HIS-1211-VO01 - US History to 1865

To view the Course Description and Essential Objectives please click on the following link: Summer 2024 Course Description/Syllabus

See Course Information and Resources for details about the class and how it works. Note that all relevant information regarding the text (John Mack Faragher, et al, Out of Many, vol. 1) and details on ordering can be found at CCV's bookstore. A link to access the text can be found in Course Resources.

Syllabus, Summer 2024

Week 1: By Monday, May 27, in our text, Out of Many: A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher, et al., read chapter 1, A Continent of Villages, to 1500, and Chapter 2, When Worlds Collide, 1492-1590.  Please also look at the supplementary reading(s) and/or videos as listed in each weekly module. 

Instructor’s discussion questions for this week:

1. Compare and contrast the Native American societies that developed in the different cultural regions of North America.
2. In what ways did the religious beliefs of indigenous peoples of America reflect their environmental adaptations?
3. Compare forest efficiency and the development of farming. How did farming affect native communities?
4. What developments in European history paved the way for Columbus’s voyage and the subsequent collision of two worlds?
5. Describe the views of Bartolomé de Las Casas in his Destruction of the Indies. Did they change Spanish imperial policy?
6. What were the main elements of the Columbian Exchange between the New and Old Worlds? What were the benefits of this exchange for each region? What were its most negative effects?
7. What impacts did the European invasion of America have on its native peoples?

Week 2: By June 3, read chapter 3, Planting Colonies in North America, 1588-1701, and chapter 4, Slavery and Empire, 1441-1770. Please also check out the supplementary materials. 

1. Discuss the course of European and Native American relations during the 1600s in the French, Spanish, and different regions of the British North American empires.
2. What were the social and political values of Puritanism, and how did religious dissent shape the history of the New England colonies?
3. How did the family structure and work habits enhance the social stability of Puritan families?
4. Compare and contrast the economies, social structures, and racial and ethnic compositions of New England, the Chesapeake colonies, the Carolinas, and the Middle colonies in the seventeenth century.
5. Did the European colonists in New England come seeking religious freedom? Consider their attitudes toward other religious groups when formulating your answer.
6. To what extent did the environment determine the culture of the colonies?
7. What led to the violent conflicts between Indians and colonists?
8. Why, and to what extent, did slavery take root and develop in the American colonies? Why was indentured servitude insufficient for the labor needs of many of the colonies?
9. What were the major regions of eighteenth-century North America? How did these regions differ?
10. How did African slaves create a distinct African American culture?
11. Why did the French and British stage a bitter showdown for supremacy in North America?
12. What advantages did the French and British colonies possess in the struggle for empire, and what were the results of the conflict between these empires?

Week 3: By June 10, read chapter 5, The Cultures of Colonial North America, 1700-1780, and chapter 6, From Empire to Independence, 1750-1776. And see the additional readings for this week.

1. Discuss the racial and ethnic makeup and the social class structure of mid-eighteenth-century America. How did the principal colonial regions differ?
2. What was the Great Awakening? Who was attracted to it? Who was repelled by it? What impact did it have on religious, social, educational, and political developments in eighteenth-century America?
3. How did British success in the Seven Years’ War lead to an imperial crisis in British North America?
4. What complaints did the colonists have against the British Empire? Were these complaints valid? Why or why not?
5. What were the principal events leading to the beginning of armed conflict at Lexington and Concord?
6. How were the ideals of American republicanism expressed in the Declaration of Independence?

Week 4: By June 17, read chapter 7, The American Revolution, 1776-1786, and chapter 8, The New Nation, 1786-1800, and also look at the bonus readings and video.

1. What decisions did native peoples face during the Revolution?
2. How did the American Revolution appear to a Loyalist, and to a law abiding taxpaying Londoner?
3. How did Washington’s leadership ultimately bring about American victory against the overwhelming might of the British military? Are there any lessons in this accomplishment for us today?
4. Why did the British finally decide to end the war and let their colonies go?
5. Most Americans of the 1780s wanted the kind of government provided by the Articles of Confederation, with all its weaknesses. True or false? Explain your answer.
6. Was the Federalist movement for a stronger central government a reaction to excesses following the revolution or a counter-revolution by the new elite?
7. Anti-Federalists argued that a strong national government, in a distant capital, would escape the political control of the people. Has the system worked as they feared?
8. “It’s a republic,” said Ben Franklin upon emerging from the Constitutional Convention, “if you can keep it.” What did he mean? Have we kept it?
9. How did differences over foreign policy in the period 1789-1800 encourage the development of political parties and partisanship?
10. What does early American history teach us about multiculturalism?
11. Why was the election of 1800 termed a "revolution" by some observers?

