John Trumbull, The Signing of the Declaration of Independence

HIST 212: United States History to 1877

Fall 2016: This course surveys the history of United States from the founding of Jamestown to the end of Reconstruction. Lectures and readings trace key social, cultural, and environmental developments. The goal is to develop the analytical skills for temporal reasoning, which means knowing not only what happened and why, but how broader contexts shaped the course of events. Life was more contingent than a simple case of destiny or inevitability. The challenge is thus to master both the personal and specific as well as the general and conceptual, and to understand the past on its terms. To do this students will engage a range of source material, including lectures, primary documents, and secondary texts. Tutorials and exams will focus on the big themes of the course. Two papers, each five pages, will stress the analysis of a set of documents available online through Canvas.

Topics: Colonialism, environmental contingencies, industrialism, nationalism, political culture, racialism and racism, religion

Course Prerequisites
45 credit hours including 9 hours of lower division history credit and one of HIST 101, 212, or permission of the department

Required Texts 
Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, The American Yawp
Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: With Related Documents, ed. Neil Salisbury (Bedford’s/St. Martins, 1997)
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Dover Thrift, 1997)
Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Dover, 1997)
James M. McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861-1865 (LSU Press, 1994)
Tutorial readings available through Canvas Course Site    

Course Evaluation
Midterm:               30%
Papers:                 20% each
Final:                    30%