USH Introduction & Ch.1-2
Importance of Elections
Elect leaders
Republic
Educate public
People actually pay attention
Accountability
Officials have to report to “the boss” and get re-hired
Have to answer for what they have or haven’t done
Creates legitimacy
Believes government has a right to rules since we put them there
Process of selecting the president
Political parties hold primary elections
Party members vote to decide who will run in general election
Occurs first six months of election year
Winner of each state gets delegates
Nominating convention
Usually winner is known before convention
Held during July and August of election year
Delegates selected in primary process gather to officially nominate candidate
Four days of speeches
Little work actually done
Create party platform that explains philosophy, issue stands
Presidential candidate speaks on Thursday night
General election
First Tuesday following the first Monday in November
State by State vote
National Vote total doesn’t determine winner
Electoral college vote decides winner, not popular vote
Each state gets number of electors based on number of senators and representatives in congress
Small state overrepresentation
Gives Republican candidate an advantage
The campaign
Focus on small number of “swing” states
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia
Other states will rarely get attention of campaigns
2024 Election craziness
Pre-craziness period(before June)
Biden, Trump, both lock up nomination
Oldest man to ever run
Lots of People who hated both candidates
Craziness
First debate disaster for Biden (June 27)
Looks old, confused
Thoroughly answer the following questions individually, in your own words, and based on the document. Do not use outside sources.
1. What issues can arise from using primary documents?
Primary Documents may be incomplete or biased as only literate people would be able to write documents which excludes a large population of illiterate people, this causes the documents to be biased towards what the writer feels, and they may be more challenging to read.
2. What’s the difference between elite history and social history?
Elite history is the history of the people in leadership positions and their perspective, social history is the history of the civilians and common folk and their perspective.
3. Why is it important to have “granularity” when we study history?
It is important to have granularity to take into account all the details of history, as talking in generalities can mask very important differences among different people. For example things such as where you lived, if you were educated or not, race, gender, and financial status can all make someone's life different, which is why they needed to be taken into account.
4. What is context? Why is it important?
Context is the circumstances happening to someone that can affect their behavior. Context can be political, social/cultural, economic, and other global circumstances. Since this can influence someone's behavior we need to take it into consideration when determining why someone did something, and to understand why they did it.
5. What do we mean by political context? Economic context? Social context?
Political context is what was happening in the government, those with influence, and the opinions and attitudes of the people. Economic context is what was happening with the economy and banks; the workers, their wages, unemployment, inflation, and what they were spending it on; and the stock market, global trade, the production of goods and services, and the hosts or farming that goes into the materials needed for the production. Social context is essentially the people's way of life, this consists of many things but mainly their daily lives, relationships, attitudes and opinions, and everything that makes up their demographic.
6. What is transnationalism? Why has it grown exponentially?
Transnationalism defines everything not bound by a border or country, things such as trends, diseases, ideas, cultures, and more, and are important pieces of context that need to be taken into account, as even though they aren’t bound to a certain country they can influence one, and affect it. Transnationalism has grown exponentially as new technology has been introduced, such as easy international transportation, and easier ways to communicate, most significantly the internet which has connected billions of people around the world.
7. What do we mean by scale? How does it affect historical significance?
Scale is the level we are focusing on, such as local, regional, state, national etc. These affect historical significance as something that is significant in one area or one country may not have any significance elsewhere, meaning something big that happens to the people in the US, might not mean anything to people in other countries.
8. What issues arise concerning context when we make judgments about past behavior?
Even when taking context into consideration, making judgements about past behavior may not work because we are judging them against our time and morals, instead we have to find a balance between these two to properly understand why people in the past behaved a certain way.
9. Define structure.
Structure is the context and circumstances of a certain time period, where some view it as the main factor in determining history.
10. Define agency.
Agency is where individuals are the main factor in determining history,
11. How do structure and agency interact?
When structure and agency interact, the structure and all of the context and circumstances in it provide a framework for agency to work, and things being done by a combination of structure and agency, which makes all things possible.
11. Define contingency.
Contingency is saying instead of outcomes relying on a certain context or individual, it is dependent on something else. For example instead of something being done solely through an individual, it is done through that individual's decisions.
12. What are two key points to keep in mind about historical narratives?
Things do not always go in a straight line, and we can also go backwards. This means even after all the progress humans have made since the beginning of society, there are still moments when people can go backwards and do things humans haven’t done in a long time. The second key point is whose viewpoint will the story entail, meaning there are going to be certain individuals' viewpoints that will be less popular and ignored. When not all viewpoints are accounted for, we are left with an incomplete picture of history.
13. What complications arise when looking at our national heroes?
When looking at national heroes we admire their greatness and their achievements and picture them as perfect or near-perfect individuals; however, this is not the case as every human is flawed yet that doesn’t necessarily mean that these people were bad people, rather it means we must weigh out the good and the bad these people did.
This section explains the origins and spread of Native Americans, emphasizing their adaptapibility and the creation of diverse cultures, which is important in understanding the continents early history
This section is relevant because it shows the diversity and complexity of Native American Societies before Europeans contact. Understanding the early civilization is important for understanding of US History, and its foundations
This section is important because it highlights the changes in Europe before 1492 that influenced Columbus’s voyage and shaped early European interactions with the Americas. Understanding these conditions helps explain the motivations and expectations of the first European to arrive in the New World
This section is important because it explains how Columbus’s voyage initiated global human contact, leading to European dominance in the Americas and the devastating impact on Native populations due to disease and conquest. This understanding is important for understand the changes in the continent following european exploration
This section is important because it explains how the protestant Reformation changed European religious conflict in shaping European expains an migration to the Continent
This section highlights the early Spanish exploration in North America, emphasizing the challenges and limits for understanding the Spaniards early role in exploring and attempting to colonize parts of what is now the United States, despire facing significant obstacles.
Thinking Historically
“The past is with us, though we often fail to notice.”
Adam Rothman
“We do not make history; we are made by history.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Shining a light on the past helps us see ourselves more clearly.”
Unknown author
Key Question: As you read this document, think about how this class will differ from your previous history classes. What do you think will be the single biggest difference?
As we begin our exploration of American history, it’s important to think about how we think about history. That’s going to be one of the main differences between this college-level class and your previous classes. Not only will we go into more detail about the who, what, when, and how, but also the why. And more importantly we’ll take a broader look at how those events form a pattern over time, and how that pattern helps explain why things are the way they are today. We’ll study not only the events, but the way we explain and interpret those events. We’ll also look at how we form those events into a narrative—a story—that helps define who we are as Americans, and who we are as individuals.
