Description

It has been said that, “what we learn from studying history, is that we learn nothing from history”. History really does tends to repeat itself, especially in America. Nowhere is this sentiment more evident than when listening to the average American complain about the current issues or struggles the country is dealing with. Without the proper historical context, it seems these issues, (be it inequality, racism, immigration, equal rights, unemployment, terrorism, minimum wage, or patriotism, just to name a few), are unique only to contemporary Americans living in the 21st century. These issues, like so many others, do not exist in a vacuum. Each of them share significant historical backgrounds which can serve as a guide to understanding how they evolved to take their current shapes and what is their most likely trajectory. There is no better guide for predicting what will happen tomorrow than by looking at what happened yesterday. When one starts to recognize these patterns and this cyclical nature of history, it can really help serve as a guide to predict where we’re heading as a country, and that, I believe, makes the subject all the more fascinating. Keep this in mind while researching and writing this paper!

Unless you live off the grid or in a cave that’s cut off from society, and I seriously doubt that considering you’re taking an online course, you are aware that we recently went through a major election! If you look at the issues that are brought forth and highlighted by a presidential election, you will find a synopsis of what issues were significant and relevant to people living during that historical time frame. For this project, I want you to choose a presidential election (Not a President) from the time period (1796-1876). Your task is to research and analyze the election while drawing comparisons to our current elections. Some questions to consider when researching and writing the paper are as follows:

What were the candidate’s backgrounds?
Which current candidate do they have the most in common with? Why?
What were some of the major social and political issues surrounding the election?
What current issues do these issues align with?
What strategies did each candidate adhere to when running their campaign?
What effective use of propaganda did they utilize?
What ultimately affected the outcome the most?
Compare and contrast this election and its candidate’s stances, views, and ideologies to this presidential election’s candidates. This will be the most important section of your paper as it will allow me to gauge your ability to think like a historian. Anyone can research an election and regurgitate information for a paper. I want you to make connections from the past to the present.