Professor Richard Weiner

Office: CM 205

Office Hours: MON., TUES. & TH: 11:30-12:30 (and by appointment)

Office Phone: (260) 481-6692

E-Mail: weinerr@ipfw.edu

Summer I, 2008

                                   H 105: American History to 1877 (CM112, Mon., Tues., Thurs. 12:30-2:50)

Course Description: Through lectures, readings, and discussions this course introduces students to social, political, and economic developments in American History from the age of discovery to 1877. This course counts toward fulfillment of the General Education area III requirement.

 

Course Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course students will be better able to:

·         Interpret major developments in U.S. history to 1877.

·         Connect events and explain the relationship between them.

·         Analyze information and arrange it in a coherent overview.

·         Assess source material and analyze its meaning.

·         Appreciate the diversity of American experiences.

 

Assessment of Learning Outcomes via exams, quizzes, and class discussions, which require students to:

·         Analyze major historical developments such as colonialism and revolution, slavery and emancipation, and war and reconstruction (on section “B” of exams and assigned paper).

·         Analyze the effects of historical events and actors (on sections “A” and “B” of exams).

·         Write analytical and well organized historical essays (on section “B” of exams and assigned paper).

·         Analyze and interpret primary historical documents (on weekly in-class quizzes and assigned paper).

·         Compare and contrast the experiences of diverse American groups (on sections “B” of exams and assigned paper).

 

Required Texts:

1. Michael P. Johnson, Reading the American Past: Selected Historical Documents (vol. 1: to 1877), Fourth Edition, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. (Text referred to as Past below in class schedule.)

2. Michael P. Johnson, et. al., The American Promise: A History of the United States (vol. 1: to 1877), Fourth Edition, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.  (Text referred to as Promise below in class schedule.)

 

Course Requirements:

1. Exams: There are 3 exams, each of which is worth 25% of the class grade. Missed Exam/make-up policy: You are required to take exams at the scheduled time. However, if the instructor determines you have a legitimate reason for not taking the exam at the scheduled time you will be able to take a make-up. If you desire to take a make-up, you must consult with the instructor prior to the scheduled exam (obviously, unanticipated emergencies are another matter; consult the instructor ASAP if you have an emergency).

 

2. Quizzes: The average score from a series of in-class quizzes on the assigned readings make up 25% of the course grade. These are “pop” quizzes that are given regularly over the course of the entire semester. Since questions are taken directly from the daily reading assignments in Reading the American Past you will be able to prepare for quizzes beforehand. The 3 lowest quiz grades will be dropped (this includes missed quizzes). There are NO make-ups for missed quizzes.

To earn good grades on quizzes:

 

Class Schedule, Reading Schedule, Exam Schedule:

Section I-Colonial America

5/19: Promise, chap. 1

5/20: Promise, chap. 2; Past, chap. 2

5/22:  Promise, chap. 3; Past, chap. 3

                                        

5/26: HOLIDAY: NO CLASS!

5/27: Promise, chaps. 4 & 5; Past, chaps. 4 & 5

5/29: EXAM # 1 (Colonial Era)

 

Section II-Revolutionary America

6/2: Promise, chap. 6; Past, chap. 6

6/3: Promise, chap. 7; Past, chap. 7

6/5: Promise, chap. 8; Past, chap. 8

 

6/9: Promise, chap. 9; Past, chap. 9

6/10: Promise, chap. 10; Past, chap. 10

6/12: EXAM # 2 (Age Independence)

 

Section III-19th Century America

6/16: Promise, chap. 11; Past, chap. 11

6/17: Promise, chap. 12; Past, chap. 12

6/19: Promise, chap. 13; Past, chap. 13

 

6/23: Promise, chap. 14; Past, chap. 14

6/24: Promise, chaps. 15 & 16; Past, chaps. 15 & 16

6/26: EXAM # 3 (19th century America)

 

Exam Description: All exams have exactly the same format. The only difference is the content. Exams have three sections, A (terms), B (essay) and C (passage analysis). Sections A and B are each worth 40% of the exam grade and section C is worth 20%. Include information from the course texts and class lectures on your exam. The only thing that you need to bring to exams is a pen or pencil to write with. An exam booklet will be provided for you to take your exam. You may NOT use any notes when taking the exam. Answer exam questions with complete sentences.

 

Explanation of Section A of Exams: Terms. Eight terms from exam study guides (see below) will be included on each exam. You will be required to answer five of the eight terms.  Answers to terms have 2 parts:

·         1) Description of the term: A description provides answers to the “W” questions: who/what is the term? Where did the term take place? When did the term happen?  Successful answers include specific and detailed historical information.