When we study history, we have to take a different approach than we do in physical sciences (chemistry, physics…) and that can sometimes be annoying for those of us who like certainty and unambiguous conclusions. Like other social sciences, history combines hard facts and statistics—like names, dates, events—along with interpretations and suppositions (a fancy word for educated guesses). Because historians aren’t gathering data in a lab with carefully controlled environments, they often don’t have all of the information they need. After all, they often can’t talk to the participants (because they’re, well, dead), and it’s rare that they have complete and accurate accounts of events. This leaves room for different interpretations. A historian put it this way: “History is not only a collection of hard facts, but a (jumble) of soft interpretations…(that) can be disturbing because it seems to threaten the cool objectivity and calm authority of…textbooks.” The result is that the “experts” can have very different views on why things happened and their importance, as well as different ways of viewing things.
The purpose of this document is to introduce some of the themes that will help you think more deeply about history. Throughout the year, we’ll be referring back to them. They will form the basis of many, if not most, of the essays you’ll write on your tests. The whole point of the class is that, by the end of the year, you’ll not only have a deeper knowledge about the key people, ideas, and events that make up our history, but also a deeper understanding of how we think about and study history. If, after reading this document, you decide this approach to studying history isn’t for you, feel free to talk to Guidance about moving to the regular US History class. I won’t be offended! With that being said, let’s dig in!
Here are some key ideas we’ll be using in our study of US History this year:
1. A useful way to understand history is to see it in terms of change, continuity, and conflict. We’ll study the forces that bring about change, like people, ideas, and technology; the things that remain constant throughout history, either through their lasting value or because of forces that resist change; and the conflict and upheaval that result when the forces of change meet the forces fighting to keep things the same.
2. You’ll learn how to decide if something is historically significant. We’ll set up some criteria for determining if something is important and likely to be remembered decades from now, or if it will be soon forgotten.
3. A key part of studying history is examining artifacts from historical eras. That involves, among other things, reading primary documents created by the people alive at that time, documents reflecting their attitudes and the culture and events of their day. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that those documents don’t paint a complete picture. These documents, and other artifacts, are “fragmentary, flawed…as well as often one-sided” and are sometimes created by “self-interested or insensitive observers.” They won’t reflect the total picture because, for one thing, only literate people will leave behind documents, which means the perspective of huge masses of people who were illiterate are left out. As a student, you’ll probably find many of these documents challenging because they use the language of the era and you might need to read them more than once to understand them.
4. We’ll explore the question of how to approach the study of history: should the focus be on the elite—the social, political, economic, and intellectual leaders—or on the lives of common people, a “social history” approach? We’ll also look at how those approaches complement each other—how the elites are impacted by what’s going on in society, and vice-versa.
5. One mistake we tend to make not just in the study of history, but of other social sciences, is to paint with a broad brush. We often talk about the viewpoint of men, women, poor people, Black people, and “Americans” in general. The increasing emphasis on social history has helped to add “granularity”—a greater level of detail—to our perspectives, focusing on specific subsets of people rather than speaking in broad generalities. For instance, the lives of women in colonial times were much different depending on how rich or poor you were, if you lived in a city or on a farm, if you were a Black woman or a White woman, if you lived in New England or in the South, if you were married or single, educated or uneducated…; The same is true for men, or Black people or rich people or poor people. While you clearly had some things in common, like gender, race, or class, that might have had similar impacts on your life, there were also other characteristics that made your life different. The bottom line is that while it is useful to talk in generalities to emphasize commonalities, it’s also very important to remember that those generalities can mask some very important differences.
6. When viewing historical events and eras, it’s important to remember the context in which they occurred. By context we mean the political, social/cultural, economic, and global circumstances in which people are living. The context affects people’s behavior, oftentimes without them even realizing it, much like fish never realizing that they’re in water. So in order to understand that behavior, we have to understand the context in which it occurred. As one historian put it, we have to consider things “with the eyes, soul, and feeling” of the time.
One of the hard parts about that, though, is trying to set aside our own assumptions, beliefs, values and experiences in order to fully appreciate the era we’re studying. Besides just the problem of setting aside our own experiences, trying to fully understand their experiences is very difficult because so much of what was going on at that time was considered to be unremarkable so no one wrote them down. Things like lice, fleas, rats, cockroaches, being too cold or too hot, hunger, infant deaths—all of those were so ordinary that they were rarely mentioned, making our ability to put ourselves in their shoes virtually impossible. One historian put it this way: “We cannot experience what they experienced in the way they experienced it.” Historians talk about history being a mix of science and art, of logic and reason and imagination. This is a great example of how we need to use our imagination to recreate the experiences of our ancestors.
Now, let’s look at the different kinds of context we’ll explore. The political context refers to things related to the operation of the government. That includes government institutions, like Congress, the court system, the executive branch and president. It also includes people outside of the government who can influence its decisions, like voters and powerful business elites. Of course, as we’ll discuss this year, it involves elections which is how we select the political elites that have so much influence over the course of history. Finally, it includes the attitudes and opinions that influence the people and institutions that make up the political context.
The economic context is anything that affects the way people make and spend their money. It involves workers and businesses, the banking system, unemployment, inflation, the stock market, global trade, the way we make our products, including both raw materials and the process by which we turn those materials into finished goods, and a host of other things.
The social/cultural context is a little harder to define because it includes a lot of different things. Generally, it refers to people’s daily lives, relationships, attitudes, beliefs, the groups they belong to, their demographic characteristics—wealth, race, religion, where they live, education level, gender, age—and the art, literature, music, and sources of entertainment that fill up their spare time. Broadly speaking, it’s people’s way of life. As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, it’s what we often take for granted and don’t even think about. It’s just the way things are. The social context can be a major barrier to change—a structural barrier—if that change is going to disrupt people’s daily lives.
The global context refers to the events and trends around the world that impact us. These can include political, economic, military, and social/cultural items. As we’ve learned recently, it can also involve diseases. While the fact that we are separated from the rest of the world by two major oceans has made us a bit more immune to international events than, say, European or Asian countries who have several different nations on their borders, we still are impacted and have been since the nation’s founding.
A key concept when discussing the global context is transnationalism. It’s a big word for a simple idea: there are world-wide trends, ideas, diseases, cultures, and other things that aren’t contained by national borders These world-wide trends affect many countries, each of which reacts in a different way based on their unique political, economic, and social/cultural context. That means that we have to put what happens in any individual country within the broader, global context. That can help us realize that maybe what we think is unique to our country—or any country—isn’t quite so unique. It says that in some ways, we overemphasize national borders, which is particularly true in the case of the US since our borders have changed over the course of our history. One historian wrote that if social history rewrote history from the bottom up—from the viewpoint of the average person—then transnational history rewrites it from the outside in. Of course, the power of transnational influence has grown tremendously with the development of transportation and communication technology that allows for the rapid transmission of these influences.
