Survey of United States History
Professor Bill Issel
Your textbook for this course is the online resource created for students and scholars by Mintz, S.(2007). Digital History. Retrieved May 8, 2008
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/hyper_titles.cfm
Primary source readings accessible via the links below are intended to provide you with first hand testimony related to the themes that will be explored in the weekly lectures.
Course Requirements:
1. Regular Attendance is required.
2. Completion of the Textbook chapters and primary sources below.
3. Final Exam.
Week 1: Colonial Encounters
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
The First Americans
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=95
Exploration and Discovery
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=96
Colonization
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=97
The Origins and Nature of New World Slavery
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=25
Primary Source:
John Winthrop’s "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630)
http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/charity.html
Week 2. New World Revolutionaries
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
The American Revolution
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=53
The Founders
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=299
The Critical Period: America in the 1780s
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=54
The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=55
Primary Sources
Declaration of Independence (1776)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/1.htm
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/42.htm
Week 3. Making a New Nation
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
The First New Nation
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=20
Jeffersonian Republicanism
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=21
The Era of Good Feelings
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=81
The Roots of American Economic Growth
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=79
Primary Source:
James Madison, The Federalist Number Ten (1787)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/7.htm
Week 4. Expanding and Reforming the Nation
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
Jacksonian Democracy
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=92
Pre-Civil War American Culture
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=93
Pre-Civil War Reform
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=91
Westward Expansion
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=57
Primary Sources:
President Jackson’s Address to Congress on Indian Removal (1835)
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/two/removal.htm
John L. O’Sullivan on America’s "Manifest Destiny" (1839)
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/osulliva.htm
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Seneca Falls Declaration (1848)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/senecafalls.html
Week 5. Splitting the Nation in Two
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
Antislavery
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=24
The Pre-Civil War South
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=94
The Impending Crisis
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=58
The Civil War
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=27
Primary Sources:
American Antislavery Society "Declaration of Sentiments" (1833)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/18.htm
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/21.htm
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/25.htm
Week 6. Reconstructing the South
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
Reconstruction
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=28
Along the Color Line
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=37
Primary Sources:
Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/26.htm
Chief Joseph Speaks (1879)
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/jospeak.htm
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chinex.htm
Week 7. The West and the New Urban Industrial America
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
Closing the Western Frontier
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=32
Tragedy of the Plains Indians
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=77
The Rise of Big Business
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=34
Industrialization and the Working Class
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=38
The Huddled Masses
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=59
The Rise of the City
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=26
Week 8. Populists and Progressives
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
The Political Crisis of the 1890s
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=30
The Struggle for Women's Suffrage
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=39
The Progressive Era
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=31
Primary Sources:
William Jennings Bryan’s "Cross of Gold Speech" (1896)
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/
Muller v. Oregon (1908)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/30.htm
Week 9. America and the World, 1898 -- 1920
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
United States Becomes a World Power
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=33
America at War: World War I
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=73
Primary Sources:
Alfred T. Mahan on Sea Power (1890)
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/alfred.htm
President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points Speech to Congress (1918)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/51.htm
Week 10. The 1920s and 1930s
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
The Jazz Age: The American 1920s
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=67
1930s
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=69
Primary Sources:
Harlan Fiske Stone’s Carolene Products Footnote
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/34.htm
Week 11. World War II and the Cold War, to 1960
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
America at War: World War II
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=75
Postwar America: 1945 - 1960
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=68
Primary Sources:
President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech (1941)
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs36b.htm
The Marshall Plan (1947)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/57.htm
Week 12. The Long 1960s, from New Frontiersmen to the President's Men
Digital History Textbook Chapters:
America in Ferment: The Tumultuous 1960s
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=65
Vietnam War
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=71
Primary Sources:
Engle v. Vitale (1962)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/47.htm
NOW Statement of Purpose (1966)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/69.htm
New York Times Company v. The United States (1971)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/48.htm
Secretary of State James Baker’s Democracy and Foreign Policy speech
(1990)
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/61.htm
Week 13. Uncertain Times, the United States since Watergate
The Past Three Decades: Years of Crisis - Years of Triumph
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=66