Themes in American History

This course features a number of important primary source collections in American history, from the colonial period through the twentieth century. Students will be introduced to major concepts and frameworks for understanding American history, across all periods, along with methodological challenges and major historiographical debates which might inform their approach to each set of primary sources. Those sources range from personal papers/correspondence through legal and political texts, interviews and a variety of published books. Students are not expected to have a background in American history before taking the paper, and will be given sufficient grounding in each set of primary sources to complete the Research Project successfully using one or more types of source.