To complicate things a bit more, it’s also necessary to see how the various contexts interact with each other. After all, we’re ultimately talking about human behavior. The things that impact one part of our life, like the way we earn our money, affects other areas of our life, like who we hang out with, what our daily schedule is like, and often what our political attitudes are. And as we’ll learn, the actions of our government can have a big impact on our economic life, and the actions the government takes can be influenced by global economic trends. A deep understanding of history requires untangling all of those influences. Needless to say—but I’ll say it anyway—that also holds true as we struggle to understand the world around us today.
A final aspect about context, and about historical perspective, is the idea of scale: what level are we focusing on? Global? National? State? Local? After all, things happen here in Lafayette that are tremendously important to our community and have a major impact on our lives. When the SIA plant opened, it created thousands of jobs, brought new people into the area, helped spark a housing boom, created new tax income for the local government, and many other things. However, the opening of the SIA plant had virtually no impact if we viewed it from a national perspective, and even less impact if viewed from a global perspective—no one in Europe cared one bit about a new car factory opening in some place in America they’d never heard of. So while the opening of SIA was a historic event for Lafayette (and to a lesser extent, the state of Indiana) and has had a major impact on a large number of Lafayette citizens over a long period of time, it hasn’t had that same impact elsewhere.
On the other hand, what happens globally, nationally, and at the state level can have a tremendous influence on us. If it weren’t for the development of a global economy, SIA would not be here. If it weren’t for the US government having good relations with Japan (and helping to rebuild them after WW II), SIA would not be here. And if the state government of Indiana hadn’t reached out to Fuji Heavy Industries (the parent company of Subaru and Isuzu—formerly the “I” in SIA) they wouldn’t have come here. So considering the idea of scale helps us to have a broader perspective and see how the different contexts interact.
Key Question: What evidence could historians use to determine what the context was like during a particular historical era? How would that change over time?
7. One of the reasons why understanding context is important is that we often look back at people and the decisions they made with today’s morals and render harsh judgements on them. For example, slavery—the idea that one human can own another and treat them as property—is so clearly and obviously immoral that we can only shake our heads at the stupidity of our ancestors. When taken in the context of the time, though, slavery was largely accepted (at least before the Revolutionary War era) and woven into the fabric of our economy, society, and political system. Given that, is it fair to judge the people of that time based on our modern values? On the other hand, is it OK to just excuse such immoral behavior by saying it was “just the way it was” back then? Does contextualizing immoral behavior, in a way, excuse the inexcusable? How do we draw a balance between not using 20/20 moral hindsight on the past while at the same time not excusing terribly immoral behavior?
8. A related point is that when we look back at events, we already know how things turned out. We can see the past. Unfortunately for historical figures, they don’t have the luxury of being able to see the future. Their perspective is based on their past, while our perspective is based on their future. A historian put it simply: “The fact—the inescapable fact—is that we know how it all came out, and they did not… We will never be able to recapture their uncertainty and recreate it in the fabric of the history we write.” In this case, we have to have enough imagination to imagine that we don’t know what we know.
9. One goal of historians is to explain why things happened the way they did. There are two main factors that historians consider. The first is structure. This refers to the political, social, economic, cultural, and global context (circumstances) of the historical era. Some historians see structure as being the main factor in determining history and discount the ability of individuals to change events. The second is contingency, and its first cousin, agency. In its simplest form, contingency is the idea that outcomes depend on something else, like the decisions of individuals, previous events, or just random stuff. These two factors can conflict. Structure often puts limitations on the ability of an individual to create change. That means there’s an ongoing struggle between the historical forces and structures that can restrict people’s choices, and the ability of people to create change in light of those limiting forces and structures. The Civil War is a good example. Was the outcome predetermined by the North’s overwhelming advantage in people, industry, money, and weapons, or could the South have won if their generals had made different decisions (or if the North’s generals had made different, and worse, decisions)? Historian Adam Rothman tweeted, “Historians often invoke contingency to imply that nothing is inevitable. Things could have gone one way or another. The concept goes hand-in-hand with agency, that all things are possible. Except that all things are not possible… (One 19th century intellectual wrote), ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please…’ The historians’ task is to explain why things happened as they did… To say that something is contingent is also to say that it depends on something else. For example, one could argue that the success of the American Revolution was contingent on aid from France… I think this latter meaning of contingency – what does the course of history depend on? – is more important for historians than the idea of contingency-as-indeterminacy…”
10. We’ll also keep in mind the larger point that leads to, which is how hard it is to say with great certainty why things happened. In other words, to determine causality. As we mentioned before, in the physical sciences, it’s relatively easy to control variables in a laboratory setting and be able to tell what is causing what. Whenever we’re dealing with the social sciences, like history, it’s much harder because there are so many factors involved and it’s impossible to clearly isolate the impact that each has. The bottom line is that it’s not always easy to say exactly what causes particular historical events or trends to happen. There are almost always multiple causes involved, and historians may disagree on what those causes are, or which ones are most important. While that can be frustrating for those of us who like clarity and unambiguous answers, it makes for interesting debates!
11. The opening paragraph mentions the idea of history as a narrative—a story with a plot that ties things together and makes them understandable. It’s a way to create some order out of the chaos of the millions of events that occur every day around the country. There are two key things to keep in mind about that. First, just like in any story, that plot line doesn’t always go in a straight line. In our thinking about history, we tend to look back at the way things used to be, compare it to what things are like today, and assume that, by definition, life gets better—progress is inevitable and is just the nature of history. It’s easy to see why we’d think that way. Largely because of advances in technology, we live longer, don’t experience as much pain, enjoy a more comfortable life style, and have the time to enjoy all of the material things we’ve accumulated. Bad things like rampant hunger, disease, violence and cruelty against those we don’t like, and violations of people’s freedom and basic rights are much rarer than they used to be.
Unfortunately, we are constantly reminded that we can also go backwards. The Holocaust is a great example of how humanity resorted to behavior that we thought was impossible for a modern society. Even after the Holocaust, other genocides have occurred that remind us that bad things still happen. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows us that just because Europe had remained peaceful for over 75 years after World War II, that doesn’t guarantee continued peace. And we’re also seeing the progress we’ve made in the spread of democracy around the world can—and is—being reversed. Nations that had thrown off the yoke of communism and dictatorship in the 1980s and 1990s, like Turkey, Poland, and Hungary, are now reverting back to undemocratic governance. Alarmingly, the US isn’t immune to that happening as demonstrated by the January 6 insurrection and false accusations of the 2020 election being “stolen.”
