A History of the United States (1870-Present)

We constructed A History of the United States by reading and experimenting with each of the textbooks that are on the market. We already knew that many students approach college as if it is a quest to figure out what material is likely to be on an exam. We were surprised to see how savvy students were when they applied this model to textbook reading—many of them simply skip through about a third of a typical US history textbook. It was clear that we could eliminate lengthy opening vignettes, extended block quotes, and special sections that students assumed were placed in shaded boxes to indicate that they were not going to be on the exam. We also found that students are allergic to textbooks that only have a few pictures, and they really do learn from images that are presented in a way that teaches an important lesson. However, these same students also admitted that they were easily distracted when they read. When there are too many pictures and when all these images disrupt the flow of the text, they admitted, they catch themselves “browsing” their textbooks as if they were catalogs or popular magazines. Here’s the best part: this allowed the author freedom to include a lot more content and essential background information without making the book any longer than other textbooks. We found that key concepts that are important to understanding history—such as the difference between Socialism, Capitalism, and Communism—could be incorporated into the text. We were able to include examples from labor history beyond Homestead, Haymarket, and Pullman. In so doing, we hope our book communicates the simple truth that the historic conflict between labor and capital was not limited to Chicago and Pennsylvania.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: David J. Trowbridge

American Environmental History

Short Description: A comprehensive survey of American Environmental History Long Description: For too long the environment has been considered little more than a neutral background to history. This text surveys findings of the new field of Environmental History about how the environment of the Americas influenced the actions of people here and how people affected their environments, from prehistory to the present. Word Count: 80438 (Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Dan Allosso

Women in US History (HIST 215)

The heritage of women represents one-half of the history of the United States; for that reason alone it is worthy of closer scrutiny than it has received in standard history courses. The movement of women for social, political, and economic equality represents the longest and most far-reaching civil rights movement in U.S. history, yet it is a movement that has received minimal space and attention in standard history courses. This class is an attempt to bring to the foreground a history that we all share but perhaps have until now lacked the opportunity or information to focus on. It is a history that I find both maddening and inspiring, and one whose study is challenging, difficult, and ultimately so rewarding that it is worth every bit of effort, and then some.

Material Type: Assessment, Full Course, Reading, Syllabus

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework. It offers sound interdisciplinary analysis of selected historical and contemporary issues surrounding the origins and manifestations of White supremacy in the United States. By placing race at the center of the work, the book offers significant lessons for understanding the institutional marginalization of Blacks in contemporary America and their historical resistance and perseverance.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Gwendolyn Graham, Joshua Farrington, Norman W. Powell

The American LGBTQ Rights Movement: An Introduction

The American LGBTQ Rights Movement: An Introduction is a peer-reviewed chronological survey of the LGBTQ fight for equal rights from the turn of the 20th century to the early 21st century. Illustrated with historical photographs, the book beautifully reveals the heroic people and key events that shaped the American LGBTQ rights movement. The book includes personal narratives to capture the lived experience from each era, as well as details of essential organizations, texts, and court cases that defined LGBTQ activism and advocacy.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Kyle Morgan, Meg Rodriguez

"And We Still Rise": Open Pedagogy and Black History at a Rural Comprehensive State College

In Spring 2019, students at The State University of New York College at Plattsburgh (SUNY Plattsburgh) researched, designed, and built And Still We Rise: Celebrating Plattsburgh’s (Re)Discovery of Iconic Black Visitors (ASWR), an exhibit in the Feinberg Library on prominent Black political and cultural figures who had visited the college since the 1960s. The thirteen students in African-American Political Thought (Political Science 371), taught by Dr. John McMahon, researched in the college’s archives and secondary sources to curate photos, text and multimedia for physical and virtual exhibits.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Case Study, Reading

Authors: Debra Kimok, John McMahon, Joshua F. Beatty, Timothy C. Hartnett

United States History II

“History is our ongoing conversation with the past.” So say the authors of American Yawp. This course takes an approach to history that fosters a method of critical thought and a rigorous questioning of the history of the United States. Key topics include Reconstruction, Industrial America, conquering the West, capital and labor, the American empire, the progressive era, World War I and its aftermath, the 1920s, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, post-war affluence, the 1960s, cultural and societal conflicts, the rise of the right and conservatism, and the recent past from 1990 to the Great Recession. This course is based on the collaborative, open, online text entitled American Yawp, including the American Yawp Primary Source Reader. The course also includes ancillary material from OpenStax US History as well as videos, images, quizzes, and other enhancements from various sources. Assignments were contributed by Thomas deMayo and Chris Thomas from Reynolds Community College. This course was developed using the OpenStax US History text with the inclusion of a primary source reader from American Yawp. The course also includes additional videos, images, and enhancements, as well as a quiz bank provided by Lumen Learning. Assignments were contributed by Thomas deMayo and Chris Thomas from Reynolds Community College.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Lumen Learning

United States History II

What does it mean to be informed? To know our history? This course encourages students to develop a critical understanding of the history of our nation. United States History II covers the chronological history of the United States from Reconstruction through the beginning of the twenty-first century and introduces key forces and major developments that together form the US experience, providing a balanced approach that considers the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience), with particular attention paid to issues of race, class, and gender. This text comes almost entirely from OpenStax U.S. History, but is supplemented with primary source readings from The American Yawp Reader. There are other minor additions and enhancements made by Lumen Learning or other faculty.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Lumen Learning

