Master Course Outline

US History Fall Semester - 2002

 

Days and Units

* 10 – Birth of the US

* 15 – Ethnicity and Race before 1945

* 10 - American Foreign Policy to 1945

* 14 – Economic History of the US before 1945

* 10 – The A-Bomb, the 1950s, and the Cold War

* 10 – The Civil Rights Movements; 1960s & 70s

* 10 – The Reagan Revolution and the World Superpower in the 1980s and 1990s

*  4 – Review and Final

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  88 days

 

Birth of the US – 10 days

Geography of the US

Basics of Pre-Columbian Native American societies

“City on a Hill” as a foundation myth

The 3 colonial regions and basic colonial lifestyles

Causes of the Revolution

Economics of colonialism

The Declaration of Independence

Military history of the war

The Spanish US

 

Ethnicity and Race before 1945 – 15 days

Economic and social history of slavery

Frontier expansion, geography and timeline

Indian cultures and wars

Immigration and the definition of “White”

Lead-up to the Civil War

Military history of the war, reverberating effects

The Emancipation Proclamation

Social and economic impact of the war

Post-Civil War Constitutional Amendments

African-American transitions in Reconstruction

The Slaves sold-out, rise of Jim Crow

 

American Foreign Policy to 1945 – 10 days

Manifest Destiny as a foreign policy (remember the Iroquois)

Doctrines and policies

History and geography of US imperialism

Anti-foreign-radicalism in the US

Pacifism in the US

WWI and the rise of a great power

The Mexican-American War

Mexican-Americans in the Southwest

The eradication of cowboys and Indians

Insecurity of world leadership and Wilsonianism

US foreign policy and Pearl Harbor

US military contribution to WWII

Japanese Internment

 

Economic History of the US before 1945 – 14 days

Economic change in the early US

Democracy in American and the Yeoman Farmer Myth

Carpet-bagging and Northern domination

The Industrial Revolution in the US

Taylorism and social history of factory life

Progressive political radicalism in the US

The Progressive movement

Booms and busts in US economic history

Rise of commercial culture

Urbanization of America

Overproduction, inventory control, and economic clouds

The Great Depression

Dust Bowl and the social history of the Depression

Roosevelt and the New Deal

Rise of US labor

Cultural outpouring between the wars

 

The A-Bomb, the 1950s, and the Cold War – 10 days

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Burdens of a competitive super-power

Korea and anti-Soviet leadership

Space and arms races

Balance of Power, Cold War timeline

US anti-communism

Social conformism in the 50s

Ozzie and Harriet nation, rise of television

GI bill, economic growth, and Eisenhower

African American socio-economic surge

Tripping towards Viet Nam

 

The Civil Rights Movements; 1960s & 70s – 10 days

The African-American freedom struggle (a unit of its own?)

Rise of the counter-culture

Drug use in the US

The baby-boomers

Vietnam War and protest

Cultural Revolution

Nixon and Watergate

Oil Crisis, Carter, and Iran

 

The Reagan Revolution and the World Superpower in the 1980s and 1990s – 10 days

The Reagan Revolution, rise of conservatism

Economic change in the 80s

End of the Cold War

Troubles of a uni-polar superpower