A second key point about history as narrative is the question of who writes that narrative. After all, whoever writes the story is going to write it from a particular viewpoint, which means that other viewpoints are going to be left out or underrepresented. One of the biggest changes in history as a profession over the past few decades is the shift away from the viewpoint of elite, white men to one that includes more diverse voices, including women, Black people, poor, rural, working-class people, Native Americans, immigrants and many more. This change has led to an emphasis on social history which we mentioned before. By including these other viewpoints, we paint a much more complete picture of our nation’s history.
12. Our history is full of heroes—men and women who have achieved great things and have helped our nation achieve great things. Names like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. While it’s unquestionably true that these were great people who deserve the attention and accolades they receive, it’s equally true that they were all flawed individuals. Like all of us, they are imperfect. Their characters are imperfect, and they are all the products of the time in which they lived. The question that arises for us as we study history is how to balance those two aspects of their lives. For example, Washington and Jefferson were slave holders, and Jefferson fathered several children with one of his slaves. So how are we to judge them? Does the fact that they participated in the unquestionably evil institution of slavery mean that we shouldn’t consider them heroes? Is it appropriate to have monuments and name cities after them? As our values as a nation evolve over time, so do our evaluations of history and historical figures. There are no easy answers. The one thing historians agree on, though, is that no one is perfect. The tough part is weighing the imperfections against their accomplishments.
As you’ve probably figured out by now, history is pretty complicated! A lot has happened throughout time, and the job of piecing those events together in a coherent story is really hard. Things that seemed pretty simple and straightforward when you learned about them earlier in school probably have a lot more layers of detail and complexity than you were aware of. To complicate things, even historians are constantly learning new things as they re-examine events based on new evidence, or even looking at the same evidence from a new perspective, like that of women, Native Americans, Black people, poor people, rural people, immigrants…; As one student of history—actually, me—once wrote:
“The study of history is not static or merely an ever-more detailed recitation of events, people, and dates. Rather, it is a process that constantly provides new approaches and perspectives about old topics. It is an endless debate that both furthers our understanding of the past and complicates it, painting in shades of gray rather than black and white. It contextualizes people and events by peering through local, regional, national and international lenses and examines the political, social, cultural, and economic structures that constrain individual actions.”
Throughout the year, we’ll try to reveal the complicated nature of our nation’s history to give you not only an accurate picture of where we’ve been, but a way to think about where we are now and where we’re going. And along the way, hopefully you’ll learn more about yourself and how you fit into the ongoing story of America.
There’s one final idea that’s important as we embark on our study of history, a two-part idea that might sound a bit contradictory. The first part is the firm belief that America is the greatest country in the world and the greatest country that has ever existed. It’s been a beacon of freedom and hope for people around the world, which is why we have an immigration “problem.” People come here because they see us as a land of freedom and opportunity. Within that larger context, though, it’s also important to keep in mind our imperfections as a nation. The Founders embedded in the Preamble to the Constitution the idea that we are a work in progress when they wrote, “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” We’re good, but not perfect. They also point out what that they think that “perfect” union looks like when they then mentioned the need to “establish justice” and “promote the general welfare,” thereby creating a vision that puts justice and the common good at the center of our identity as a country. Doing this requires us to also see where our flaws are as a country and not turn a blind eye to the inevitable shortcomings that any society contains. In our case, much of that centers on issues of race, gender, and class, so we’ll spend time looking at those areas, not only to expose where we’ve fallen short as a nation, but also to help us to see the tremendous progress we’ve made, as well as to illuminate further steps we need to take in order to continue our quest to form that more perfect union.
Quotes in this document come from Bernard Bailyn’s Context in History and James Axtell’s History as Imagination.
Understanding History: This course will differ from previous history classes by focusing not only on events but also on the interpretations and narratives that shape our understanding of history.
Change, Continuity, and Conflict: History can be understood through the lenses of change, what remains constant, and the conflicts that arise from these dynamics.
Historical Significance: Students will learn to assess the importance of events and figures in history, determining what is likely to be remembered.
Artifacts and Primary Sources: The study of history involves examining primary documents, which provide insights but may also be incomplete or biased.
Social vs. Elite History: The course will explore both elite perspectives and the experiences of common people, emphasizing the importance of diverse viewpoints.
Contextual Understanding: Historical events must be understood within their political, economic, social, and global contexts, which influence behavior and decisions.
Moral Judgments: Understanding historical context is crucial to avoid imposing modern moral standards on past actions, such as slavery.
Contingency and Agency: Historians consider how individual choices and broader structures influence historical outcomes, recognizing that events could have unfolded differently.
Causality in History: Determining the causes of historical events is complex due to the interplay of multiple factors.
Narrative Construction: History is often presented as a narrative, shaped by those who write it, which can lead to the omission of certain perspectives.
Flawed Heroes: Historical figures are often celebrated for their achievements but must also be viewed in light of their imperfections.
Ongoing Debate: The study of history is dynamic, constantly evolving with new evidence and perspectives, emphasizing the complexity of historical understanding.
The course aims to provide a nuanced understanding of American history, encouraging students to reflect on their own identities within this narrative. It acknowledges America's strengths and imperfections, promoting a vision of continuous improvement toward a more perfect union.
Food for Thought
The past is with us, though we often fail to notice
We do not make history; we are made by history.
Shining a light on the past helps us see ourselves more clearly
Why Study History
To understand the present
How did we get here?
“The past causes the present, which causes the future’
George Floyd protests, Summer 2020
Slavery-Reconstructoin
Segregation-civil rights movement
Obama-Trump
To learn from our mistakes
Easier said than done
We can repeat mistakes because of underlying causes, human weaknesses
Persecute Germans WW I, Japanese WWII, Muslims 9/11
No two situations are exactly alike
To better understand human behavior
History is a giant database
“The laboratory of human experience’
We don’t have to experience it ourselves
Become better citizens
understand culture and values of US
Who we are and what we believe in
Privileges and obligations as citizens
Learn about ourselves as individuals
How has the past shaped us?
What events shaped parents, grandparents, great-grandparents?