Week 5: By June 24, read chapter 9, An Empire for Liberty, 1790-1824. Please also read “A British Perspective on the War of 1812,” and “That Time We Beat the Americans.”

1. What were the Jefferson administration’s main accomplishments in domestic and foreign policy?
2. Describe the efforts of native people to resist American expansion onto their lands in the period just before and after the War of 1812.
3. Who won the War of 1812? Explain your answer.
4. What did the Federalists achieve while in power, and what factors led to the party’s ultimate demise?
5. Historians have traditionally labeled the period after the War of 1812 the “Era of Good Feelings.” Evaluate the accuracy of this label, considering the emergence of nationalism and sectionalism.
6. Much of the lore of the West describes life as romantic, heroic, and idyllic. Is this an accurate portrayal? Why or why not?
7. What were the provisions of the Missouri Compromise and how did that law impact the sectional dispute over slavery?
   

Week 6: Our midterm exam essays are due by midnight Monday, July 1. In proper essay format and with proper citation, please answer both questions in separate essays, per instructions provided in “Midterm and Final Exams.” Each essay should be about three pages in length. You cannot pass the class without submitting the essay exams. 

1. Focusing on the period from initial contact to the early nineteenth century, how did the European invasion and settlement of the Western Hemisphere affect Native Americans?
2. How revolutionary was the American Revolution? Did it bring enough change to warrant the name "Revolution?" Why or why not?

Week 7: By July 8, read chapter 10, The South and Slavery, 1790s-1850, and chapter 11, The Growth of Democracy, 1824-1840. And see the additional readings and video. 

1. Describe the expansion and evolution of American slavery after the 1790s.
2. In what ways did African-Americans resist slavery?
3. What were the characteristics of the white social structure of the South? What social classes existed, and what was their relationship to each other and to the institution of slavery?
4. Why, since the great majority of white southerners never owned a single slave, did they support the institution of slavery?
5. What arguments did Southerners use to justify slavery as "a positive good" rather than a necessary evil?
6. How did American democracy evolve in the early decades of the 1800s? 
7. Why was Jackson considered to be representative of a popular democratic movement, and what were his political strengths and weaknesses?
8. Describe the party realignments that led to the second American party system.
9. What economic principles did the Whig party stand for, and in what ways were its objectives more modern than those of the Democrats?

Week 8: By July 15, read chapter 12, Industry and the North, 1790s-1840s, and chapter 13, Immigration, Urbanization, and Social Reform 1820s-1850s. Please also look at the additional materials in this week’s module.

1. What technological advances were made in agriculture, industry, and transportation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? How did these affect the daily lives of Americans?
2. What was the “putting-out system” and what effects did it have on artisans and workers?
3. Describe the regional changes resulting from the influx of migrants from New England in the settlement of the “Old Northwest.”
4. What was innovative about the American system of manufactures?
5. To what extent was it true that northern laborers were in nearly as bad a condition as southern slaves?
6. As capitalism grew and consolidated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, what were the effects on artisans and workers?
7. Describe the characteristics of the developing new American middle class during the market revolution of the early 1800s.
8. Describe the struggles of immigrants to the US in the first half of the nineteenth century.
9. How did immigration and rapid urban growth change American cities in the first half of the nineteenth century?
10. What social problems did the social reform movements attempt to address? How successful were their reforms?
11. To what extent does public education in America still resemble the goals first set by reformers in the mid nineteenth century?
12. Describe the contrasting goals of the American Colonization Society, the abolitionists, and African Americans against slavery.
13. What were the accomplishments of the women’s rights movement in this era, and what do modern feminists have in common with the leaders of the women’s movement of the 1830s and 1840s?
14. What connections were there between the women’s rights movement and previous movements for social reform?

Week 9: By July 22, read chapter 14, The Territorial Expansion of the United States, 1830s-1850s, and chapter 15, The Coming Crisis, the 1850s, and please also see the supplementary readings/videos in this week’s module.