·         2) Explanation of historical consequences of the term: How and to what extent did the specific term affect the course of history?  An effective analytical strategy to answer this question is to consider a term’s social, economic, and political significance. (However, in some instances a term may not have all three.) Another acceptable strategy is to list as many ways a term shaped history as you can.

·         While quantity is by no means the only ingredient in an effective answer, successful answers to a term often require a full single-sided page in a blue book or more.

 

Explanation of Section B of Exams:  Essay. Exam study guides include potential essay themes. On your actual exam there will be one essay question. It will be based on one of the themes in the study guide. Essays are evaluated on three criteria:

·         1) Thesis. Simply put, the thesis is your main argument. The thesis is a concise response to the essay question. Put your thesis in the introductory paragraph. An effective thesis is usually argumentative. An effective thesis is also perceptive and demonstrates a strong grasp of the subject matter.

·         2) Content. The content is the historical facts and evidence that you use to support your thesis in the body of the essay. You are expected to provide a detailed account that includes specific historical events and developments. The more specific content the better. You are required to include relevant information from lectures and the assigned texts.

·         3) Style. Style refers to how well the essay is organized. Develop and organize your essay in a way that is easy for the reader to follow and also emphasizes your main argument.

·         4) Quantity. While quantity is by no means the only ingredient in an effective answer, successful answers to essay questions often require five single-sided pages in a blue book or more.

 

Explanation of Section C of Exams (Passage Analysis): In this section, you will find at least two excerpts from American Past reproduced on your exam. Your task will be to provide a complete answer to the specific question I ask about the excerpts. The question will require comparing and contrasting the excerpts.

 

Example of section C from previous exam: These two documents are appeals written by indigenous leaders in Africa and America to their European colonial rulers. To what extent are these two appeals similar?  In your answer, consider the tone that the appeals are written in (pleading, demanding, threatening, etc.), the problems that the appeals identify, and the solutions that the appeals advocate.

 

The King of the Congo Writes to the King of Portugal : My Lord, Your Highness must know that our kingdom=s end is drawing near, so much so that we must find the appropriate remedy to the situation.  What causes so much looseness is the fact that the head of your mission and your officers grant merchants the authorization to establish themselves in this kingdom, to open shops and to sell goods, even those [such as guns] that we forbid. They spread them across our kingdoms and provinces in such great amounts that many of our vassals which, until now, obeyed us are beginning to claim their independence. These days they are able to acquire, in larger quantities than us those very things with which we had kept them subdued and satisfied with our vassalage and governance.  This causes great loss . . . We are not able to measure the extent of this loss because of the merchants constantly taking away subjects, children of this land, sons of nobles and vassals, even members of our family. . . . They kidnap and sell them. This corruption and depravity are so common that our land is entirely deserted. Your Highness must not consider this favorable neither in itself nor for his service. . . . This is why we ask Your Highness to help us and grant us our wish to demand from the heads of your missions that they no longer send goods and merchants here.

 

Joseph Brant Appeals to British Allies: Brother [Lord Germain, the British Secretary of State]: The Mohocks our particular Nation, have on all occasions shewn their zeal and loyalty to the Great King; yet they [the Mohawks] have been very badly treated by his [the King’s] people in that country, the City of Albany laying an unjust claim to the lands on which our lower Castle is built . . .  We have been often assured by our late great friend William Johnson [the British Indian superintendent, who died in 1774] who never deceived us, and we know he was told so that the King and wise men here would do justice; but this notwithstanding all our applications has never been done, and it makes us very uneasie. . . . We have only therefore to request that his Majesty will attend to this matter: it troubles our Nation & they cannot sleep easie in their beds. Indeed it is very hard when we have let the Kings subjects have so much of our lands for so little value, they should want to cheat us in this manner of the small plots we have left for our women and children to live on. We are tired of making complaints and getting no redress.

 

EXAM #1 STUDY GUIDE:

 (Exam 1 is based on chapters 1 through 5 in the course texts and the corresponding lecture material.)

