Table of Contents for American History

American History

Table of Contents

Unit Components Explained

Reading: Concise digital essays reinforced with audio, video, animation, and primary sources. (Includes an adapted version edited to an 11th-grade reading level.).
Primary Source Manual: Primary source activity includes a context-building background section, some with video from the author, and an analytical activity (optional for grading purposes) meant to engage students.

Writing: Several composition lessons are available. Globalyceum also can customize your writing prompt or research assignment by building on our workshops in writing and research.
Scholars Mart (SMart): These are items written by independent scholars on specific topics. They can be added to adoptions for small amounts, usually $2. Most have question banks associated with them.

Red items will appear on the site in Spring 2020.

Other items on these lists are reviewable on the site. Polls and quiz polls on activities are dynamic and can be seen on the secure live site.

Overview of American History

Overview of Contemporary History, 1972-present

American History 1

Unit 1: Europe and the Americas, 1450-1607 by Paula Findlen, Stanford University

Introduction: Europe and the Americas, 1450-1607

Unit Further Reading

Readings (include 24-question bank for each reading in 4 difficulty levels, focus questions, key terms, and onsite note taking, storing, and submission)

Reading: Why Cross the Atlantic?
Reading: Columbus and Vespucci: A Tale of Two Discoveries
Reading: Initial Encounters
Reading: Indigenous Cultures

Primary Source Activities (include opinion and quiz polls and critical thinking quizzes about sources)

Activity: Early Maps of the New World
Activity: The Founding of St. Augustine in Florida (1565)
Activity: John White and the Image of the New World
Activity: Why do women figure so prominently in the accusations of witchcraft?
Activity: Cabeza de Vaca
Activity: European Views of Native American Women

Writing Process Workshop (4-step process to build a paper from primary sources)

Writing: John White

Video Library (consult website for videos)

Unit 2: Colonial America, 1607-1750 by Mark Peterson, University of California, Berkeley

Introduction: Colonial America, 1607-1750

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: Cataclysmic Population Changes: “Red, Black, and White”
Reading: The Rapid Rise of New Economies and Societies
Reading: Gentility, Religious Revivalism, and Self-Transformation in the 18th Century
Reading: The Kaleidoscope of Colonial Governments

Sourcebook

Activity: Nathaniel Bacon
Activity: John Quelch
Activity: Devils in the New World
Activity: Colonial Slavery in Virginia and Maryland
Activity: The First Great Awakening Sermons
Activity: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson
Activity: Mission and Presidio in the Southwest
Activity: Did Puritans Need an Odyssey?

Writing Process Workshop

Video Library

Unit 3: The American Revolution and Constitution, 1750-1790 by Alan Taylor, University of Virginia

Introduction: The American Revolution and Constitution, 1750-1790

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: “A Mighty Empire! I Do Not Mean An Independent One”
Reading: The Patriots: “Survive or Perish with my Country”
Reading: A Civil War: “The People Think of Nothing But Plundering One Another”
Reading: The Revolution in the West, 1776-1783 (Topical Essay)
Reading: Three Myths of the American Constitution (Topical Essay) by Jack Rakove, Stanford University
Reading: Brief History of the Emergence of the US Constitution

Sourcebook

Activity: The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
Activity: The Declaration of Independence (1776)
Activity: Slaves and Slaveowners
Activity: Captain Hendrick Aupaumut
Activity: The Bill of Rights (1789-1792)
Activity: Gouverneur Morris and the US Constitution (1787)
Activity: Medicine in the 18th Century

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Slaves, Slaveowners, and Abolition, 1773-1785

Video Library

Unit 4: The Early American Republic, 1790-1815 by Caroline Winterer, Stanford University
Introduction: The Early American Republic, 1790-1815

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: “What then is the American, this new man?”
Reading: The New Rome, 1790-1815 (Topical Essay)
Reading: The US and the “Foreign World”
Reading: Filling Up the Canvas of America: The West

Sourcebook

Activity: Women’s Education
Activity: The Growth of Slavery in the New Republic
Activity: Slave Revolts in the Early Republic
Activity: The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
Activity: The First Party System
Activity: The Growth of Commerce, 1790-1840
Activity: The Demise of the Federalist Party and the Hartford Convention
Activity: Would Benjamin Franklin have appreciated the social network?

