If you do well in this course, you will be able to:
- Written/Oral Communication
- Explain the changing social, cultural, economic, and political structures and development of the United States from pre-Columbian times through Reconstruction through written activities and/or oral presentations/discussion.
- Describe the key events, developments, and people from pre-Columbian times through the Reconstruction through written activities and/or oral presentations/discussion.
- Critical Thinking
- Analyze and evaluate primary and secondary sources dealing with American history through Reconstruction and draw conclusions regarding their impact on the history of that time.
- Differentiate between fact, inference, and opinion as pertaining to American history through 1877.
- Quantitative/Graphic Analysis
- Analyze numerical data, graphs, and maps as they pertain to understanding the development of events and trends throughout American history through Reconstruction.
- Before First Contact: Suggested Context Native American Societies, European Culture, West African Culture.
- Describe and discuss basic structures of Native American societies that developed in North America before 1500.
- Identify key changes to those structures due to the arrival of West Africans and Europeans.
- Analyze the cultural and social structures of European nations and what impact they had on exploration and colonization.
- Discuss the social, cultural, and political similarities and differences between the Native American, European, Asian, and African societies before first contact.
- First Contact: Suggested Context - Fifteenth and Sixteenth-century contacts between the Americas and Europe, Early British Settlements in the Chesapeake and New England, Atlantic Slave Trade.
- Identify, compare, and contrast the patterns of interaction between different groups of European colonizers and different indigenous cultural groups.
- Compare and contrast the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire
- Analyze the development and impact of culture, economics, politics, society, technology, and religious and philosophical ideas.
- Examine connections between Rome society and the rest of the world.
- Analyze and evaluate complex historical sources and materials and reach conclusions based on interpretations of primary and secondary resources.
- British North American Colonies Mature: Suggested Context- The Growth of Settlement in British North America, The Seven Years War and the Events Leading to the American Revolution, Introduction of Indentured Servitude and Slavery to British North America.
- Identify the demographic changes to British North America in the first seventy-five years of the eighteenth century.
- Discuss the impact of the intellectual and cultural changes stemming from the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening.
- Identify major political, cultural, economic, and intellectual changes taking place in the British North American colonies during the eighteenth century.
- Explain how the Seven Years War affected British North American colonies and how conflicts between British policy and American colonists led to the Revolution.
- The American Revolution and the Early National Period: Suggested Context - The American Revolution, Early governments and the creation of the United States Constitution, The Early National Period and the Era of Good Feelings.
- Identify major political, cultural, social, and economic transformations taking place from the era of the American Revolution to the 1820s.
- Identify the major political, social, and military events of the American Revolution.
- Explain the reasons for drafting the new Constitution and the different proposals and compromises made during its creation including the different arguments for and against ratification.
- Describe the emergence of the two-party system in American politics.
- Explain the impact of the war on slavery, non-elite white people and the growing divide between the two after the Revolution.
- Explain the impact of the War of 1812 on the United States.
- Examine the Missouri Compromise and its role in sectional politics.
- The Market and Communication Revolution: Suggested Context: Pre-Market (Moral), Economy, Introduction of the Factory System, Changes in Transportation and Communication, Changing Gender Roles, Growth of Cities, Diversity of Antebellum Labor.
- Summarize the pre-market economy and the emergence of the market economy and the reasons for economic change.
- Discuss the rise of the factory system (particularly the textile industry) and the impact on production and workers' lives in America.
- Analyze the technological changes in antebellum society and the ways they altered life in the United States.
- Explain and assess how industrialization and urbanization brought about changing gender roles in parts of the antebellum United States.
- Evaluate the actions women took in shaping their new roles in society and their efforts to gain a voice in American society during the antebellum period.
- Describe the rapid urbanization of the United States and life in the growing cities during the antebellum period.
- The Jacksonian Era: Suggested Context - Jacksonian Republicanism, Nullification Controversy, The Second Great Awakening, Antebellum Reform Movements.
- Outline the major political parties and political realignments of the early national and antebellum periods.
- Identify the different elements of Jacksonian republicanism.
- Analyze the Nullification Controversy of 1832 and its impact on the debate over slavery.
- Discuss the Second Great Awakening and its impact on the reform movements that arose in the early to mid-nineteenth century, including (but not limited to) abolitionism and temperance.
- Describe the emergence of the early women's rights movement as a product of women's efforts to participate more publicly in reform and politics.
- Westward Expansion: Suggested Context - Politics of the 1820s, Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion, The Mexican War.
- Describe and discuss the experiences and motivations of Americans from the United States who participated in westward expansion.
- Explain how racial and cultural biases against Native Americans and Mexican Americans undergirded U.S. rationalizations for westward expansion in the era of Manifest Destiny.
- Describe the causes of the Mexican War and their impact of the American victory.
- The Slave South: Suggested Context - Planter Hegemony, Work and Living Conditions of African-American Slaves, Control of Slaves, Slave Culture and Resistance.
- Analyze how the planter class controlled the different elements of white society in the antebellum South.
- Describe the material conditions, legal restrictions, and cultural norms of Southern slave culture, and divergent responses to slavery and unfreedom by free and enslaved black people.
- Discuss the major slave rebellions in the nineteenth-century United States.
- Analyze the expansion of the internal Slave Market and new slave codes.
- The Secession Crisis: Suggested Context - The Expansion of Slavery Westward, Compromises, Strife from Bleeding Kansas to Harper's Ferry.
- Explore the ways in which the westward expansion of slavery created conflict between different sections of the nation and led to political realignment.
- Describe the compromises in Congress designed to handle national conflicts over the expansion of slavery.
- Recognize how violence affected American politics during the 1850s.
- Civil War: Suggested Context - Secession, The Military Aspects of the Civil War, The Home Front and Politics, The War's End.
- Analyze the causes of secession in Southern states and the creation of the Confederate States of America.
- Explain how CSA committed treason against the United States.
- Identify the key military actions of the Civil War and their effect.
- Discuss the impact of political activities and the home front on the outcome of the Civil War.
- Discuss how minorities, women, American Blacks, native Americans, aided in the Civil War on both sides.
- Explain the events that brought an end to the Civil War.
- Reconstruction: Suggested Context - Emancipation, Presidential Reconstruction, Congressional (Radical) Reconstruction, The Unofficial and Official Ends of Reconstruction.
- Analyze the diverse meanings of freedom between African Americans and Anglo Americans and how each group sought to shape the emancipation experience.
- Explain the need for the Freedmen's Bureau.
- Articulate what the black codes meant for freed people.
- Describe the actions of the national and Southern state governments during Presidential Reconstruction.
- Explain the changes Congressional (Radical) Reconstruction brought to the South.
- Discuss the ways in which Reconstruction ended (both unofficially and officially).