Comprehensive Study Notes: Foundations of Modern America
Course Introduction: History 120, Foundations of Modern America
Dr. Jonathan Atkins introduces History 120, Section A, as a one-semester overview of the United States. While most students have taken a two-semester sequence of American history in high school, this course aims to go deeper into specific themes and provide a more scholarly "bird's eye view" in half the time. The course is a Foundations program requirement for graduation across all fields of study.
Dr. Atkins defines history not as a simple memorization of names, dates, and Jeopardy-style facts, but as the study of human experience. He uses metaphors of sports (basketball is about scoring and strategy, not just the ball) and music (melody and harmony, not just notes) to explain that facts are merely the tools for historical interpretation. A historical question is defined as something that can be addressed via evidence left behind (e.g., "What did 21st-century students think was the meaning of life?" vs. the philosophical question "What is the meaning of life?"). This interpretive approach helps reveal human possibilities, limitations, and interactions.
The course is primarily lecture-based. Dr. Atkins emphasizes two critical 21st-century skills: active listening and effective note-taking. He criticizes politicians and journalists for poor listening and encourages students to discern significant points from supportive details. He provides PowerPoint outlines on Canvas intended for students to "flesh out" during lectures. He explicitly states he does not include every detail on the slides because that would render the lecture redundant.
Course Resources and Assignments
The required textbook is America: A Narrative History ( edition, Volume 2). Dr. Atkins assigns only Volume 2 because the bulk of the course focuses on the period after 1865. To cover early history without forcing students to buy two volumes, he uploads selected chapters from Volume 1 to Canvas. He advises students to read for understanding to "frame" their minds for lecture rather than for rote memorization. He uses his own past failure—highlighting every word until a page and a half took 45 minutes—as a warning against over-studying at the expense of comprehension.
Dr. Atkins promotes "inductive reading," which involves looking at the big-picture outline provided by the publisher (headings, bold text) first and then filling in the specifics. The syllabus contains bureaucratic information for state regulators but also essential student policies. Attendance is mandatory; more than six absences result in a zero for participation. Engagement is defined as being physically and mentally present; sleeping in class counts as being absent. AI is strictly banned for all assignments as an academic integrity violation, with the professor arguing that students must develop foundational communication skills before they can discern if AI is misleading them.
Primary sources are defined as materials left by people from the period being studied, such as journals, laws, or letters. Secondary sources are historians' later interpretations of those primary documents. The course requires two document assignments (answering specific analytical questions about a source, including author intent and audience) and four document reactions (opinion-based responses demonstrating understanding). For assignments, students must utilize and cite at least two outside sources in any standard bibliographic format (MLA, APA, or Chicago).
The Colonial Foundations of North America
The origins of the United States began with English colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Portugal was the first European nation to reach other continents, but Spain famously reached the Western Hemisphere in 1492 under Christopher Columbus. Dr. Atkins corrects the flat-earth myth, noting that seagoing peoples knew the earth was round because of the curvature of ship masts on the horizon. Columbus estimated the earth's circumference at miles, while the Portuguese correctly estimated it at miles, hence their refusal to fund a trip they thought was too long for survival.
Spain established a vast empire within 50 years of contact, fueled by gold and silver mining. This "Golden Age of Spain" relied on the forced labor of Native Americans and later enslaved Africans. In contrast, the first permanent English settlement, Jamestown, was not established until 1607 ( years after Columbus). By the time England entered the colonization game, Spain already had an established, wealthy bureaucratic empire.
France also established colonies around the time of the English. The French focus was primarily on the fur trade (beaver and otter) along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes. This led to a strategy of "accommodation" with Native Americans to ensure steady trade. Unlike the English, the French did not establish large, settled populations that displaced native peoples.
The Economic Theory of Mercantilism
While popular myths suggest colonies were founded for freedom, Dr. Atkins argues the primary motivation was the English economy. Mercantilism, a term later coined by Adam Smith to criticize the system, was a set of assumptions involving heavy government intervention to ensure a country sold more than it bought. This is known as a "favorable balance of trade."
In this era, wealth was defined as finite amounts of gold and silver. A nation's power was directly proportional to its accumulation of these metals. Mercantilists viewed trade with other nations as a zero-sum game: buying from others weakened the nation by draining gold, while selling strengthened it. Colonies served this system by providing raw materials that the "mother country" would otherwise have to buy from foreign rivals. England initially hoped North America (being on the same latitude as the Mediterranean) would provide silk, grapes, and citrus, though these hopes proved unrealistic.