Beliefs, values learned from experience passed down through generations
Impact of global, national, local events
scale
Local events affect Lafayette, not necessarily US, world
SIA opens
Tippecanoe Mall opens
Scales interact: national global events affect Lafayette
Importance of Elections
Elect leaders
Republic
Educate public
People actually pay attention
Accountability
Officials have to report to “the boss” and get re-hired
Have to answer for what they have or haven’t done
Creates legitimacy
Believes government has a right to rules since we put them there
Process of selecting the president
Political parties hold primary elections
Party members vote to decide who will run in general election
Occurs first six months of election year
Winner of each state gets delegates
Nominating convention
Usually winner is known before convention
Held during July and August of election year
Delegates selected in primary process gather to officially nominate candidate
Four days of speeches
Little work actually done
Create party platform that explains philosophy, issue stands
Presidential candidate speaks on Thursday night
General election
First Tuesday following the first Monday in November
State by State vote
National Vote total doesn’t determine winner
Electoral college vote decides winner, not popular vote
Each state gets number of electors based on number of senators and representatives in congress
Small state overrepresentation
Gives Republican candidate an advantage
The campaign
Focus on small number of “swing” states
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia
Other states will rarely get attention of campaigns
2024 Election craziness
Pre-craziness period(before June)
Biden, Trump, both lock up nomination
Oldest man to ever run
Lots of People who hated both candidates
Craziness
First debate disaster for Biden (June 27)
Looks old, confused
Thoroughly answer the following questions individually, in your own words, and based on the document. Do not use outside sources.
1. What issues can arise from using primary documents?
Primary Documents may be incomplete or biased as only literate people would be able to write documents which excludes a large population of illiterate people, this causes the documents to be biased towards what the writer feels, and they may be more challenging to read.
2. What’s the difference between elite history and social history?
Elite history is the history of the people in leadership positions and their perspective, social history is the history of the civilians and common folk and their perspective.
3. Why is it important to have “granularity” when we study history?
It is important to have granularity to take into account all the details of history, as talking in generalities can mask very important differences among different people. For example things such as where you lived, if you were educated or not, race, gender, and financial status can all make someone's life different, which is why they needed to be taken into account.
4. What is context? Why is it important?
Context is the circumstances happening to someone that can affect their behavior. Context can be political, social/cultural, economic, and other global circumstances. Since this can influence someone's behavior we need to take it into consideration when determining why someone did something, and to understand why they did it.
5. What do we mean by political context? Economic context? Social context?
Political context is what was happening in the government, those with influence, and the opinions and attitudes of the people. Economic context is what was happening with the economy and banks; the workers, their wages, unemployment, inflation, and what they were spending it on; and the stock market, global trade, the production of goods and services, and the hosts or farming that goes into the materials needed for the production. Social context is essentially the people's way of life, this consists of many things but mainly their daily lives, relationships, attitudes and opinions, and everything that makes up their demographic.
6. What is transnationalism? Why has it grown exponentially?
Transnationalism defines everything not bound by a border or country, things such as trends, diseases, ideas, cultures, and more, and are important pieces of context that need to be taken into account, as even though they aren’t bound to a certain country they can influence one, and affect it. Transnationalism has grown exponentially as new technology has been introduced, such as easy international transportation, and easier ways to communicate, most significantly the internet which has connected billions of people around the world.
7. What do we mean by scale? How does it affect historical significance?
Scale is the level we are focusing on, such as local, regional, state, national etc. These affect historical significance as something that is significant in one area or one country may not have any significance elsewhere, meaning something big that happens to the people in the US, might not mean anything to people in other countries.
8. What issues arise concerning context when we make judgments about past behavior?
Even when taking context into consideration, making judgements about past behavior may not work because we are judging them against our time and morals, instead we have to find a balance between these two to properly understand why people in the past behaved a certain way.
9. Define structure.
Structure is the context and circumstances of a certain time period, where some view it as the main factor in determining history.
10. Define agency.
Agency is where individuals are the main factor in determining history,
11. How do structure and agency interact?
When structure and agency interact, the structure and all of the context and circumstances in it provide a framework for agency to work, and things being done by a combination of structure and agency, which makes all things possible.
11. Define contingency.
Contingency is saying instead of outcomes relying on a certain context or individual, it is dependent on something else. For example instead of something being done solely through an individual, it is done through that individual's decisions.
12. What are two key points to keep in mind about historical narratives?
Things do not always go in a straight line, and we can also go backwards. This means even after all the progress humans have made since the beginning of society, there are still moments when people can go backwards and do things humans haven’t done in a long time. The second key point is whose viewpoint will the story entail, meaning there are going to be certain individuals' viewpoints that will be less popular and ignored. When not all viewpoints are accounted for, we are left with an incomplete picture of history.
13. What complications arise when looking at our national heroes?
When looking at national heroes we admire their greatness and their achievements and picture them as perfect or near-perfect individuals; however, this is not the case as every human is flawed yet that doesn’t necessarily mean that these people were bad people, rather it means we must weigh out the good and the bad these people did.
This section explains the origins and spread of Native Americans, emphasizing their adaptapibility and the creation of diverse cultures, which is important in understanding the continents early history
This section is relevant because it shows the diversity and complexity of Native American Societies before Europeans contact. Understanding the early civilization is important for understanding of US History, and its foundations
This section is important because it highlights the changes in Europe before 1492 that influenced Columbus’s voyage and shaped early European interactions with the Americas. Understanding these conditions helps explain the motivations and expectations of the first European to arrive in the New World
This section is important because it explains how Columbus’s voyage initiated global human contact, leading to European dominance in the Americas and the devastating impact on Native populations due to disease and conquest. This understanding is important for understand the changes in the continent following european exploration
This section is important because it explains how the protestant Reformation changed European religious conflict in shaping European expains an migration to the Continent
This section highlights the early Spanish exploration in North America, emphasizing the challenges and limits for understanding the Spaniards early role in exploring and attempting to colonize parts of what is now the United States, despire facing significant obstacles.
Thinking Historically
“The past is with us, though we often fail to notice.”
Adam Rothman
“We do not make history; we are made by history.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Shining a light on the past helps us see ourselves more clearly.”
Unknown author
Key Question: As you read this document, think about how this class will differ from your previous history classes. What do you think will be the single biggest difference?
As we begin our exploration of American history, it’s important to think about how we think about history. That’s going to be one of the main differences between this college-level class and your previous classes. Not only will we go into more detail about the who, what, when, and how, but also the why. And more importantly we’ll take a broader look at how those events form a pattern over time, and how that pattern helps explain why things are the way they are today. We’ll study not only the events, but the way we explain and interpret those events. We’ll also look at how we form those events into a narrative—a story—that helps define who we are as Americans, and who we are as individuals.
