the 1950s features testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, case studies of blacklisted people, and an exclusive interview with a couple who were blacklisted. The authors include a chapter on witch-hunting in the 1990s in the form of testimony from preschoolers which sent child care workers to prison on charges of sexual abuse. Authors: Claudia Durst Johnson and Vernon E. Johnson. Hardback. (256 pages)
Contents: Literary Analysis — Primed for Hysteria — Witchcraft in Salem — Witch-Hunts in the 1950s — 1990s Witch-Hunts
Level: Library/Depot/Interdisciplinary projects

This text combines both analysis of the novel and excerpts from many primary documents of Austen's own time to help the reader to understand the complexities of both the novel and English society at the beginning of the 19th century, and to compare those issues to contemporary society. There are excerpts from 18th-and 19th-century etiquette books, moral treatises, histories of women, legal documents, newspapers, magazines and collections of letters. The plot of Pride and Prejudice turns on three aspects of early 19th-century English society: marriage as a social institution, inheritance laws and customs, and acceptable roles for women. Following a literary analysis of the novel, the casebook contains documents and commentary on the following topics: inheritance and marriage laws and customs, 18th-century views on marriage, the status of unmarried women, women's education and moral training, and issues in the 1980s and 1990s that can be contrasted with those in the novel. Among the documents are excerpts from Samuel Johnson, Daniel Defoe, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, advice from a mother to her absent daughters, and a number of letters on the "proper" role of women, their education and moral training. The final chapter of this book brings into focus the relevancies of Austen's function to present day readers and provides discussion of many of the issues of the novel as they are handled by law and the media at the end of the 20th century.  Each section of this casebook contains study questions, topics for research papers and class discussion. Author: Professor Debra Teachman. Hardback. (184 pages)
Level: Library/Depot/Interdisciplinary projects

A Raisin in the Sun was first performed in 1959, before the civil rights and women's movements came to the fore, it raises issues of segregation, family strife, and relationships between men and women that are both representative of the time and timeless. This interdisciplinary collection of commentary and primary documents will give the reader an understanding of the historical and social context of the play. Primary materials shed light on integration and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s; relationships between African Americans and Africans; relationships between men and women within African American culture; Chicago as a literary setting for the play; and contemporary race relations in the 1990s. Documents include first-person accounts, magazine articles and editorials with opposing arguments, excerpts from the works of Toni Morrison, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, bell hooks, Malcolm X, and Richard Wright, and a selection of government documents and statistics. The book begins with a literary analysis of the play, its themes and dramatic structure. There are two chapters on the historical context with commentary and documents on the history of segregation and integration in the United States. A chapter situates the play within the context of the literature of Chicago (Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Richard Wright's Native Son etc.). The relationship between African American men and women is explored in a variety of articles on the African American family, black fatherhood, black masculinity, and the problems of African American women. A chapter on contemporary race relations examines the current situation. Author: Lynn Domina. Hardback. (176 pages)
Contents: Literary Analysis: A Raisin in the Sun, Themes and Structure —  Historical Context: Integration and Segregation — Historical Context: Africa, Africans, and African Americans — A Raisin in the Sun and the Chicago Literary Tradition — Interpretations of Gender in African American Relationships — Contemporary Race Relations
Level: Library/Depot/Interdisciplinary projects