To enforce mercantilism, Parliament passed laws requiring all colonial products to be shipped only to England on English ships. This created a closed market that enriched English merchants and the crown at the expense of colonial self-interest. While the Spanish crown maintained absolute control over every action in its colonies, the English crown allowed for private companies and individuals to fund colonies, leading to a degree of internal self-governance that grew unnoticed by London.
Regionalism in the Thirteen Colonies
By the early 18th century, the English colonies were categorized into four distinct regions, each with unique economic and social characteristics.
The Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland) was defined by the production of tobacco. Despite King James I's intense hatred of the "noxious weed," tobacco became the region's money-maker. Because it was labor-intensive, the Chesapeake developed a plantation system initially using indentured servants and eventually enslaved labor. The English crown placed a two-cent-per-pound tax on tobacco shipments to England and another two cents on re-exports to Europe. By 1700, tobacco taxes accounted for of the King's revenue.
The Lower South (South Carolina and Georgia) produced rice, as cotton did not become a major crop until after the Revolution. Rice cultivation required massive capital, swampy land, and complex irrigation systems. Because rice spoiled quickly, the British allowed direct shipment to the Mediterranean—a rare exception to mercantilist rules. This made rice planters the wealthiest individuals in the colonies. They often lived in urban centers like Charleston and sent their children to England for education.
The Middle Atlantic (Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey) was characterized by rich, "fecund" soil suitable for small-scale commercial farming of wheat, corn, and livestock. Known as the "best poor man's country," this region produced massive food surpluses. While England did not need these food crops, the Middle Atlantic farmers sold their produce to the British West Indies to feed the enslaved populations on sugar plantations. This facilitated the growth of major marketing and shipbuilding hubs in Philadelphia and New York.
New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire) was founded with a religious mission by Puritans, who called themselves "the saints." They sought to create a "godly commonwealth" as a model for England. Economically, New England struggled with rocky soil and short growing seasons, making it the poorest region until the 19th century. To survive, New Englanders turned to the sea for fishing and merchant ventures. They famously traded fish with Catholic Mediterranean populations despite their staunch anti-Catholicism. After the initial migration of people between 1630 and 1642, migration nearly stopped; the population grew to by 1776 through natural increase alone.
Interactions with Native Populations
Dr. Atkins highlights three different European approaches to Native Americans. The Spanish practiced conquest, subjugating populations and creating a blended society of European, African, and Native ancestries (Mestizo, Mulatto, Creole). Because Spanish women were largely prohibited from migrating unless married, the population became ethnically integrated, and race, while recognized, was less socially divisive than in the English colonies.
The French practiced accommodation, establishing trading posts rather than large settlements, maintaining good relations with tribes like the Huron to sustain the fur trade. The English practiced displacement. Viewing colonies as places for large-scale European settlement and agriculture, the English pushed Native populations back. This led to persistent warfare and devastating disease outbreaks (flu, respiratory infections) among tribes with no prior immunity. Unlike Latin America, the English colonies maintained rigid racial boundaries (White, Red, Black) that discouraged blending and created a binary social status.
The Peopling of North America: Migration and Population Growth
The English colonies experienced the fastest-growing population in history. From roughly survivors in Jamestown, the population reached million by 1776. This growth was driven by "natural increase" (births outnumbering deaths), suggesting that despite the lack of modern medicine, conditions were better than in overcrowded Europe. Significant immigration also played a role through indentured servitude, where individuals traded 4-7 years of labor for passage across the Atlantic.
Most pre-1700 migrants () came from England. After 1700, English migration slowed to , making the English a plurality but not a majority by the time of the Revolution. The two largest voluntary migrant groups after 1715 were the Scots-Irish () and the Germans (). Many migrated through Philadelphia and settled in the western backcountry. These early European migrants formed the "old stock" population, which became the culturally and politically dominant group in the 19th century.
The Institution of Chattel Slavery
The largest migratory group was enslaved Africans—approximately people by 1776 (roughly of the million total brought to the Western Hemisphere). Dr. Atkins places slavery in a global context, noting it was universally accepted for thousands of years as a consequence of war or debt. In the American colonies, however, it took the form of "chattel slavery," where people were legal property.
Slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies during the colonial era but varied by region. In the South, tobacco and rice were "labor-intensive" crops requiring daily attention, making enslaved labor economically central and creating "slave societies." In the North, slavery was practiced in "societies with slaves," where enslaved people worked primarily as domestic servants for the elite or as assistants to artisans. Northern economies did not depend on slavery for survival.
