HIST 335 A New Birth of Freedom: U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction
This course examines the political, social and military conflicts that divided the United States during the years 1845-1876, the era of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Readings in primary documents, such as letters and diaries, supplement secondary sources and library research in the study of Southern slavery and the secession crisis, emancipation and the destruction of slavery, the political and economic organization of societies for war, the evolution of warfare, and the struggles over Reconstruction in Congress and the postwar South.
4 Undergraduate credits
Effective August 14, 2010 to present
Meets graduation requirements for
Learning outcomes
General
- Understands how moral, political, and economic conflicts over slavery and abolition shaped the onset and development of the U.S. Civil War and the postwar Reconstruction period, consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctively characteristic of upper-division courses completed at a comprehensive university.
- Understands how white and black Americans, both North and South, slave and free, women and men, experienced and understood the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctively characteristic of upper-division courses completed at a comprehensive university.
- Understands the political and economic organization of both northern and southern societies for war in the 1860s, consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctively characteristic of upper-division courses completed at a comprehensive university.
- Understands the political, economic, and social struggles over race and labor relations during the Reconstruction period, consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctively characteristic of upper-division courses completed at a comprehensive university.
- Understands the process of emancipation and the destruction of the institution of slavery, as well as the survival of elements of the institution of slavery after legal emancipation in the U.S. South, consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctively characteristic of upper-division courses completed at a comprehensive university.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum
Goal 5: History and the Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Employ the methods and data that historians and social and behavioral scientists use to investigate the human condition.
- Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.
- Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
- Develop and communicate alternative explanations or solutions for contemporary social issues.
Goal 7: Human Diversity
- Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States' history and culture.
- Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
- Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.
- Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.
- Demonstrate communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.