Open Anthology of The American Revolution: Primary Source Readings 1623-1800

The American Revolution began in earnest on April 19, 1775, but it didn’t start there. It had been in the making for at least a century and a half before that famous date. This compilation, therefore, brings together sources organized into four eras: Virginia Settlement, Puritans in New England, The Old Colonial Period, and The American Revolution, to chart the evolution of the American self from British citizens to revolutionaries.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Laura Lyons McLemore

United States History I

"Romanticism and myth surround United States history in contemporary popular culture. This course encourages students to develop a critical understanding of the history of our nation. This course will guide students through a wealth of primary sources, and view videos tied to clear learning objectives designed to improve their critical thinking skills. Sample assignments are included. Key topics include early globalization and European exploration, colonial societies, the English Empire, America’s War for Independence, the creation of the American Republic, the industrial transformation, Jacksonian democracy, westward expansion, “King” Cotton and idealism in the antebellum South, the troubled 1850s, and the Civil War to Reconstruction. This course was developed using the OpenStax US History text with the inclusion of a primary source reader from American Yawp. The course also includes additional videos, images, and enhancements, as well as a quiz bank provided by Lumen Learning. Assignments were contributed by Thomas deMayo and Chris Thomas from Reynolds Community College."

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Lumen Learning

Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution. Featuring sixty-nine authors and full texts of their works, the selections in this open anthology represent the diverse voices in early American literature. This completely-open anthology will connect students to the conversation of literature that is embedded in American history and has helped shaped its culture.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Wendy Kurant

The Birth of a Nation: The Cinematic Past in the Present

The Cinematic Past in the Present Short Description: More than one hundred years since it premiered on cinema screens, D. W. Griffith’s controversial photoplay, The Birth of a Nation, continues to influence American film production and to have relevance for race relations in the United States. While lauded at the time of its release for its visual and narrative innovations and a box office hit with film audiences, it provoked African American protest in 1915 for racially offensive content. In this collection of essays, contributors explore Griffith’s film as text, artifact, and cultural legacy and place it into both the historical and transnational contexts of the first half of the 1900s and its resonances with current events in America, such as #BlackLivesMatter, #HollywoodSoWhite, and #OscarsSoWhite movements. Through studies of the film’s reception, formal innovations in visual storytelling, and comparisons with contemporary movies, this work challenges the idea the United States has moved beyond racial problems and highlights the role of film and representation in the continued struggle for equality. Word Count: 108720 ISBN: 978-0-253-04509-6 (Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Michael T. Martin

Secession of the Southern States

This collection uses primary sources to explore the secession of southern states from the US Government prior to the Civil War. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Franky Abbott

United States enters World War I

Learn about the United States' reasons for entering World War I. Created by Sal Khan.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Sal Khan

Eugenics Movement in the United States

In 1883, Sir Francis Galton, a nineteenth-century English social scientist, statistician, and psychologist, coined the term “eugenics” from the Greek word eugenes, meaning well-born. The practice of eugenics aims to improve the genetic quality of a human population through selective breeding—encouraging reproduction for the “strongest” humans while discouraging reproduction for the “weakest” humans. Cultural, social, and scientific ideas of the late nineteenth-century informed how eugenicists identified desirable and undesirable genetic traits. According to these eugenicists, the “strongest” humans were typically white (from northern and western Europe), healthy, and wealthy. The “weakest” humans were typically non-white (or white from southern and eastern Europe), poor, physically or mentally disabled, or considered criminally or sexually “deviant.”

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Jamie Lathan

American Consumer Culture

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the “good life” through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Jacobs, Meg

Black Matters: Introduction to Black Studies

Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: DeGraff, Michel

American History to 1865

This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Lincoln.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Maier, Pauline

Western Civilization: A Concise History

Includes Volumes I, II & III Short Description: Download FREE digital formats or read online.Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8,000 BCE to 2017 CE. Volume 1: from the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia c. 8,000 BCE through the early Middle Ages in Europe c. 1,000 CE. Volume 1 covers topics including Mesopotamia,Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Islamic caliphates, and the early European Middle Ages.Volume 2: from the early Middle Ages to the French Revolution in 1789 CE. Volume 2 covers topics including the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the European conquest of the Americas, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.Volume 3: from the Napoleonic era to the recent past. Volume 3 covers topics including the Industrial Revolution, the politics of Europe in the nineteenth century, modern European imperialism, the world wars, fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust, the postwar era, the Cold War, and recent developments in economics and politics. Long Description: Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8,000 BCE to 2017 CE. Volume 1: from the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia c. 8,000 BCE through the early Middle Ages in Europe c. 1,000 CE. Volume 1 covers topics including Mesopotamia,Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Islamic caliphates, and the early European Middle Ages. Volume 2: from the early Middle Ages to the French Revolution in 1789 CE. Volume 2covers topics including the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the European conquest of the Americas, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. Volume 3: from the Napoleonic era to the recent past. Volume 3 covers topics including the Industrial Revolution, the politics of Europe in the nineteenth century, modern European imperialism, the world wars, fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust, the postwar era, the Cold War, and recent developments in economics and politics. Word Count: 279920 ISBN: 978-1-998755-04-2 (Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Christopher Brooks

Western Civilization: A Concise History - Volume 1

A three-volume textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from c. 8000 BCE to the recent past. Written to be compatible with most existing Western Civilization courses at American colleges and universities, Western Civilization: A Concise History rejects the triumphalist narrative of western progress while still providing an essential overview of the histories of the ancient Mediterranean, Europe, and the global connections of the modern era. "Version 3.0" released May, 2024.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Christopher Brooks