1. What factors lured Americans to the far west during the first half of the nineteenth century?
2. What were the causes of the Mexican War? To what extent did the United States provoke the confrontation? Why did some members of Congress and the public oppose the war?
3. Define imperialism and determine if the Mexican War was an imperialistic venture by the United States. Why, given the expansionist spirit of the age, did the United States not seek to acquire all of Mexico?
4. In his speech about the war with Mexico, what was Abraham Lincoln's argument regarding the boundary between Texas and Mexico and the cause of the war?
5. What did expansionists mean by the term manifest destiny? What arguments did they use to justify expansion? To whom did these arguments appeal? Why?
6. How did the frontiers in Oregon, Texas, and California change from inclusion to exclusion?
7. Contrast the goals and appeal of the Free-Soil Party with those of the Abolitionist movement.
8. What were the provisions of the Compromise of 1850, and what were the obstacles faced and overcome in the passage of these provisions?
9. What were the effects of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law?

10. What is the point Thoreau is trying to make in the essay, "Slavery in Massachusetts"? Why does Thoreau imply that there was slavery in the north?
11. What was notable about Grace Bedell’s letter to Lincoln and Lincoln’s reaction to it?
12. What led to the demise of the national party system? How was its breakdown related to immigration, nativism, slavery, and the spread of slavery into the West?
13. Discuss the creation of the Republican party. How and why did it come about? Who supported it and why? What did it stand for? How and why did it broaden its appeal in the late 1850s?
14. The antebellum years saw the emergence and development of the Federalist, Jeffersonian Republican (or Democratic-Republican), Democratic, Whig, and Republican parties. Discuss how and why each of these parties began. Who founded each? To which groups did each one mainly appeal? What led to the demise of the Federalist and Whig parties?

Week 10: By July 29, read chapter 16, The Civil War, 1861-1865. Please also see the supplementary readings and videos in this week’s module.

1. In his inaugural address in 1861 Lincoln said, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists." In September 1862 he issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Explain why and how this marked change of policy took place.
2. What led to the decision of Southern states to secede from the Union?
3. Compare and contrast the economic impact of the Civil War on the Union and the Confederacy.
4. How did the Emancipation Proclamation change the nature of the war?
5. Each of the following men was in some way involved in the sectional conflict that eventually led to the Civil War: Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Stephen A. Douglas. Discuss the views and activities of these men regarding the sectional conflict.
6. Could the South have won the Civil War, or was its defeat inevitable? Could the Southerners have better defended their interests through a political struggle within the Union, rather than a military struggle outside the Union?
7. What bothered Colonel Robert Gould Shaw about the raid in Darien, Georgia? Was his concern justified?

Week 11: By August 5, read our final chapter 17, Reconstruction, 1863-1877. Also see the supplementary materials in this week’s module. Answer an instructor’s question, post a question of your own, respond to classmates’ questions, and participate in general discussion.

1. Compare and contrast Lincoln's, Johnson's, and Congress' plans of reconstruction (as represented by the Reconstruction Acts of 1867-1868 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments). What were the objectives of each plan? Why did each fail to achieve its goals?
2. Discuss the transformation of southern agriculture during the Reconstruction period. Why did the sharecropping and crop-lien systems evolve? What were the consequences of those systems for the economy of the South and for white and black farmers?
3. Discuss the achievements and failures of the Republican Reconstruction governments in the South. Who supported and who opposed them? Why? Why and how were they driven from power?
4. How did the Freedmen's Bureau in the South during the Reconstruction period try to help former slaves? What obstacles did the Bureau’s agents face?
5. How did the northern political landscape change in the decades after the Civil War?
6. How did the Republican Party change in the final years of the Reconstruction era?
7. Fascism has been defined as a right-wing repressive government with a racist and nationalist ideology and severe economic and social regimentation, where political power is obtained and maintained through violence and the threat of violence. With this definition in mind, to what extent did the United States develop a fascist society by the end of Reconstruction?

Week 12: Our final exams are due by midnight Monday, August 12. In proper essay format and with proper citation, please answer both questions in separate essays, per instructions provided in “Midterm and Final Exams.” Each essay should be about three pages in length.

1. The Civil War has been called a second American Revolution that significantly transformed the social, economic, and political fabric of the nation. Write an essay agreeing or disagreeing with that assessment and offer as much evidence as possible to back up your position.
2. If the enduring vision of America is embodied in the Declaration of Independence's statements about equality and universal rights to justice, liberty, and self-fulfillment, how much progress toward those ideals had blacks and women made by 1877? Back up your evaluation with as many specific facts as possible about the status of Black Americans and women at the end of Reconstruction.