When we study history, we have to take a different approach than we do in physical sciences (chemistry, physics…) and that can sometimes be annoying for those of us who like certainty and unambiguous conclusions. Like other social sciences, history combines hard facts and statistics—like names, dates, events—along with interpretations and suppositions (a fancy word for educated guesses). Because historians aren’t gathering data in a lab with carefully controlled environments, they often don’t have all of the information they need. After all, they often can’t talk to the participants (because they’re, well, dead), and it’s rare that they have complete and accurate accounts of events. This leaves room for different interpretations. A historian put it this way: “History is not only a collection of hard facts, but a (jumble) of soft interpretations…(that) can be disturbing because it seems to threaten the cool objectivity and calm authority of…textbooks.” The result is that the “experts” can have very different views on why things happened and their importance, as well as different ways of viewing things.
The purpose of this document is to introduce some of the themes that will help you think more deeply about history. Throughout the year, we’ll be referring back to them. They will form the basis of many, if not most, of the essays you’ll write on your tests. The whole point of the class is that, by the end of the year, you’ll not only have a deeper knowledge about the key people, ideas, and events that make up our history, but also a deeper understanding of how we think about and study history. If, after reading this document, you decide this approach to studying history isn’t for you, feel free to talk to Guidance about moving to the regular US History class. I won’t be offended! With that being said, let’s dig in!
Here are some key ideas we’ll be using in our study of US History this year:
1. A useful way to understand history is to see it in terms of change, continuity, and conflict. We’ll study the forces that bring about change, like people, ideas, and technology; the things that remain constant throughout history, either through their lasting value or because of forces that resist change; and the conflict and upheaval that result when the forces of change meet the forces fighting to keep things the same.
2. You’ll learn how to decide if something is historically significant. We’ll set up some criteria for determining if something is important and likely to be remembered decades from now, or if it will be soon forgotten.
3. A key part of studying history is examining artifacts from historical eras. That involves, among other things, reading primary documents created by the people alive at that time, documents reflecting their attitudes and the culture and events of their day. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that those documents don’t paint a complete picture. These documents, and other artifacts, are “fragmentary, flawed…as well as often one-sided” and are sometimes created by “self-interested or insensitive observers.” They won’t reflect the total picture because, for one thing, only literate people will leave behind documents, which means the perspective of huge masses of people who were illiterate are left out. As a student, you’ll probably find many of these documents challenging because they use the language of the era and you might need to read them more than once to understand them.
4. We’ll explore the question of how to approach the study of history: should the focus be on the elite—the social, political, economic, and intellectual leaders—or on the lives of common people, a “social history” approach? We’ll also look at how those approaches complement each other—how the elites are impacted by what’s going on in society, and vice-versa.
5. One mistake we tend to make not just in the study of history, but of other social sciences, is to paint with a broad brush. We often talk about the viewpoint of men, women, poor people, Black people, and “Americans” in general. The increasing emphasis on social history has helped to add “granularity”—a greater level of detail—to our perspectives, focusing on specific subsets of people rather than speaking in broad generalities. For instance, the lives of women in colonial times were much different depending on how rich or poor you were, if you lived in a city or on a farm, if you were a Black woman or a White woman, if you lived in New England or in the South, if you were married or single, educated or uneducated…; The same is true for men, or Black people or rich people or poor people. While you clearly had some things in common, like gender, race, or class, that might have had similar impacts on your life, there were also other characteristics that made your life different. The bottom line is that while it is useful to talk in generalities to emphasize commonalities, it’s also very important to remember that those generalities can mask some very important differences.
6. When viewing historical events and eras, it’s important to remember the context in which they occurred. By context we mean the political, social/cultural, economic, and global circumstances in which people are living. The context affects people’s behavior, oftentimes without them even realizing it, much like fish never realizing that they’re in water. So in order to understand that behavior, we have to understand the context in which it occurred. As one historian put it, we have to consider things “with the eyes, soul, and feeling” of the time.
One of the hard parts about that, though, is trying to set aside our own assumptions, beliefs, values and experiences in order to fully appreciate the era we’re studying. Besides just the problem of setting aside our own experiences, trying to fully understand their experiences is very difficult because so much of what was going on at that time was considered to be unremarkable so no one wrote them down. Things like lice, fleas, rats, cockroaches, being too cold or too hot, hunger, infant deaths—all of those were so ordinary that they were rarely mentioned, making our ability to put ourselves in their shoes virtually impossible. One historian put it this way: “We cannot experience what they experienced in the way they experienced it.” Historians talk about history being a mix of science and art, of logic and reason and imagination. This is a great example of how we need to use our imagination to recreate the experiences of our ancestors.
Now, let’s look at the different kinds of context we’ll explore. The political context refers to things related to the operation of the government. That includes government institutions, like Congress, the court system, the executive branch and president. It also includes people outside of the government who can influence its decisions, like voters and powerful business elites. Of course, as we’ll discuss this year, it involves elections which is how we select the political elites that have so much influence over the course of history. Finally, it includes the attitudes and opinions that influence the people and institutions that make up the political context.
The economic context is anything that affects the way people make and spend their money. It involves workers and businesses, the banking system, unemployment, inflation, the stock market, global trade, the way we make our products, including both raw materials and the process by which we turn those materials into finished goods, and a host of other things.
The social/cultural context is a little harder to define because it includes a lot of different things. Generally, it refers to people’s daily lives, relationships, attitudes, beliefs, the groups they belong to, their demographic characteristics—wealth, race, religion, where they live, education level, gender, age—and the art, literature, music, and sources of entertainment that fill up their spare time. Broadly speaking, it’s people’s way of life. As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, it’s what we often take for granted and don’t even think about. It’s just the way things are. The social context can be a major barrier to change—a structural barrier—if that change is going to disrupt people’s daily lives.
The global context refers to the events and trends around the world that impact us. These can include political, economic, military, and social/cultural items. As we’ve learned recently, it can also involve diseases. While the fact that we are separated from the rest of the world by two major oceans has made us a bit more immune to international events than, say, European or Asian countries who have several different nations on their borders, we still are impacted and have been since the nation’s founding.
A key concept when discussing the global context is transnationalism. It’s a big word for a simple idea: there are world-wide trends, ideas, diseases, cultures, and other things that aren’t contained by national borders These world-wide trends affect many countries, each of which reacts in a different way based on their unique political, economic, and social/cultural context. That means that we have to put what happens in any individual country within the broader, global context. That can help us realize that maybe what we think is unique to our country—or any country—isn’t quite so unique. It says that in some ways, we overemphasize national borders, which is particularly true in the case of the US since our borders have changed over the course of our history. One historian wrote that if social history rewrote history from the bottom up—from the viewpoint of the average person—then transnational history rewrites it from the outside in. Of course, the power of transnational influence has grown tremendously with the development of transportation and communication technology that allows for the rapid transmission of these influences.