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Women’s Education

Video Library

Unit 5: The North, 1815-1860 by Seth Rockman, Brown University

Introduction: The North, 1815-1860

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: Development
Reading: Democracy
Reading: Free People of Color and Citizenship (Topical Essay)
Reading: Dilemmas

Sourcebook

Activity: Measuring Alcoholism
Activity: Transportation and Communication
Activity: Andrew Jackson’s Speech on the Bank of the United States
Activity: Horace Mann and Education
Activity: Alexis de Tocqueville and the Right of Association
Activity: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Measuring the Problem of Alcoholism in America

Video Library

Unit 6: The West, 1815-1860 by Karl Jacoby, Columbia University

Introduction: The West, 1815-1860

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: Many American Revolutions
Reading: Worlds in Motion
Reading: Empires, Nations, and Theocracies
Reading: Blood and Soil: The US-Mexico War, 1846-1848 (Topical Essay)

Activities

Activity: Manifest Destiny
Activity: Chinook Jargon
Activity: The Oregon Trail and the Clipper Ship
Activity: Californios and the Bear Flag Revolt
Activity: Railroad Companies and Western Land Grants
Activity: The Gold Rush, Chinese Immigrants, and Mark Twain
Activity: John Wesley Powell

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: John Wesley Powell’s Map

Video Library

Unit 7: The South, 1815-1860 by Thavolia Glymph, Duke University

Introduction: The South, 1815-1860

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: Rise of the Cotton Economy and the Expansion of Slavery
Reading: Social Structure and Hierarchy of the Plantation
Reading: The War Within: The Plantation House in the South (Topical Essay)
Reading: Late Antebellum Period and the Civil War, 1850-63

Activities

Activity: Slave Labor and Plantation Rules
Activity: The Great Compromise on Slavery
Activity: Yeoman Farmers
Activity: Frederick Douglass and John C. Calhoun
Activity: Slave Recollections in the Federal Writers’ Project
Activity: The Dred Scott Decision and the Election of 1860

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Slave Labor and Plantation Rules

Video Library

Unit 8: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1860-1877 by Kate Masur, Northwestern University
Introduction: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1860-1877

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: The Civil War
Reading: Reconstruction
Reading: Two Years that Changed America, 1865-67 (Topical Essay)
Reading: Consolidation
Reading: Native Americans in the Late 19th Century (Topical Essay) by Libra Hilde, San Jose State University

Sourcebook

Activity: The Emancipation Proclamation
Activity: Turning Point: Gettysburg and Vicksburg, July 1863
Activity: The Gettysburg Address
Activity: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
Activity: The Richmond Bread Riots
Activity: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
Activity: Stanton and the AERA
Activity: The Black Codes of Mississippi
Activity: Buffalo Soldiers

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: The Emancipation Proclamation

Video Library

American History 2

Unit 9: The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1877-1914 by Charles Postel, San Francisco State University

Introduction: The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1877-1914

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: The Gilded Age
Reading: American Imperialism, 1870-1920
Reading: Reform
Reading: Populism: Peril or Promise? (Topical Essay)
Reading: Progressive Action
Reading: The Great Migration (Topical Essay) by Hasia Diner, New York University
Reading: The African American Quest for Rights, 1866-1940
Reading: Hispanic Americans and the Southwest, 1866-1940s

Activities

Activity: Chinese Immigration
Activity: Thomas Nast, Chinese Exclusion, and the Editorial Cartoon
Activity: Omaha Platform (1892)
Activity: Jacob Riis’s Photos
Activity: The Election of 1912
Activity: Ethnic Enclaves
Activity: Women’s Suffrage Movement and the West
Activity: The Great Migration of African Americans
Activity: The Skyscraper, the Elevator, and New York City

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Jacob Riis’s Photos

Video Library

Unit 10: WWI and the 1920s, 1914-1929 by Glen Gendzel, San Jose State University

Introduction: World War I and the 1920s, 1914-1929

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: America at War and Peace
Reading: America Enters WWI, 1914-1918 (Topical Essay)
Reading; Military History of WWI, 1914-1918
Reading: The Jazz Age
Reading: The Great Crash

Sourcebook

Activity: Patriotic Music
Activity: WWI Propaganda Posters
Activity: The Sykes-Picot Agreement/Balfour Declaration
Activity: Zimmerman Telegram (1917)
Activity: Wilson’s Declaration of War (April 2, 1917)
Activity: Eugene V. Debs v. United States (1918)
Activity: Wilson’s 14 Points Speech
Activity: Why could the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 be considered the first great
Pandemic?
Activity: Advertising
Activity: Was the flapper a feminist?

Writing Process Workshops

Writing: Advertising in the 1920s and 30s

Video Library

Unit 11: The Great Depression, 1929-1941 by Linda Gordon, New York University

Introduction: The Great Depression, 1929-1941

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: The Great Depression
Reading: The First New Deal
Reading: Visual Americanism: The Art of the New Deal (Topical Essay)
Reading: The Second New Deal and the Road to War

Sourcebook

Activity: What was the psychological effect of the Great Depression?
Activity: John Steinbeck and Depression-Era Literature
Activity: Huey Long and Demagoguery
Activity: Dorothea Lange and Hispanic Farmworkers
Activity: Letters to the Roosevelts
- Activity: Japanese American Internment
Activity: Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Letters to the Roosevelts

