OUT OF MANY:  HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TO 1877
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 2311-001
MWF 9AM-9:50—102 Dallas Hall

Prof. Andrew Graybill—337 Dallas Hall—214-768-2709   agraybill@smu.edu

 

This course offers a survey of American history, from sixteenth-century European exploration to the end of Reconstruction.  While following a rough chronology, the organization of the class is intended to emphasize the central themes of the period, divided into four broad but overlapping categories: 1) encounters and interactions between Europeans and Indians, Africans, and immigrants, with particular attention to the importance of race in shaping political discourse; 2) political development, including the establishment of European colonies, American independence and the creation of the United States, and the sectional division that culminated in the Civil War; 3) the vast economic changes that transformed the U.S. from an agrarian society to a nascent industrial power; 4) the importance of social movements spawned by these sweeping political and economic developments, including religious reform, women’s suffrage, and abolitionism.

Readings include: 1) Frederick M. Binder and David M. Reimers, The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History, vol. I, 1492-1877. (6^th ed.); 2) John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early America; 3) Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; 4) John M. Murrin, et al, Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, vol. I: to 1877 (concise 5th ed.).