History 150 - U.S. History to 1876

The development of social, political, economic, and intellectual life in the United States from Native American settlements to 1876. Topics include Puritanism, slavery and antislavery, Indian relations, religious reform as well as such events as the Revolution and Civil War. (Gen.Ed. HS)

Pre-recorded lectures will be asynchronous, but Friday discussion sections will be live on Zoom. This HS general education course is a broad survey designed to introduce you to the major themes and events of early United States history. We will treat the early history of the United States as a story of migration, contact, and conflict. First, we will attend to the political and economic circumstances that brought people from different societies of North America, Africa and Europe into contact with one another, exploring the substances of these early encounters. Then we will trace the development of the United States into an independent nation-state, investigating the formation of its political and economic structures and various cultural and religious practices. We will conclude the course with a close examination of the factors that led to the US Civil War and evaluate the outcome of Reconstruction. Along the way, we will explore conflicts among various groups of historical actors: Native Americans and Europeans, Great Britain and the colonists, workers and capitalists, enslavers and enslaved people, native-born white Americans and immigrants, Northerners and Southerners.