Video Library

Unit 12: WWII and the Cold War, 1941-1972 by Katherine A.S. Sibley, St. Joseph’s University

Introduction: World War II and the Cold War, 1941-1972

Unit Further Reading

Chapter 34: World II

Reading: World War II
Reading: The History of World War II in its Great Battles
Reading: The Cold War
Reading: Red Spies in America: Rise of the National Security State (Topical Essay)
Reading: Vietnam
Reading: The Vietnam War and the 1960s (Topical Essay), by Matthew Avitabile, State University of New York, Oneonta

Sourcebook

Activity: Gallup Polls on Entering WWII, 1939-41
- Activity: Japanese American Internment
Activity: Women and the Home Front in WWII
Activity: The European and Pacific Theaters of War, 1943-45
Activity: The Atomic Bomb and Truman
Activity: The Long Telegram
Activity: Kennedy’s American University Speech
Activity: Anti-Soviet Propaganda
- Activity: The Tet Offensive

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: Anti-Soviet Propaganda

Video Library

Unit 13: Post-War America, 1945-1972 by Mark Brilliant, University of California, Berkeley

Introduction: Post-War America, 1945-1972

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: The Post-War Boom
Reading: Racial Equality
Reading: “The Color of America has Changed”: The Long and Wide Civil Rights Movement (Topical Essay)
Reading: Gender Equality

Sourcebook

Activity: Black Nationalism and Malcolm X
Activity: Voting Rights Act of 1965
Activity: Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers
Activity: The Legacy of Perez v. Sharp
Activity: Anti-War Rock Music of the 1960s
Activity: Love Canal
Activity: Title IX and the Women’s Movement

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: The Legacy of Perez v. Sharp

Video Library

Unit 14: The Conservative Turn, 1972-2000 by Julian Zelizer, Princeton University

Introduction: The Conservative Turn, 1972-2000

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: The Heritage Foundation, 1974
Reading: Conservatism and the Politics of Foreign Policy, 1972-1980 (Topical Essay)
Reading: The Re-election of Ronald Reagan, 1984
Reading: New Taxes, 1990

Sourcebook

Activity: Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and Regional Politics
Activity: The Second Gilded Age
Activity: The Rise of Incarceration
Activity: Ethnicity and Electoral Politics
Activity: Gender, Age, and Voting
Activity: Women in Congress, 1917-2011

Writing Workshop

Writing: The Second Gilded Age

Video Library

Unit 15: The Changing American Economy, 1972-present by Bethany Moreton, Dartmouth College

Introduction: The Changing American Economy, 1972-present

Unit Further Reading

Readings

Reading: Deindustrialization and the Rise of the Service Economy
Reading: Gay and Lesbian History, 1945-present (Topical Essay)
Reading: The Effects of Automation and Globalization
Reading: The Financialization of the American Economy

Sourcebook

Activity: The Rodney King Riots
Activity: College Graduation and the Labor Market
Activity: The Living Wage Movement
Activity: Clinton’s 1995 Speech on Welfare Reform
Activity: The Rise of the Sustainable Energy Economic Sector

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: The Rodney King Riots

Video Library

Unit 16: The Demographic Revolution, 1972-present by David Gutierrez, University of California, San Diego

Introduction: The Demographic Revolution, 1972-present

Unit Further Reading

Reading

Reading: The Recent History of Population Change
Reading: Immigration in the Postwar Era (Topical Essay)
Reading: Demographic Dynamics Since 1965
Reading: Socioeconomic Factors

Sourcebook

Activity: The US Supreme Court
Activity: 9-11 and Immigration
Activity: The Social Network and Sociability
Activity: The Aging of America
Activity: Does social mobility exist in America?

Writing Process Workshop

Writing: The US Supreme Court

Video Library

The following readings and activities may have some interest for the American history course. They are located in other course platforms of Globalyceum, which you can also drag and drop over to your American history course at no additional cost.

Africa

Reading: Sub Saharan Africa World History 1, Chapter 17
Reading: African Slave Trade World History 2, Chapter 28
Activity: Trans-Saharan Trade World History 1, Chapter 17
Activity: Sugar, Slavery, and Abolition World History 2, Chapter 28
Activity: Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade World History 2, Chapter 28
Activity: Revolt Aboard on a Slave Ship World History 2, Chapter 28
Activity: African Scramble and Public Opinion World History 2, Chapter 36
Activity: How did the African Scramble affect Nation Building World History 2, Chapter 36

The Americas

Reading: The Americas World History 1, Chapter 18
Activity: The Decline of Mayan Civilization World History 1, Chapter 18
Activity: Agriculture in the Andes World History 1, Chapter 18
Activity: Pre-Columbian Cultures World History 1, Chapter 18
Activity: Why were Tenochtitlan and other cities large in 1500 World History 1, Chapter 18

Europe at the Time of Contact