| Professor
David L. Carlton. For
contact information, click here.
For my home page, click here. All lectures meet MW 10:10-11:00 AM, 114 Furman Hall |
 |
History 140 is designed to provide a general introduction to the History of the United States, covering the period from the Revolution through the tumultuous era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. We begin by examining how the intersection between the dynamics of European expansion and the New World environment produced a special sort of English (ultimately British) man and woman, and how their society developed its near-fatal entanglement with African slavery. We proceed to explore the logic by which these colonials came to conclude that their "liberties" were best served by declaring independence from their Mother Country.
Once independent, the "Americans" had to frame new political institutions for themselves and learn how to use them to settle conflicts without falling into anarchy. As they learned how to govern themselves, they gained increasing security and freedom to expand across the continent (albeit at the expense of the original inhabitants). Americans' explosive surge into the West greatly increased their wealth, not simply through the settlement of fertile land but also through the creation of a continental economy that encouraged industrialization and urbanization. With increased economic opportunity and the erosion of traditional social allegiances, Americans democratized their political institutions; no longer reliant on traditional rulers to provide social institutions such as churches and schools, they devised new, voluntary approaches to building their communities. Some Americans went further, imagining that they had the capacity to create a society in which all were equal and liberated to develop their fullest capacities.
This expansive, egalitarian (for white guys) society, though, was also hamstrung by contradictions. Native Americans were "outsiders" to be pushed aside; women were accorded a sort of "equality" but were still subject to male dominance. Above all, American wealth and American white liberty was intimately bound up with the use of African slave labor--a system that pervaded all the British colonies before the Revolution, but became increasingly identified afterward with the American South. While most white northerners had little interest in extending the promise of American life to African-Americans, the slavery issue increasingly became bound up with a complex of issues separating North and South, issues that ultimately led to Secession and War. In the end, the War itself, more than any human intent, would purge slavery from American society--but only after the bloodiest slaughter in American history.
The War did far more than free the slaves, however; it also launched a period of revolutionary experimentation that redefined the nature of American citizenship, dramatically expanded the suffrage to male African-Americans (though not women), and attempted a massive democratization of southern society. The outcome of this “Second American Revolution,” however, was mixed, as violent southern white resistance turned back efforts to “reconstruct” the ex-Confederate states. At the same time, underneath the sectional conflict, a quieter transformation of American society was resulting in a reaction against the antebellum sense of boundlessness; the future of the United States was to be, not a nation of “independent” farmers, artisans, and shopkeepers, but of employees, giant enterprises, and new conflicts. While distracted by the war between North and South, the country had been transformed from the America of the Jacksonian Age to the America of the Gilded Age.
| Section Leaders | Buttrick Carrell: | Office Hours |
| Jonathan Hansen | 4-53 | |
| Angela C. Sutton | 4-13 | |
| Nicholas Villanueva | 3-49 |
| Section No. | Time | Location | Leader |
| 1 | Thursday 4:10-5:00 PM | 127 Wilson Hall | Villanueva |
| 2 | Friday 10:10-11:00 AM | 225 Cole Hall | Sutton |
| 5 | Friday 10:10-11:00 AM | 308 Buttrick | Hansen |
| 6 | Thursday 4:10-5:00 PM | 310 Buttrick | Hansen |
| 7 | Friday 10:10-11:00 AM | 007 Furman Hall | Villanueva |
Your discussion section leader is responsible for
all grading. The final grade in the course will be determined as 
follows:
20 per cent for class participation, including regular attendance, preparation, and contribution to the discussion.
15 per cent each for two short papers (3-5 pp) dealing with two of the three assigned primary source books (Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography; Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Frederick Douglass, Narrative) to be handed in to the section leader at the appropriate section meeting as indicated in the schedule below. The topics will be set by the teaching staff and will be handed out two weeks in advance. Grading will be based not only on factual content and cogency of argument, but also on the quality of the writing (In our eyes, the three are inseparable). A student completing all three essays will have her lowest grade dropped.
20 per cent for the midterm examination, scheduled for October 10, and covering the readings and lectures for the first half of the course (through Week 5).
30 per cent for the final examination, testing both the material covered since the midterm exam and the student's general grasp of the course. The primary final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, December 19 at 9:00 AM; the alternate final exam is scheduled for Saturday, December 22 at Noon.
It is of the utmost importance that the student attend the discussion section in which he or she is enrolled; the first meetings will be held on Thursday and Friday, August 30 and 31.
Your attention is called to that portion of the VU Student Handbook dealing with the Honor System. Note in particular that it is the student's responsibility to understand the principles of intellectual honesty as they apply to this course (to say nothing of how they apply to life in general). Feel free to consult the instructor or the section leaders if issues of genuine moral ambiguity arise.
Assigned Readings:
| Wk | Lecture Topic (Links Are to Lecture Outlines) | Readings |
| 01/07--FIRST CLASS | ||
| 1 | 01/12--Preliminaries: Origins of British America
01/13--Slavery: A Serpent in Eden |
Foner, Chs. 1-3; pp. 134-145; |
| 2 | 01/19--The Colonies and
the Empire
01/21--The Logic of Revolution |
Foner, pp. 145-171; Ch. 5; |
| 3 | 01/26--Creating the Republic--I |
Foner, Chs. 6 and 7; |
| 4 | 02/02--The Federalist Era and the Problem of Parties 02/04--The Jeffersonian Revolution |
Foner, Ch. 8; |
| 5 | 02/09--The Rise of the West |
Foner, Ch. 9; |
|
6 |
02/16--The Transportation Revolution |
Docs., Ch. 9; |
|
7 |
02/23--Immigrants and Nativism 02/25--MIDTERM EXAMINATION |
DISCUSSION SECTIONS CANCELLED! |
Week of March 2--SPRING BREAK |
||
|
8 |
03/09-- The Rise of Mass Party Politics 03/11--Democrats and Whigs |
Foner, Ch. 10; |
|
9 |
03/16--Religion: The Evangelical Empire 03/18--The Age of Reform |
Foner, Ch. 12; |
|
10 |
03/23--What About the South? 03/25--What About the Slaves? |
Foner, Ch. 11; |
|
11 |
03/30--The Sectional
Conflict: An Introduction
04/01--The Road to Fort Sumter
|
Foner, Ch. 13; Docs., Ch. 13; Tourgée, Fool’s Errand, Introduction and 1-127 |
|
12 |
04/06--The War for Southern Independence
04/08--"The Almighty Has His Own Purposes":
The End of Slavery |
Foner, Ch. 14; Docs., Ch. 14; Tourgée, Fool’s Errand, 128-258. |
|
13 |
04/13--Reconstruction: The Great Experiment 04/15--Why Reconstruction Failed |
Foner, Ch. 15; Docs., Ch. 15; Tourgée, Fool’s Errand, 259-404. |
| 14 | 04/20--Last Class–Toward the Gilded Age | NO DISCUSSION SECTIONS THIS WEEK! |
Thursday, April 30, 3:00 PM--PRIMARY
FINAL EXAMINATION, Furman 114
Saturday, April 25, Noon--ALTERNATE
FINAL EXAMINATION, Furman 114
You have made hit No.
on this site. Thanks!
Updated April 20, 2009
Questions? Comments? Contact david.l.carlton@vanderbilt.edu.