Section A: Terms

Arawaks (Tainos); Aztecs(Mexica); Algonquian Indians; League of 5 Nations (Iroquois); Opechancanough; Christopher Columbus; Hernando Cortes; John Smith; William Penn; John Winthrop; Biblical Commonwealth; Precious metals; Sugar; Tobacco; Fur Trade; Mercantilism; Navigation Acts; Triangular Trade; indentured servants; Head-right system; slavery; Spanish Re-Conquest of Spain; Pequot War; Bacon’s Rebellion; King Philip’s War

 

Section B: Essay Themes for Exam 1

 

EXAM #2 STUDY GUIDE:

 (Exam 2 is based on chapters 6 through 10 of your course texts and corresponding lectures.)

Section A: Terms

French and Indian War; Pontiac’s uprising; John Locke; Sugar Act; Stamp Act; Townshend Duties; Boston Massacre; Boston Tea Party; Coercive Acts; Continental Congress; Declaration of Independence; Articles of Confederation; the Constitution; Shays’ Rebellion; Whiskey Rebellion; Alien and Sedition Acts; Agrarian Republic; Alexander Hamilton; Thomas Jefferson; Thomas Paine; War of 1812; Missouri Compromise; Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa

 

Section B: Essay Themes

 

EXAM #3 STUDY GUIDE:

 (Exam 3 is based on chapters 11 through 16 of your course texts and corresponding lectures.)

Section A: Terms

 Wilmot Proviso; Manifest Destiny; Free labor Ideology; William Lloyd Garrison; Compromise of 1850; Kansas-Nebraska Act; Cotton; Seneca Falls Convention; Lowell Factory System; Tariff of Abominations; The Bank War; William Sherman; John Brown;  Ku Klux Klan; Dred Scott; Share Cropping; Mexican-American War; Black Codes; Radical Reconstruction; Compromise of 1877; Freedmen’s Bureau; Emancipation Proclamation; Charles Sumner; 14th  Amendment; 15th  Amendment; Nat Turner; Frederick Douglas; Trail of Tears; Homestead Act; the Gold Rush

 

Part B: Essay Themes

·         the evolution of the party system from the age of Jackson through Reconstruction

·         the course and consequences of Western expansion

·         the consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction on diverse groups in the South

 

Lecture Outlines for History 105:

American History to 1877

 

These outlines highlight main lecture themes and content. The textbook chapters that correspond to the lectures are listed as headings in bold capital letters. However, frequently the lectures include material that is not in the textbook, even if both cover the same time period. In other words, often the contents of the lecture and the textbook are complementary, not repetitive.

 

1. ANCIENT AMERICA, BEFORE 1492

 1. No Indians exist before 1492

 

 

2. First Americans

 

3. Americas in 1492

Population: 80 million (4 million in present day United States)

 

Classification of societies


 

4. Aztecs (Mexica)

Aztec’s Rise to power

 

Class divisions in Aztec Society

 

Culture and Class Divisions

 

Aztec religion

 

Aztec (Mexica) Federation

 

Tribute System

 

2. EUROPEANS ENCOUNTER THE NEW WORLD, 1492-1600

1. Mediterranean Trade

Shifts in Mediterranean Trade

 

Europeans attempt to regain control of East-West Trade

 

Portuguese Expansion


 

2. Spain, Columbus, and the New World

Spain’s Internal Expansion: Reconquest of Iberian Peninsula from Moors, 711-1492

 

Features of the Spanish Reconquest

 

Spain and Columbus

 

Columbus and Island Phase Conquest of Americas, 1492-1519

 

3. Colonial Mexico


Factors in Spanish Conquest of 1519-1521

 

A high level of interaction between Spaniards and Indians

               

                Examples:

A. Spaniards utilize pre-existing system exploitation

 

B. A Corporate Colonial

C. Labor systems                

 

D. Religion

 

E. Racial Mixture

 

F. Legal System:

 

G. Geography and interaction between Spaniards and Indians:

                Discovery silver in Zacatecas, 1540s

 

3. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 1601-1700

1. English Colonization of the Chesapeake IN THE 1600S

Background to English Colonization of North America

 

Jamestown, 1607: Difficult Beginnings

 

Reorganization and Tobacco

 

Indian-Settler Relations

 

Emerging social Structure, 1650s


 

2. Slavery in the Atlantic World

The New World Causes the Revival and Transformation of Slavery

 

Brazilian Beginnings

 

The English Caribbean: Barbados and Jamaica

 

British Slavery on the North America Mainland

 

4. THE NORTHERN COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 1601-1700

1. Puritanism

Background

(Elizabeth, 1558; James, 1603; Charles, 1625)

 

Puritanism in the New World

 

Puritan Relations with Indians

 

2. Dutch and French Settlements and the Middle Colonies

 