To complicate things a bit more, it’s also necessary to see how the various contexts interact with each other. After all, we’re ultimately talking about human behavior. The things that impact one part of our life, like the way we earn our money, affects other areas of our life, like who we hang out with, what our daily schedule is like, and often what our political attitudes are. And as we’ll learn, the actions of our government can have a big impact on our economic life, and the actions the government takes can be influenced by global economic trends. A deep understanding of history requires untangling all of those influences. Needless to say—but I’ll say it anyway—that also holds true as we struggle to understand the world around us today.
A final aspect about context, and about historical perspective, is the idea of scale: what level are we focusing on? Global? National? State? Local? After all, things happen here in Lafayette that are tremendously important to our community and have a major impact on our lives. When the SIA plant opened, it created thousands of jobs, brought new people into the area, helped spark a housing boom, created new tax income for the local government, and many other things. However, the opening of the SIA plant had virtually no impact if we viewed it from a national perspective, and even less impact if viewed from a global perspective—no one in Europe cared one bit about a new car factory opening in some place in America they’d never heard of. So while the opening of SIA was a historic event for Lafayette (and to a lesser extent, the state of Indiana) and has had a major impact on a large number of Lafayette citizens over a long period of time, it hasn’t had that same impact elsewhere.
On the other hand, what happens globally, nationally, and at the state level can have a tremendous influence on us. If it weren’t for the development of a global economy, SIA would not be here. If it weren’t for the US government having good relations with Japan (and helping to rebuild them after WW II), SIA would not be here. And if the state government of Indiana hadn’t reached out to Fuji Heavy Industries (the parent company of Subaru and Isuzu—formerly the “I” in SIA) they wouldn’t have come here. So considering the idea of scale helps us to have a broader perspective and see how the different contexts interact.
Key Question: What evidence could historians use to determine what the context was like during a particular historical era? How would that change over time?
7. One of the reasons why understanding context is important is that we often look back at people and the decisions they made with today’s morals and render harsh judgements on them. For example, slavery—the idea that one human can own another and treat them as property—is so clearly and obviously immoral that we can only shake our heads at the stupidity of our ancestors. When taken in the context of the time, though, slavery was largely accepted (at least before the Revolutionary War era) and woven into the fabric of our economy, society, and political system. Given that, is it fair to judge the people of that time based on our modern values? On the other hand, is it OK to just excuse such immoral behavior by saying it was “just the way it was” back then? Does contextualizing immoral behavior, in a way, excuse the inexcusable? How do we draw a balance between not using 20/20 moral hindsight on the past while at the same time not excusing terribly immoral behavior?
8. A related point is that when we look back at events, we already know how things turned out. We can see the past. Unfortunately for historical figures, they don’t have the luxury of being able to see the future. Their perspective is based on their past, while our perspective is based on their future. A historian put it simply: “The fact—the inescapable fact—is that we know how it all came out, and they did not… We will never be able to recapture their uncertainty and recreate it in the fabric of the history we write.” In this case, we have to have enough imagination to imagine that we don’t know what we know.
9. One goal of historians is to explain why things happened the way they did. There are two main factors that historians consider. The first is structure. This refers to the political, social, economic, cultural, and global context (circumstances) of the historical era. Some historians see structure as being the main factor in determining history and discount the ability of individuals to change events. The second is contingency, and its first cousin, agency. In its simplest form, contingency is the idea that outcomes depend on something else, like the decisions of individuals, previous events, or just random stuff. These two factors can conflict. Structure often puts limitations on the ability of an individual to create change. That means there’s an ongoing struggle between the historical forces and structures that can restrict people’s choices, and the ability of people to create change in light of those limiting forces and structures. The Civil War is a good example. Was the outcome predetermined by the North’s overwhelming advantage in people, industry, money, and weapons, or could the South have won if their generals had made different decisions (or if the North’s generals had made different, and worse, decisions)? Historian Adam Rothman tweeted, “Historians often invoke contingency to imply that nothing is inevitable. Things could have gone one way or another. The concept goes hand-in-hand with agency, that all things are possible. Except that all things are not possible… (One 19th century intellectual wrote), ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please…’ The historians’ task is to explain why things happened as they did… To say that something is contingent is also to say that it depends on something else. For example, one could argue that the success of the American Revolution was contingent on aid from France… I think this latter meaning of contingency – what does the course of history depend on? – is more important for historians than the idea of contingency-as-indeterminacy…”
10. We’ll also keep in mind the larger point that leads to, which is how hard it is to say with great certainty why things happened. In other words, to determine causality. As we mentioned before, in the physical sciences, it’s relatively easy to control variables in a laboratory setting and be able to tell what is causing what. Whenever we’re dealing with the social sciences, like history, it’s much harder because there are so many factors involved and it’s impossible to clearly isolate the impact that each has. The bottom line is that it’s not always easy to say exactly what causes particular historical events or trends to happen. There are almost always multiple causes involved, and historians may disagree on what those causes are, or which ones are most important. While that can be frustrating for those of us who like clarity and unambiguous answers, it makes for interesting debates!
11. The opening paragraph mentions the idea of history as a narrative—a story with a plot that ties things together and makes them understandable. It’s a way to create some order out of the chaos of the millions of events that occur every day around the country. There are two key things to keep in mind about that. First, just like in any story, that plot line doesn’t always go in a straight line. In our thinking about history, we tend to look back at the way things used to be, compare it to what things are like today, and assume that, by definition, life gets better—progress is inevitable and is just the nature of history. It’s easy to see why we’d think that way. Largely because of advances in technology, we live longer, don’t experience as much pain, enjoy a more comfortable life style, and have the time to enjoy all of the material things we’ve accumulated. Bad things like rampant hunger, disease, violence and cruelty against those we don’t like, and violations of people’s freedom and basic rights are much rarer than they used to be.
Unfortunately, we are constantly reminded that we can also go backwards. The Holocaust is a great example of how humanity resorted to behavior that we thought was impossible for a modern society. Even after the Holocaust, other genocides have occurred that remind us that bad things still happen. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows us that just because Europe had remained peaceful for over 75 years after World War II, that doesn’t guarantee continued peace. And we’re also seeing the progress we’ve made in the spread of democracy around the world can—and is—being reversed. Nations that had thrown off the yoke of communism and dictatorship in the 1980s and 1990s, like Turkey, Poland, and Hungary, are now reverting back to undemocratic governance. Alarmingly, the US isn’t immune to that happening as demonstrated by the January 6 insurrection and false accusations of the 2020 election being “stolen.”