In America, slavery became hereditary and strictly associated with race. Laws stated that a child's status followed the mother (partly to ensure children fathered by white owners remained enslaved). Unlike Latin American colonies, where the King or the Catholic Church provided a buffer against owners, English colonists had absolute control. However, uniquely in the English colonies, the enslaved population grew naturally through live births, indicating slightly better material survival conditions than the brutal death rates on Caribbean sugar plantations.
The American Revolution: Authority and Radicalism
The Revolution was not triggered by "oppression" in the modern sense but by a dispute over authority. For over a century, the colonies practiced self-governance through local assemblies, while London focused on regulating trade. After the costly Seven Years' War, Parliament tried to tax the colonies to fund a new frontier army. The colonists didn't object to the amount (which was low) but to the principle. They argued that only their assemblies—to which of white men could vote—had the authority to tax them.
To gain popular support, the colonial elite argued that Parliament was violating the "Rights of Englishmen": jury trials, habeas corpus (not being jailed without a charge), and no taxation without representation. This rhetoric escalated into a full-scale movement for independence. Dr. Atkins argues that Britain "lost" the colonies rather than Americans "winning" a military victory. After the Battle of Saratoga (1777), France joined the war, turning it into a global conflict. Britain eventually prioritized its wealthier colonies like Jamaica and India, cutting its losses in North America in the Treaty of Paris (1783).
The Revolution was radical because it replaced monarchy and hereditary hierarchy with a "Republican Experiment." In 1776, the idea that people could govern themselves and that individual rights were the purpose of society was considered absurd and dangerous. The Founders sought to prove that a republic could survive without collapsing into anarchy or dictatorship. This created a sense of American exceptionalism and mission—the belief that the U.S. was a model of liberty for the rest of the world.
The New Nation and Federalism
The original government under the Articles of Confederation was a loose alliance of thirteen independent countries. It was weak, with no executive branch and no power to tax. Realizing the young nation might collapse, the Founders drafted the Constitution in 1787, creating a federal system. This system divided power between the state governments (responsible for "police power": health, safety, and morals) and the central federal government (responsible for national defense, foreign treaties, and interstate trade).
State loyalty remained dominant until the Civil War. Prior to 1865, it was grammatically correct to say "The United States are…" rather than "is." Only after the Civil War did a unified sense of national identity take precedence over state identity. The Electoral College remains a relic of this state-focused era, ensuring states still play a central role in electing the president.
Nationalism and the Expansion of the Early 19th Century
A surge of nationalism followed the War of 1812. Though the war was technically a draw, the American victory at New Orleans (1815) created a myth of American military superiority over the British. This pride was captured in Francis Scott Key's "Star-Spangled Banner," which celebrated the citizen-soldier over professional European "mercenaries and slaves."
A "Transportation and Communication Revolution" further tied the nation together. The Erie Canal (completed 1825) turned New York City into the nation's premier port. State governments and private companies built roads, steamboats, and eventually railroads ( miles by 1860). The telegraph (1844) and a network of newspaper "exchanges" created a shared national culture, breaking down the isolation of "island communities."
Geographic expansion was justified by National Defense, Manifest Destiny (the belief in a God-given right to spread republican institutions), and the need for land for the national ideal: the independent farmer. Major acquisitions included:
Louisiana Purchase (1803): Doubled the nation's size.
Florida (1819): Ceded by Spain.
Texas Annexation (1845): Led to conflict over slavery.
Oregon Territory (1846): Divided with Britain at the parallel.
Mexican Cession (1848): Acquired California and the Southwest after a provoked war.
The Sectional Divergence: North vs. South
While the North and West developed integrated, commercial economies, the South remained what historians call a "colonial economy." In the North, the Tariff of 1816 protected growing manufacturing workshops. In the West, commercial farmers produced food for the international market. Large cities like Chicago and Cincinnati ("Porkopolis") emerged as processing centers.
In the South, Eli Whitney's cotton gin (1793) made cotton the nation's number one export. Cotton production exploded in the "Black Belt," reviving the institution of slavery. By the 1840s, Southerners began defending slavery as a "positive good" based on pseudoscience (ethnography) and religious arguments. In reality, the South experienced "growth without development." Wealth flowed only to the top of white families who owned slaves (and the who were large planters). Most southern whites were semi-subsistence farmers with little stake in the global cotton market. While the North became economically self-sufficient, the South became increasingly dependent on northern merchants and British manufacturing, setting the stage for the Civil War.