HIST 208

1. Introduction

• What's the Point of Studying U.S. History?
• Review of History 207
• Syllabus

2. Foundational Documents

• Declaration of Independence (1776)
• U.S. Constitution (1787)
• Bill of Rights (1791)
• Gettysburg Address (1863)
• Reconstruction Amendments(1865-1870)

3. The West

• In Search of the West
  • Where? When? What?
  • Turner’s Thesis
• Claiming the Land
  • Native American Way
  • Anglo American Way
  • Extra-legal Way
• European-Indian Relations
  • Seven Myths
  • Sources of Conflict

4. Cowboys and Indians

• Chief Joseph & the Nez Percé
  • Lewis and Clark
  • U.S.-Nez Percé Conflict
• Indian Reservations
  • Reservation Act (1867)
  • Dawes Act (1887)
• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
  • “Wild West Show”
  • Revisionist History
• The Indian Wars
  • Little Bighorn (1876)
  • Wounded Knee (1890)

5. Corporations & Unions

• Gilded Age Economy
  • Railroads
  • Managerial Revolution
  • Market Expansion
  • Vertical Combination (or Integration)
  • Robber Barons
• Laissez Faire Liberalism
  • Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
  • Gilded Age: Carnegie and Rockefeller
• Labor Unions
  • Powderly, Knights of Labor
  • Gompers, American Federation of Labor (AFL)
  • Big Business Fights Back
• Foundation of Society?

6. Gilded Age Politics

• Overview
  • Passive Presidency
  • Key Issues
  • Supreme Court
    • Legal Realism
    • Fourteenth Amendment
• Presidential Politics
  • Machines
  • Mugwumps
  • Cleveland’s Presidencies
  • Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

7. Populism

• Local Politics
  • Ethnoreligious Cultural Politics
  • Bennett Law
• Populism
  • Key Issues:
    • Tariffs
    • Inflation
    • Currency Expansion
    • Subtreasury Plan
  • Study Questions
  • Populism’s Legacy for America

8. An American Empire

• William McKinley
  • Protective Tariff
  • Annexation of Hawaii
• Spanish-American War
  • Motives
  • Battles
  • Legacies
• Foreign Policy, ca. 1900 vs. ca. 2000