A second key point about history as narrative is the question of who writes that narrative. After all, whoever writes the story is going to write it from a particular viewpoint, which means that other viewpoints are going to be left out or underrepresented. One of the biggest changes in history as a profession over the past few decades is the shift away from the viewpoint of elite, white men to one that includes more diverse voices, including women, Black people, poor, rural, working-class people, Native Americans, immigrants and many more. This change has led to an emphasis on social history which we mentioned before. By including these other viewpoints, we paint a much more complete picture of our nation’s history.
12. Our history is full of heroes—men and women who have achieved great things and have helped our nation achieve great things. Names like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. While it’s unquestionably true that these were great people who deserve the attention and accolades they receive, it’s equally true that they were all flawed individuals. Like all of us, they are imperfect. Their characters are imperfect, and they are all the products of the time in which they lived. The question that arises for us as we study history is how to balance those two aspects of their lives. For example, Washington and Jefferson were slave holders, and Jefferson fathered several children with one of his slaves. So how are we to judge them? Does the fact that they participated in the unquestionably evil institution of slavery mean that we shouldn’t consider them heroes? Is it appropriate to have monuments and name cities after them? As our values as a nation evolve over time, so do our evaluations of history and historical figures. There are no easy answers. The one thing historians agree on, though, is that no one is perfect. The tough part is weighing the imperfections against their accomplishments.
As you’ve probably figured out by now, history is pretty complicated! A lot has happened throughout time, and the job of piecing those events together in a coherent story is really hard. Things that seemed pretty simple and straightforward when you learned about them earlier in school probably have a lot more layers of detail and complexity than you were aware of. To complicate things, even historians are constantly learning new things as they re-examine events based on new evidence, or even looking at the same evidence from a new perspective, like that of women, Native Americans, Black people, poor people, rural people, immigrants…; As one student of history—actually, me—once wrote:
“The study of history is not static or merely an ever-more detailed recitation of events, people, and dates. Rather, it is a process that constantly provides new approaches and perspectives about old topics. It is an endless debate that both furthers our understanding of the past and complicates it, painting in shades of gray rather than black and white. It contextualizes people and events by peering through local, regional, national and international lenses and examines the political, social, cultural, and economic structures that constrain individual actions.”
Throughout the year, we’ll try to reveal the complicated nature of our nation’s history to give you not only an accurate picture of where we’ve been, but a way to think about where we are now and where we’re going. And along the way, hopefully you’ll learn more about yourself and how you fit into the ongoing story of America.
There’s one final idea that’s important as we embark on our study of history, a two-part idea that might sound a bit contradictory. The first part is the firm belief that America is the greatest country in the world and the greatest country that has ever existed. It’s been a beacon of freedom and hope for people around the world, which is why we have an immigration “problem.” People come here because they see us as a land of freedom and opportunity. Within that larger context, though, it’s also important to keep in mind our imperfections as a nation. The Founders embedded in the Preamble to the Constitution the idea that we are a work in progress when they wrote, “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” We’re good, but not perfect. They also point out what that they think that “perfect” union looks like when they then mentioned the need to “establish justice” and “promote the general welfare,” thereby creating a vision that puts justice and the common good at the center of our identity as a country. Doing this requires us to also see where our flaws are as a country and not turn a blind eye to the inevitable shortcomings that any society contains. In our case, much of that centers on issues of race, gender, and class, so we’ll spend time looking at those areas, not only to expose where we’ve fallen short as a nation, but also to help us to see the tremendous progress we’ve made, as well as to illuminate further steps we need to take in order to continue our quest to form that more perfect union.
Quotes in this document come from Bernard Bailyn’s Context in History and James Axtell’s History as Imagination.
Understanding History: This course will differ from previous history classes by focusing not only on events but also on the interpretations and narratives that shape our understanding of history.
Change, Continuity, and Conflict: History can be understood through the lenses of change, what remains constant, and the conflicts that arise from these dynamics.
Historical Significance: Students will learn to assess the importance of events and figures in history, determining what is likely to be remembered.
Artifacts and Primary Sources: The study of history involves examining primary documents, which provide insights but may also be incomplete or biased.
Social vs. Elite History: The course will explore both elite perspectives and the experiences of common people, emphasizing the importance of diverse viewpoints.
Contextual Understanding: Historical events must be understood within their political, economic, social, and global contexts, which influence behavior and decisions.
Moral Judgments: Understanding historical context is crucial to avoid imposing modern moral standards on past actions, such as slavery.
Contingency and Agency: Historians consider how individual choices and broader structures influence historical outcomes, recognizing that events could have unfolded differently.
Causality in History: Determining the causes of historical events is complex due to the interplay of multiple factors.
Narrative Construction: History is often presented as a narrative, shaped by those who write it, which can lead to the omission of certain perspectives.
Flawed Heroes: Historical figures are often celebrated for their achievements but must also be viewed in light of their imperfections.
Ongoing Debate: The study of history is dynamic, constantly evolving with new evidence and perspectives, emphasizing the complexity of historical understanding.
The course aims to provide a nuanced understanding of American history, encouraging students to reflect on their own identities within this narrative. It acknowledges America's strengths and imperfections, promoting a vision of continuous improvement toward a more perfect union.
Food for Thought
The past is with us, though we often fail to notice
We do not make history; we are made by history.
Shining a light on the past helps us see ourselves more clearly
Why Study History
To understand the present
How did we get here?
“The past causes the present, which causes the future’
George Floyd protests, Summer 2020
Slavery-Reconstructoin
Segregation-civil rights movement
Obama-Trump
To learn from our mistakes
Easier said than done
We can repeat mistakes because of underlying causes, human weaknesses
Persecute Germans WW I, Japanese WWII, Muslims 9/11
No two situations are exactly alike
To better understand human behavior
History is a giant database
“The laboratory of human experience’
We don’t have to experience it ourselves
Become better citizens
understand culture and values of US
Who we are and what we believe in
Privileges and obligations as citizens
Learn about ourselves as individuals
How has the past shaped us?
What events shaped parents, grandparents, great-grandparents?
Beliefs, values learned from experience passed down through generations
Impact of global, national, local events
scale
Local events affect Lafayette, not necessarily US, world
SIA opens
Tippecanoe Mall opens
Scales interact: national global events affect Lafayette