 

5. COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1701-1770

1. Economic Relations between Britain and the Colonies

 

2. Spain does not derive as much economic benefit from its American colonies as Britain


                Spain as “middle man”

 

Europeans conceptions of the economy of New Spain

 

3. 18TH Century commercial and social developments

 

4. Colonial politics: from childhood to adult?

Colonies become more “English” over time

 

Parallel Representative bodies/politics

 

6. THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE COLONIAL CRISIS, 1754-1775

1. French and Indian War

 

2. The Age of Revolution, 1764-1775

 

Specific British Acts:

o    Sugar (revenue) Act, 1764

o    Stamp Act, 1765

o    Declaratory Act, 1766

o    Townshend Duties, 1767

o    Boston Massacre, 1770

o    Tea Act, 1773

o    Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts), 1774

o    Continental Congress, 1774

 

7. THE WAR FOR AMERICA, 1775-1783

1. Declaration of Independence

 

Why not declared until well after the fighting breaks out?

 

What the Declaration of Independence resolves and fails to resolve:

 

2. The War

 

-War and the Economy

-Peace of Paris, 1783

 

8. BUILDING A REPUBLIC, 1775-1789

1. Articles of Confederation, 1781-88

 

2. Movement to Amend the Articles

 

3. Debate over ratification of the Constitution

 

Issues that divide Federalists and anti-Federalists

 

4. Slavery in the Age of Revolution

 

9. THE NEW NATION TAKES FORM, 1789-1800

1. Fortuitous Beginnings to the Early Republic

 

2. The emergence of party conflict

 

The Federalist Economic vision of Alexander Hamilton

 

Implementation of Hamilton’s Vision 

 

Protests against Hamilton=s Program

 

3. Foreign Policy and the Republican-Federalist Conflict

International Revolutions


 

France and England Resume War (1793) and its impact on the U.S.

 

Domestic Policies during AWar@ time

 

10. REPUBLICANS IN POWER, 1800-1824

1. Jefferson: A man of contradictions?

 

2. A Republican Revolution?

 

3. An Agrarian Republic

 

Agrarian Republic and Jefferson=s Land Policy

 

4. Indian Policy

 

5. Foreign Policy

 

6. Weakening of the Parties

 

11. THE EXPANDING REPUBLIC, 1815-1840

1. The Market Revolution

1820-1860: Era of industrialization

 

Transportation

Labor

Technology

 

Demise artisans and emergence factory workers

 

Rise of the factory and Separate Spheres Ideology

 

2. Jacksonian Democracy, 1830s-40s

Introduction: A more democratic political system

 

Jackson’s image

 

Limits to Jacksonian Democracy

 

3. The Second Party System

                                Region: N. East and South

                                Class: business, planter, and laborer

                                Region: South, West, N. East


                                Class: middle class, yeoman farmer, urban labor

 

12. THE NEW WEST AND THE FREE NORTH, 1840-1860

1. Ideology of Western Expansion: Manifest Destiny

 

2. The Mexican Northern Frontier

 

Mexican Views of the United States: friend to foe

 

The Texas Example

 

Mexican-American War, 1846-48

 

3. Forms of Western Expansion: Homestead and Agribusiness

 

4. California and different national and ethnic groups

 

5. Indians and Western Expansion

 

13. THE SLAVE SOUTH, 1820-1860

1. The age of Revolution and the decline of slavery


 

2. King Cotton and the revival of slavery

 

Reproduction of the slave population

 

Slaves work and resistance

 

3. Social hierarchy in the South

 

14. THE HOUSE DIVIDED, 1846-1861

1. Cultural and economic factors in sectionalism

 

2. Western expansion and sectional political conflicts


 

3. Emergence new Parties:

 

4. Short-term events leading to the Civil War:

 

15. THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR, 1861-1865

Ft. Sumter and Choosing Sides

 

Introduction:  The Confederacy and the Union

 

1. Civil War

War strategies

 

Course of War

 

Why Union wins

 

 

2. Slavery, emancipation, and the War


 

16. RECONSTRUCTION, 1863-1877

Introduction: What the Civil War resolves and does not resolve

1. Competing Reconstruction Visions and Agendas

 

 

2. Presidential Reconstruction Programs

 

Southern Response

 

3. Congressional Reconstruction

Radical Reconstruction

 

Republican Party constituents and reforms in the South

 

4. Reconstruction=s economic and political limits

 

5. The Republican Party and the end of Reconstruction